The Dodge Game, Corvettes, and Personal Validation

During my 6th grade year my family took a lot of road trips. And by a lot of road trips, I mean that almost every weekend we were driving to a different city in the American Midwest to accompany my dad on his church visits. Each trip was usually over 50 miles one-way, so, for my brother and me, two rambunctious elementary-aged boys, that usually amounted to between two to five (and sometimes upwards of ten) hours of sitting in the back seat of a car every single weekend. Pestering our parents about our geographic proximity to our destination was quashed rather quickly, so we had to find other ways to pass the time. Car bingo (red Mercedes! Bingo!) and punch-buggying got old pretty fast, which led my brother, in a rare stroke of fourth-grade brilliance, to create the Dodge Game.

The basic idea was pretty simple and allowed anyone who wanted to play to catch on rather quickly. My brother had decided that Dodge Ram trucks were Cool, Dodge Dakota pickups were Really Cool, and the Dodge Durango SUV was Super Cool, so he assigned point values to the sighting of each car - Ram +1, Dakota +2, and Durango +3.

This game kept us occupied for several weekends, each of which was passed with pen and pencil in hand and eyes peeled. The game abruptly (and sadly) came to an end, when, while traveling alone with my dad, we passed a Dodge dealership. I returned home trumpeting my “insurmountable and decisive victory”, to which T.J., while no doubt initially disappointed, kept his composure and resolutely informed me that 1) the game was already over, and 2) Dodges were never that cool.

Well, maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that, but it was pretty close.

I was left to my own devices, but soon recovered and went lusting after Chevy Corvettes because, when you’re eleven, they are pretty much the coolest car around, regardless of year or body style. Before long I had a mental picture book of every Corvette I had seen, and enjoyed calling our the year of every Corvette that sped past. This was a win-win-win situation for me, because I got to feast my eyes on fast cars, yell, and sound knowledgeable about things on which no one would take the time to challenge me, all at the same time.


This (annoying) hobby, though, had another function. It wasn’t just about keeping track of all the cool-looking cars I saw. It was also my way of affirming my American-ness. If spotting cars was cool, then spotting the quintessential American car topped everything else on the road. With each additional Corvette I spotted, I felt more American. I felt that my participation in identifying a cultural icon somehow validated my blond hair and white skin.

I look back at this now and think, “What was the goal I was aiming to fulfill? What did I think this activity would solve.” But that is the wrong question. If fact, that question is unanswerable because the activity of spotting Corvettes, to me as a scrawny sixth-grader, was self-fulfilling. Corvette-spotting made me feel like I belonged. There was certainly some “If I spot one more then I am 5% more American.” type of thinking going on, though one wonders what would happen once I spotted Corvette #25. Maybe I would’ve tattooed a barbed-wire ring around my biceps and or eaten a whole apple pie without chewing it. Who knows. But the point stands that I still felt that I had to, for some reason, validate my whiteness. I could have listened up and piped down, and probably fit in in America and done just fine. Instead I spoke up and acted out.

The Dodge Game turned me on to a preadolescent need that I didn’t know I had. Spotting cars may have been good for my short-term self-esteem, but it certainly didn’t help me realize what the underlying problem was. It was a quick fix, and, like most quick fixes, it didn’t last. I didn’t need validation of my being; I needed reinforcement that who I was, a multicultural kid, was OK and acceptable.

So who’s at fault? I mean, there has to be someone to blame, right? Perhaps, but I can’t think of anyone. Maybe the whole system of missionary home assignment is to blame. Maybe my peers or neighbors are to blame. Maybe God just put me in a strange situation. Whatever the reason, I’m OK with it, because it made me who I am now, a man who knows that personal validation isn’t something that things, places, or even people can give you.



_DZ