1989 Cadillac Fleetwood S&S Victoria Hearse – Never A Good Time

There simply isn’t a convenient time for some unfortunate things to happen.  There are certainly instances when timing could be worse with the concurrence of several unpleasant unrelated events, but I’m talking about this in a very general sense.  For example, is there ever a great time to have a theft or robbery, to have one’s online identity stolen, or even to have to get fillings at the dentist’s office?  “Oh, gee!  Today looks like a fantastic day to have to go to the hospital!”… said no one, ever.  Sometimes, bad things in life just happen and much of our experience of those things hinge, at least partially, on how we choose to react and/or adapt to the circumstances.

From the jump, I’ll state that this will not be any sort of deep dive into the history of the Sayers & Scovill (S&S) coachbuilding firm that had converted front-wheel-drive Cadillac Fleetwoods (among other vehicles) into the once-fine S&S Victoria hearse that we see here.  There’s much more to read online about this organization, but I will mention that S&S has existed since 1876 (this year marks their sesquicentennial), so they’ve been doing this for a while.  I honestly can’t pinpoint whether the featured car is an ’89 or a ’90, but we do know that it’s from one of those two model years given the restyling introduced for the former model year and also given the slight external refresh for ’91.  This one’s powered by a 155-horsepower 4.5L V8 engine, with its power sent to the front wheels by way of a four-speed automatic transmission.

No, today’s Curbside Musings will be more about the details of one Sunday morning over fourteen years ago when I had first stumbled across this thing while on my way to church.  The sight of this hearse brought thoughts of death and worship in the same morning, and it wasn’t even Easter.  It was one of those instances when I had just been walking along (probably late) and minding my own business, when I had seen something down an alley way that had looked like an old Cadillac.  It was immediately like hitting the jackpot when I had seen that it wasn’t just an old, front-drive Fleetwood, but a hearse.  There it was, randomly parked in front of a row of garages in a back alley in a residential area of Wrigleyville, maybe four blocks from historic Wrigley Field.

The first thing that struck me was how masterfully the driver had managed to park it in such a way that he or she (I’m going to be honest – I’d place money on it that the owner is / was a dude) had seemed to block as many garage doors as was physically possible with the length of this Cadillac.  It was a definite “Now, that shouldn’t be…” moment, as I circled the car with my camera, clicking away and hoping not to be noticed through any back windows.  That didn’t last long.

I lose track of time sometimes when I’m photographing my chosen subjects.  If I’m in the moment and have deemed something worthy enough of my attention to photograph it in the first place, then I’m going to see that process all the way through to the end before I’m on my way.  Stated differently, I was already going to be late for the opening hymn and maybe even the call to confession, so I was going to get all my shots before walking back onto eastbound Addison.  I was completely lost in the process of getting my snaps before noticing that a young family of four (if I recall correctly, there was mom, dad, a toddler, and a baby) was now standing not far away near the rear steps to one of the residential buildings.

“But daddy, does this mean we’re going to be late for Grandma’s…?”

The father looked perplexed, but he seemed not at all hostile.  “Hi… Is this yours?” I seem to recall him asking.  “Oh, no… I’m sorry, this is not my Cadillac.  I just saw it in the alley and thought I’d get a few pictures of it,” I said as I continued to circle the car, splitting my attention between this nice family and whether or not I had photographed all the details of the car that I had intended to.  This alley is also a very short walking distance from the historic epicenter of the queer party scene in Chicago.  I can remember (and not fully remember) many fun nights spent in the Boystown area in my 20s and 30s, but I can’t imagine living anywhere near it, especially now in my decidedly more reflective (and sober) middle age.

All this is to say that I could completely understand if the dad had raised an eyebrow at my response and had considered the possibility that I might have been an occupant of this vehicle the night before.  Had I returned to wait for the driver so I could retrieve some of my possessions before being off for bloody marys and getting back in the saddle?  Nope.  I was still drinking alcohol back then, and honest to goodness, I was headed to church, and I did not know who was responsible for this terrible parking job and causing this predicament.

As seen later in Edgewater, on Sunday, June 3, 2012.

I had felt bad for this family.  They were all dressed very nicely and were probably also headed to church or to brunch with family, and this stupid Cadillac had thrown a monkey wrench into everything.  Even if they had immediately called a tow truck, the driver would have taken a little while to get there.  If they had all expected to leave at their regularly expected departure time to get to where they were going, they were now faced with a big, inconvenient delay.  Was the timing of this parking misadventure great?  No.  It was completely unacceptable.  Would there have been a better time for this hearse to have been blocking multiple garage doors?  Probably not, but if I was either of these young parents, I would have been downright furious if I had left my back door on Monday morning to get to work and found this hearse in the alley, blocking my exit.

I wrote a bit last week about the huge misfortune I had recently experienced of having had to deal with a pest control situation at my home, also in which I had had to voluntarily part with a significant chunk of my former possessions, some of which had held great sentimental value.  As I had sat down to write this, it had been one week since the weekend I had spent basically two ten-hour days going through the entire contents of my condo on very limited sleep.  One week later, I had felt significantly better and had also since had some of the offending pieces of furniture removed, so those things were solidly in the “plus” column.  It had also been the second, consecutive three-day weekend for which I had had to scrap my plans due to some previously unforeseen circumstances.

The more I have thought about this, though, the more it occurs to me that there was never going to be a great time for me to catch a bad cold.  There was no ideal time for me to have to deal with exterminators and the loss of some of my possessions.  In a greater sense and within the context of this Cadillac being a hearse that I’m (very) loosely talking about, there’s also not some magically easy time to leave this world.  Coming to this realization has helped me reframe my attitude somewhat from focusing on what I lost (time, sleep, material things) to what I’ve gained or been able to keep (knowledge, inner strength, my home, and the rest of my stuff).

On balance, I remain very thankful for my life and the good things in it.  Sometimes the timing of events simply isn’t up to us.  We can choose to be bitter or just embrace that we simply don’t know now what we don’t know and trust, or at least hope, that it will all make sense later.  As much as we may plan and try to control for certain outcomes in our lives, some things are just out of the scope of our complete influence.  We might as well make friends with that fact and, as they say, keep on truckin’.

Wrigleyville, Chicago, Illinois.
Sunday, December 18, 2011.