Oh Baby Say Miatago

– by Barbara Beach, Miata Club of America Promotions

Some may think the classic tune “Louie Louie” sang by the Kingsmen says “We Gotta Go”, but die hard enthusiasts believe differently. There’s just something about owning a Miata that makes us personalize almost everything. Some of us start small with just one Miata and a few accessories, while others become real collectors like a member who sports a stable of 28 Miatas. (Yes, they are real ones not models.) It used to be that Palomino horses with silver manes and tails would lead parades, but not any more. Today Miatas are called upon to lead the band. My how times have changed!

As the leaves of autumn turn colors, all the colors of the Miata turn up in football stadiums across the country, most with lovely homecoming kings and queens draped across their boots. When our local high school called and asked the club to provide the parade cars for the fifth consecutive year, I asked them why they hadn’t picked the new BMW Z-3 or one of the other new faces on the road. Their response was unexpected. They said “the Z-3 was just a fad, and the Miata was forever”.

This same spirit was experienced at the 96′ Classic Car Races in Monterey this year. While our person count exceeded last year’s event in total attendance, our car count was down. This mystery was baffling and would require some additional investigation. I first reasoned that unless a lot of people added a 2+2 or a rumble seat to their Miata, something was off. The problem was resolved when one of the enthusiasts explained that 1996 was the year of the BMW, and this year’s marque. This meant that any one that owned a “Beemer” would be lucky enough to take touring laps around the track. Any sports car enthusiast knows the excitement of driving Laguna Seca. For many Miata enthusiasts that also owned “the other car”, it meant some pretty exciting laps. However, the excitement ended there, expect them for lunch in the Miata tent — where the real fun was. Although they could have dined with their “other car club”, they much preferred to hang out with the fun people.

This family spirit replays itself over and over as Miata owners gather for National conventions. More like a reunion than a rally, people compare there latest accessories in the same manner that new parents show off their baby pictures. In fact, the Miata has become the baby for many owners. Many of us joyfully claim to be spending their children’s inheritance in the form of top down driving fun. Travel down any winding sports car road and catch a glimpse of the back of a Miata, (very few have license plates on the front) and you’ll see plates conveying such familiar messages as “No Kids”, “Kid Free”, “Fun 4 2”, “Fun Toy”. Other messages such as “MGB Not”, “Hada MGB”, “Jag Lite” proclaim their loyalty. Other plates such as “WTE Bird”, “Am I Blu”, and “Cra Z Red” fly the Miata Colors. We even know of one Miata owned by an aftermarket company known as “Lab Rat”. A recent M edition owner proclaimed pride in his car with a plate reading “Empower”.

Miata fans have a few of their favorite touring tunes, also. Favorite rally songs include, “She Drives Me Crazy, “A Long and Winding Road”, “Six Days On The Road”. As a group and indi­vidually we seem to create wonderful themes for our car’s. The truly amazing thing about our babies are that each is like a blank canvas, each is like a new child. It’s up to each of us to determine how that baby will grow and what it will look like. Some may grow-up to be muscle cars such as Rocky’s Mega-Monster, while others will develop into petite and feminine flowers, such as Bonnie’s Trixie. While each car appears to look the same to the untrained non-owner, those that have one, know our cars are as different as each of us. And as we love our children, we love our cars. Until next time, this is Miata Barb saying so long Miatago.

The Perfect Man-ual

– by Barbara Beach

I used to say that I would never date a guy who drove an automatic. Ha. Like I could be so choosy. What I really meant was that if I could date the perfect guy, among more important qualities like com-passion, honesty and a sense of humor, he would drive a stick.

Okay, maybe those other things aren’t more important; I just didn’t want to admit how shallow I am.

Recently, I read a story in the Washington Post with the headline, “As Drivers Age, An Automatic Shift.” The article, citing Ward’s Automotive Yearbook, reported that manual transmission sales have shrunk from 28.6 percent in 1960 (the year I was born), to 11.8 in 1995.¹ In this article a 31-year-old woman is quoted as saying she wouldn’t date a man who drives an automatic, that these men tend to be boring. Ah, let’s hear it for sisterhood. A fellow traveler. Or at least a fellow passenger.

This statistic of shrinking manual transmission drivers depressed me on many levels. Not least among them was the fact that the demographic pool from which my dream man might spring was drying up at an alarming rate. It also reminded me of another statistic, one universally detested by single women. If you’re a woman, you know the one: it was reported in one of the news magazines a few years ago that a woman’s chances at age forty of getting married were about the same as her chances of get-ting killed by a terrorist. At the time, I, in my usual self- referential way, came up with my own statistic tailored to my own life—my chances at forty of marrying a man who currently was driving a manual transmission were about as great as being killed by a terrorist who drove a manual transmission.

Forgive my digression. The point of this column is to wonder aloud where all the purists have gone. Anyone who has ever driven a stick knows the pure joy, the oneness a driver feels with her engine. Perhaps it is just ignorance, perhaps many of the 88.2 percent who reportedly nowadays drive automatics don’t know what they’re missing. Is that possible? Are people learning to drive without even being exposed to the choice? How tragic.

I have my brother David to thank for being given that choice when I was still young and my mind was still malleable. Although at the time, I didn’t thank him. I learned to drive a manual exactly half my lifetime ago, when I was a freshman in college. My big brother, car nut and law student, was also living in California, and volunteered to teach me how to drive the used Toyota Celica I had just purchased. He generously gave up an afternoon at the library, perhaps not anticipating what a huge sacrifice he was making at the time. If he weren’t my brother surely he would have sued me for the case of whiplash he could have convincingly claimed after an hour of being violently jerked about while I tried to get the hang of depressing the clutch and shifting the lever simultaneously. I shouldn’t have been surprised by my lack of coordination; I had never been one of the lucky ones in the schoolyard able to pat my stomach and rub my head. Nearing the end of his patience, David took me to the steepest hill he could find, stopped midway, turned off the engine and ordered me into the driver’s seat. Terror washed over me as inch by inch we slipped toward the bottom, my own private version of Space Mountain in reverse. Then, in what was to be the only time in our siblinghood that I can recall, my brother socked me in the arm. I burst into tears as I watched him descend the hill on foot, and I swear I could see steam streaming out of his ears like one of those Saturday morning cartoon characters. I couldn’t believe that he had actually left me stranded there, leaning against the bumper, crying like the useless girl I had proven myself to be. But when ten, then twenty minutes passed by and he failed to return, I admitted he wasn’t coming back. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t stay there indefinitely, but I couldn’t face the driver’s seat alone. I would like to tell you that I dried my eyes, mustered up my courage, got back in the car and conquered the hill. Not even close.

Maybe if I were Sandra Bullock, or Jessica Lange, or even Meg Ryan, and this were a silly romantic comedy, that’s how this scene would have played out. But I’m not like any of those fabulous, feisty dames and my life is no romantic comedy. The part of this story that is like a romantic comedy, is what happened next. A really cute guy, a senior no less, came along and bailed me out, driving me back to my dorm and then offering to pick up where my brother had left off, helping me master the subtleties of operating a manual transmission. And he showed me how you could use the emergency brake as a sort of net, until you got your confidence up. But because my life is not like the aforementioned romantic comedy, the really cute guy fell in love with my really cute roommate.

As they say, reality bites.

My brother and I, however, made up, and still maintain a close relationship (meaning he even lets me drive his Porsche once in awhile). And I can start a manual transmission on any hill, and don’t even need to employ the emergency brake trick.

The Washington Post article cites “changing demographics— fewer carefree youth and more responsibility-laden adults…” Oh please, I’m hardly carefree and I have my share of responsibilities. I can understand that people with kids need a bigger car, and most big cars and vans have automatic transmissions. But certainly there are more than 11.8 percent of the population whose lifestyles could include a manual transmission. We need a new survey for these guys.

Copyright 1996, Miata Magazine. Reprinted without permission.
 

This is a bit of fiction from the Spring 1996 Miata Club of America Magazine and is technically copyrighted, which I always ignore (its not like I’m making any money here.) But I at least try to credit the author. I can’t do that this time because for some reason there isn’t an author listed for this story. Remind me later to write about what happened when I went searching for the author of Winter ’95 article

The Meter Man

I’m the meter man.

New York City. Lexington from 86th to 89th. Seventy-two spaces. Sixty-eight meters. Four loading zones. Daylight hours I walk the beat. Keep ’em moving. Keep this big city on its toes on my three blocks. I’m the meter man.

Mostly it’s imports. A few old domestics. Used to be only 52 spaces, then the cars got smaller. City came in and restriped my blocks. More cars, more meters. More infractions. More tickets to write. That’s good for me. I’m the meter man.

Some folks abuse the system. The system never likes to be abused. I’ll give you one renewal. Maybe two. Try to take up a spot all morning and I’ll zero your meter the minute you walk off. Citation goes under the wiper. Always the passenger side. Face down. Per the code. Meter man code. Gotta keep things moving.

I get some arguments. Some threats. I just boot ’em if they get noisy. Big nasty orange boot I keep in the Cushman. Locks the tire down so nobody goes nowhere unless I say so. I love putting that boot on and walking away, a Joe or Jane screaming at the top of their lungs. Where they gonna go? I booted ’em. I’m the meter man.

I make my morning rounds by eight, chalking tires and resetting empties. Not that slots stay empty on my blocks. A regular stretch of commerce I got here. A big bank. A yuppie coffee shop. A few grocery stores. A subway station at 86th. Not my jurisdiction. I’m strictly top ground.

My home base sits opposite the bank. It’s a booth in the Gold Arm Restaurant. Good java. Black and hot. Don’t know what country the beans come from. Don’t care. Just make it bottomless and hot. Two cups per hour – that’s my limit. Can’t get jittery, start given tickets at whim. You’ll loose the respect of your constituency. When that happens, the system crashes.

They know me. I know them. The same people come here each day. Usually go for the same spots. Sort of like they all agreed to come at the same time and take the same spots each day. I went to the ballet once. My blocks are kinda like that somedays. Everything fits. The system works.

‘Bout a year ago something new came up. A white import job, one of those Miatas came on the block. Started hanging around. Would move from spot to spot, stay around all morning and then leave. Strange thing was, the meters were paid, but the Jane sometimes wouldn’t leave the car. Just sat watching the meter go down. After a few hours, she would leave. Always paid in time, always parked straight. Fit right into the system, sort of.

I like those Miatas. Me and the wife would love to get one. It’d take a lot of nickels to get close. This one was nice. A ’95 white on tan leather. CD player. Stock wheels. Factory Dunlops (you get to notice treads in my line of work). Maybe when I retire they’ll give me one of those. Right, ha, and the Mayor will come for dinner. Ha! That’s a good one! Gotta tell Betty that one. Ha!

This Miata keeps on showing up. Takes slots near the bank. Jane goes in, stays, then comes out. This goes on for two weeks. I’m getting to get suspicious. I think this Jane is trying to get some free time. I notice that each time the meter goes down, she don’t come out right on time. She’s getting sloppy, taking longer to renew. I’m giving her the three times up, but she’s abusing the grace period.

The grace period is my contribution to the system. I’ll give you four minutes to renew after the meter goes down. I’m not a mean guy, I know people are busy. Four minutes for free. That’s my oil in the system, keeps the street running, the regulars happy. But Jane with the Miata is scarfing a buffer she ain’t earned. Four minutes she asked for right away. Then it was five. I don’t know what she’s doing in that bank, but she stays for three cycles every morning. Each cycle she takes the five minute buffer. She’s stealing time on my beat.

One day a plan comes to me. I’m sitting in the Gold Arm having my second cup o’joe and it appears clear as day. I can take that Miata away from her. I can boot it and get it impounded for twenty-four hours. That’ll show ’em all. A pure white sacrifice to the system. I begin to lay my plan for that Miata.

I get my boot device out of the Cushman and start carrying it around with me. I’m going to surprise little miss Miata with a ticket today. Gonna hit her on the first cycle. If she abuses my slot again, I’ll boot ‘er fast as daylight.

It comes up like clockwork. She takes a slot right in front of the bank. Goes in. Cycle passes, she comes out five minutes late for renewal. I’ve already ticketed her. She sees the ticket and renews her meter. Doesn’t even look at the ticket. That’s some kinda moxy. Alright little lady, if it’s attitude you want, it’s attitude you’ll get.

I ticket her again during her second cycle. Gotta have two separate ticketing events before the boot comes out. That’s code. Gotta go by the book if we want the impound. Others will be involved if the car leaves my street, gotta have an iron clad case on this one.

Third cycle, she exits the bank before the meter’s flag drops. She’s gone. Missed her today, but got my two tickets down. Now I can boot ‘er. I got my NYC Official Paper Trail. She’s all mine. Nobody beats the system on my block.

Next day, she shows up per usual. Circles the grid a few times looking for a bank-up spot. They’re tough to get. Fifth time around she sees an opening coming out. Double parks, flashers on, waiting for the owner to pull out. I pace across the street. I stop and stare at her double parked there. She looks over. I duck behind a tree. Don’t want to tip her off that she’s being watched. Not today. She hustles into her spot. You’re mine today, little girl…

She goes in the bank after filling her meter. I go to my booth and order a jolt. Forty-five minutes from now. Forty-five minutes to showdown time. I got my orange boot in the Cushman right outside. The system is going to win today.

Forty-four minutes and she’s still inside. I’ve broken my rule and I’m on my seventh cup of joe. My hand shakes as I pour in the sugar. The spoon against the cup sounds like a bell. “For whom the bell tolls,” I say to myself. I let go a laugh. A nervous caffeine jacked-up laugh. Gotta get serious. Almost show time.

Forty-five minutes. Done. Now the grace clock starts. Four minutes to go. No fiver today, pretty miss. The system is hungry today. Countdown to boot-time.

Two minutes into grace. The waitress brings me cup number nine. I submarine it. Never take my eyes of the white Miata. Time to go. I drop a ten spot on the table. Lucky waitress. Maybe lucky me. Not so lucky for Jane today.

I walk out to the Cushman. The orange boot is kept in a special holder in the back. I grab it out and hold it in my right had Check my watch on my left wrist. I rolled up my sleeve so I can see it clearly. Three minutes, thirty seconds. I begin strolling across the street. Traffic stops for me. The system is gathering a head of steam. I’m the coal tender.

I reach the Miata. Check the watch. Four. Three. Two. One. I look up to the flag on the meter. It reads “VIOLATION”. Man, I love the system.

I kneel down and boot the driver’s side front wheel. My hands fumble, numb from the caffeine. My breathing is shallow. My heart is racing. The cars passing in the street roar against my ears.

I get the lock set. I stand up and kick the boot hard with my left foot. It stays. It’s on. I cross back over to my unit. Glancing back, I see the orange boot like some bear trap on the Miata. Mine, all mine. I radio from my unit to HQ. Call in a pickup for 37th. Flatbed unit – can’t damage such a car.

I go back to my booth and order two cups of java. New pot. Slice of pie a la mode. Today I am king. I wait for the tow team.

I watch the bank’s front door for a sign of Jane. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when she sees it. A head on collision with the system. Me at the wheel.

Ten minutes later she comes out. Something’s strange. She’s running. Jane’s wearing sunglasses and a hat. Some guy is with her. They are both running. Jane circles around the car. She’s carrying a large duffle bag in one hand, it swings wide as she comes around the rear bumper. Must be full of something. Instinctively, I stand up and go out to the curb. I hear a bell ringing loudly.

The guy with Jane has already gotten in the car. Jane is opening up the driver’s door and sees it. From across the street I can see the blood drain from her face. She yells something. Two uniforms come charging out of the bank. Guns drawn overhead. Lots of screaming. Jane and friend run from the Miata in my direction. Uniforms yell to me to stop them.

Not my jurisdiction. I don’t carry a gun. I’m the meter man Different system.

Jane and friend run past. My uniform is invisible to them. I take my chalking stick and trip Jane. Guy gets away. Uniforms cross over and cuff Jane. Duffle bag is full of dough. A precinct unit arrives. Takes her away. The block settles down. I go back to my booth. Big headache.

I glance across the street and see it. The Miata is still there. Key in the ignition. Boot on the wheel. A bigger plan emerges. A much bigger plan.

The flatbed arrives and I unboot the Miata for loading. Anthony is the driver. His father is a friend. I tell him which impound lot to take it to on the south side. Covered lot. Safe lot. Hidden lot. We call it the Queens triangle. Cars seem to get lost in there. Often.

Sixty days later I call for the auction date on case #95QB376-GB. It is the 5th of June. Today is the 4th. I make another call.

It’s midnight at the precinct on the 4th. The chief comes out with the paperwork for the auction. It is normally scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on the sale date. Legally, it can be rescheduled to fit the chief’s workload. The chief is not busy at one minute after midnight on the 5th. We schedule the auction for then. Chiefs a friend of mine. And of the system.

“Pertaining to case #95QB376-GB for the City of New York,” the chief says loudly to all in the waiting room where I am seated. Me and two drunks look up. “Said case has fines held against it totaling $125 for parking violations and $85 for towing.” I pull out a roll of bills from my left pocket. Pulled it out of my pension account that morning. “I now open the bidding at $210,” the chief starts. “Do I hear $210”.

I stand, hands shaking. “$250,” I call out. The system likes a fair player. “Sold,” the chief says. Betty will be so proud.

————-

We pull into Niagara Falls on a beautiful day. Betty looks great. My arms are sunburnt. The top is down. We drove all day to get here. Took back roads. Nice car.

I park along a red curb. We get out to go to the falls. I pull a blank parking ticket from my breast pocket. I fold it in half. Put it under my driver’s side wiper. Betty smiles. Professional Courtesy will keep our Miata safe. One of the advantages to being me. I’m the meter man.

If you have read my story of buying my first Miata, Brian Buys A Miata, (and if you haven’t, go read it now, I’ll wait) in the second paragraph in it I mention 3 cars that I was considering buying before discovering the Miata. Now, pay attention when you get to the paragraph in here where the author says “flying solo into the then-empty affordable sports car market” because 3 of the 4 cars he mentions were the ones I also considered back in 1989.

Good Bones

By Norman Garrett III
Founder Miata Club of America
Concept Engineer Miata Project

I have a glass vial on my desk that contains a small, round clump of some brown substance. It never ceases to be a conversation starter when anyone visits my office. No, it is not the pathology lab’s yield from some recent operation. It is a clump of modeling clay used on the final Miata clay styling model. I keep it as a reminder how fluid the Miata’s shape was for three years, and how difficult it is to know when a car is “right.”

I used to love to hang out with the modelers and designers. As an engineer, they tolerated my presence because I would pour their coffee. Watching the clay take shape into a car was fascinat­ing. What looked like a perfectly good fender to me would be labeled “defec­tive” and “obnoxious” by the committee of designers. I observed closely as the slightest radius or intersection would be worried over for days until it was right.

How the light played and reflected on the surface, how it moved from door to fender to hood, all of this was critical to the designer’s goal. Did the fender look too muscular? Did the hood distract or add to the view from the driver’s seat? Did the trunk lid surface transition well into the rear quarter panels? All of these details were sweated and fretted as the designers critically looked on. I stood there like a color-blind man staring at a traffic light. I couldn’t see a tenth of what they were so worried about.

This type of surface development takes two main ingredients: Talent (which Mazda had wisely hired) and Time (some of it on the clock, most of it off). In the quiet of a one car studio at the Mazda skunk works, the Miata slowly, painfully took shape with great expenditures of both of these elements.

We would always start a clay model with an armature – a basic steel ladder frame with hubs and wheels hung off the corners at the approximate correct wheelbase and track width. From there we would bolt down plywood, and then adhere blocks of rigid foam. The last three inches or more would be applied in warm clay. The musty smell of modeling clay is earthy and romantic, full of possibilities. The entire corporate office had clay tracks leading out of the studio, it would never leave the bottom of your shoes.

Once the clay was applied, the modelers began their sculpting, directed by the designers careful eye. Usually a full size side view rendering was posted on a wall and the basic shape began from there. Translating a two dimensional airbrush drawing into a viable three dimensional object requires more than artistic skills, it requires vision.

My job came in as I digitized the surface, taking a “snapshot” of the styled surfaces. I would make body contour drawings of the model and lay it against the known “hard points.” Hard points those pesky little things that got in the designers’ way, such as the engine, the steering wheel, the rear suspension. If there was a conflict, it was negotiation time as we sorted out how much it would cost to change the hardware so the car could be that much prettier. Thanks to the packaging skills of the engineers in Japan, most of what the designers wanted was accom­plished. They were relatively free to design a short wheelbase sports car as they saw fit.

As I’ve said before, the Miata (or P729, as it was called then) had the advantage of flying solo into the then-empty affordable sports car market. The only players at that time were the origi­nal Toyota MR2 (a.k.a. “Gobot”), the Alfa Spider (long in tooth even then), the Pontiac Fiero (not bad toward the end), and if you stretched, the Honda CRX. A clean sheet of paper was avail­able for the Miata to appear upon, but that is not always a good thing.

Blazing new trails in the automotive marketplace is a risky proposition at best. Look at the Pacer, the GM APV van, the del Sol. Since we were recreating the affordable sports car, some cues were available from the history of that market. No specific styling feature was “lifted” from the museum of great sports cars, but a trend could be seen if you mixed them all together.

The balanced proportions of an MGB, the sexiness of a Jag E-type, the lightness of a Lotus Elan (styled by an engineer, I might add), all gave some guiding lights to follow. We had the common goal of making the Miata “classic” in its styling, to produce a car that might look two years old when it was first introduced, but would still look current five years later.

This all came back to me as I study the new sports cars just now coming out on the market. The new MGF is more of a second generation MR2 or del Sol sort of car, the Fiat Barchetta looks like an Italian Miata (not a bad thing), and the BMW Z3 looks like a nice little sports car made out of sedan components, chunky and funky. Seeing these cars made me appreciate how well the Miata turned out – it still looks fresh and balanced in comparison to the new offerings. Even now, after six years on the road, the Miata stands as a “finished” design to me. Modern yet classic, tight and controlled where it needs to be, fluid where it looks best.

Standing in the studio twelve years ago, I wondered why the designers kept moving a tenth of a millimeter of clay around all day. I used to pass it off to their artistic temperaments. Now, over a decade later, I see the strength in their ground work.

They gave our little car good bones, and the beauty still shines through.

Instead of reprinting an article from the Miata Magazine’s usual gang of contributors this one caught my interest because of the Oregon connection. From the places and roads mentioned, I am guessing this takes place around Eugene which is around 150 miles northwest of me as the crow flies. The community college mentioned is more than likely Lane CC and currently there is no one there named Ben Hill. There is a Tami Hill that teaches Social Sciences that I suppose could be some relation… I then googled Magomet Tavkazakov and found a guy who was the head of a Russian juice company that Pepsi bought in 2008, but from the TASS photos he looks a little old to have been in a community college in 1995.

Miata Post-Cold-War Diplomacy

– by Member Benjamin Hill

Teaching math in an Oregon community college, the most exciting part of my work day is generalaly the commute – a winding nine miles of pine-studded foothills in the cockpit of my ’92 Miata. But the college grew more interesting recently, with the arrival of an exchange teacher from Nalchik, Russia, one Magomet Tavkazakov.

Students and staff were charmed by Magomet’s good looks and mischievous smile. Despite his not quite perfect English, he was an engaging conversationalist, and began dropping by my office each morning, eager to chat about geometry and metaphysics, or to marvel about life in America.

When an Oregon miracle occurred (sunshine on a winter weekend), I called Magomet at his exchange host’s house. “Want to go hiking?”

“Okay.”

Magomet was surprised when I arrived in the Miata, top down and resplendent in my motoring cap. “Wow,” he exclaimed, but recovered deftly, producing in rapid succession from his knapsack a pair of dark glasses, a jacket, and a bootleg Beatles cassette. He fastened his seat belt, inserted the cassette, and we were off and running to the cries of George Harrison’s guitar.

Exiting town by back roads, we skirted Fern Ridge Reservoir, roared up Greenhill Road to a gorgeous view of the Coast Range, then headed south on old Lorane Highway, famous for its scenery and switchbacks. Alternating pastures and hills gave the drive a catchy syncopation, speed counterpoised to cornering with frequent quick gear changes. Traffic amounted to occa­sional ranch trucks, providing perfect excuses for high rpm passing.

When the Beatles tape ended, Magomet replaced it with Russian rock n’ roll. For miles he was mostly silent, but when he did speak, it was to praise American geography or Japanese engineering. He voiced his heartfelt approval of motor travel “open to the environment,” and I nodded in total agreement.

In an hour, we rolled through the town of Cottage Grove, then headed toward the Cascade Range. Pastures gave way to tree farms which in turn gave way to groves of second growth fir. The road passed through former mining outposts of Disston and Culp Creek, then narrowed to a single lane with turnouts, plunging deeper into the forest as the air grew sweet and humid. Though narrow, the road was well-engineered and dry. The Miata ate it up. We met no traffic, but the possibility made an enjoyable challenge of blind curves. I approached each 60+ mph, breaking and downshifting, then accelerating through the arc on a disciplined line while prepared to react in the face of an oncoming log truck.

Ten miles of slalom curves later, a hand-lettered sign marked the fork to Bohemia Saddle. The road crossed a rickety bridge, turned to gravel, and began to climb radically. On steep coarse gravel, the Miata was out of its element. I pressed ahead anyway, maintaining steady speed and praying not to “high-center.” As the Miata churned along, I was reminded of North Dakota duck hunting trips taken years ago in a 1970 Super Beetle. The Volkswagen was a nightmare on those rutted, muddy roads. But it redeemed itself the time I sailed through an unmarked T-intersection, making a sort of foamed runway landing in a field of plowed mud. A heavier vehicle would have foundered in that bog. But with its sealed underbelly the Bug doubled as a sled. I blocked the accelerator at half-throttle, opened the door and pushed with my left foot while working the clutch with my right, and sort of swam out of that field. Now here I was, swimming through gravel in a freshly waxed Miata. What an idiot I am! – that is what I was thinking.

But the roadster was game. In a few minutes we emerged at the top of a ridge, and were rewarded by a view of volcanic snowcaps. I pulled onto a turnout, stopped the engine, and reached behind me to unsnap the canopy boot. I enjoy raising the Miata’s top while still behind the wheel, with a single over-the-shoulder right arm maneuver both macho and yogic, albeit less gentle to vinyl and flesh than the method described in the manual.

With the car secured, Magomet and I set off along the ridge, moving through stands of tall trees, and catching stunning alpine view. Traversing a patch of snow, we passed the base of a waterfall, and paused to taste edible sorrel plants. As we continued to walk, we exchanged geometry brain teasers:
•Why does a mirror reverse left and right, but not up and down?
•Where is a lost explorer who walks one mile south, one mile east, and one mile north, returning to the point where he began?

Back at the car in a couple of hours, we snacked and drove slowly back down the loose gravel grade. “I like your car,” observed Magomet, for the fourth or fifth time. “Do you have a car back home in Russia?” I asked. “I had one, but I sold it.” “What kind?” He smiled. “You will think this is funny. It was a Ford Granada I bought in Germany.”

When it came, solid pavement was a relief. I pulled over, killed the engine, and handed Magomet the keys. “You drive.” Over his half­hearted objections, I chased him from the passenger seat and hinged back the top. “Maybe I shouldn’t,” he said, but he was already adjusting the mirrors.

Magomet drove, cautiously at first, and then with more confidence, his grin widening with every gear change. Our conversation touched on mathematics again, but this time the humble mathematics of proportion: “1597 cc displacement per 1225 kilograms.”

Later that month, American and Russian astronauts would rendezvous aboard the Russian space station Mir. But as we glided along with Magomet at the wheel, I couldn’t help feeling that by way of post cold-war adventure/diplomacy, my friend and I took a back seat to no one aboard my Japanese roadster.

A Visit From The Pope