Some people say
that the car you drive says a lot about you. I don’t think I want to know what
they have to say about me. I have most certainly had some remarkable cars in my
lifetime, and I’ve been around for a while, so I am going to talk about a few
of them from my youth, and like a good desert, I’ll save the sweet, most
extraordinary for last!
When I was
nineteen years old I lived in Salem Oregon with my husband and another couple,
and the four of us shared one car. It was an ancient Chevy wagon from the early
seventies or maybe it was a late sixty’s model; I can tell you the color, but
not the year. It was blue, and it had no shocks, so driving it through the
winding roads of the Cascade Mountains with their switch-backs and sheer cliff
drop offs, produced the same sensation as a ride in that Walt Disney’s cartoon
car that Goofy drove. The general feeling was that, the wheels would stay on
the road around curves, and the body of the car would swing out over the side
of the mountain into open air. This scenic country drive would usually make
visiting friends from out of state shit their pants.
It was a two-man
job to start this beauty; she only had one gear, and that was drive. One person
had to stick a screwdriver in the carburetor to get it to start, while the
other person got in, held one foot on the gas to get it running, and the other
foot on the breaks to keep it from leaving. The person outside the car, would
get the screw driver out of the carburetor, put the air cleaner back on, close
the hood, and jump in.
This process was
complicated by the fact that, the emergency break was only dependable,
sometimes. I want to stress the, sometimes dependable part because, one cold
morning, that Chevy left for work without its driver and passenger. It ran a
woman off the road three blocks away, and then drove over somebody's fence and
hit the side of their house before stopping. The poor woman who was run off the
road in her car, was sure a ghost was driving the runaway vehicle, and she was
near hysterics by the time we arrived on the scene out of breath from running
after our car.
It was seven in
the morning, and the whole neighborhood was in an uproar; cops
everywhere! Hysterical people talking about ghost drivers invading
Salem! Mayhem and Panic in the streets! Nobody has had their coffee
yet, and the tempers were flaring. Talk about your Monday mornings.
Going shopping in
this car was an adventure, but Julie and I had it down to a science. If
we had to park on the street, and then push the car out into traffic before we
could start it, (because there is no reverse remember), the two of us girls
could, by ourselves, push that behemoth of a car into the street, open the hood,
take off the air cleaner, put the screwdriver in the carburetor, start it, then
get it all back together, shut the hood, and be off so fast you would think we
were NASCAR pit crew mechanics. We were also quite creative at finding parking
places on an incline so as to save some of the work of the car pushing.
My next in line
for worst ride was a Ford Granada ESS, and I was living in Michigan at that
time. I have to confess that almost every car I owned in my younger years was
a, Dukes of Hazard, car. What I mean by that is, you had to get in and out by
climbing through the windows, because the doors didn’t open. Ah, my Granada
European Sport Special. Now here was another car that required a screwdriver in
the carburetor to start it, and a good amount of ether on occasion didn’t hurt
either! It also required a foot on the gas pedal to keep it running, while you
took the screwdriver out of the carburetor, replaced the air cleaner, and
collected the broken shovel handle, that you used to hold the hood up while you
started it. If necessity is the mother of invention, beater cars were the
grandmother.
I had to get back
and forth to work by myself with this unpretentious ride, so I always carried a
sizable rock in the car to put on the gas pedal, to keep it running, while I
retrieved the screwdriver, replaced the air cleaner, collected the broken
shovel handle, and closed the hood.
We had a friend
who stayed with us quite often and he, being ever helpful, as he always was,
one day cleaned my house and car for me. Not having driven this car
before, he saw no purpose at all for carrying a rock around in the car, so he
threw it out.
The next day I
left for work, and my husband retrieved the car starting implements for me, and
closed the hood, (always the gentleman), while I manually operated the gas
pedal, then off to work I went, never giving a thought to the rock. The exact
minute I noticed the rock was gone, was very late that night when I got out of
work. Of course it's me we're talking about here, so yes; I am the last one to
leave, always bringing up the rear, so anyone who could have helped me was long
gone.
Now, say you are
in the country somewhere and you lose one of your important car starting
implements, like say, mm maybe your rock? Not a big deal; you just go out into
the woods or field and find another one. But, I had a job that was in town, and
when I got out of work and realized my rock had gone missing, there was not
another one to be found anywhere, and to top it off, I was locked out of the
place I where worked. I walked to a pay phone, because this was before
cellphones were invented. I had to call someone to drive all the way to town to
help me start my car. A good intentioned friend with his heart in the right
place, and ever helpful, so I forgave him.
Okay, now for the
worst car I ever owned. I could also say it was the best deal I ever got on a
car. This car was a Gremlin. Yes that’s right, I drove a couple of those
Gremlins back in the day. Once again, I can't tell you the year of the car; I
don't think I knew, even then. But, I’m a girl, so I can tell you the color; it
was gold with a bumper sticker on the back that said, “Little green man at
wheel.” I paid thirty dollars for that car. I drove it for one year, and
without putting a penny into it, other than gas, I then sold it to a junk yard
for thirty dollars; I never even changed the oil.
This
extraterrestrial ride also took two people to drive. Well if you had to make a
left turn in traffic it took two people. If you were just tooling around back
roads, you were probably alight by yourself. Making a left turn in traffic
required one foot on the gas, to keep the car from stalling, one foot on the
break, to keep it in place, one hand on the gear shift to throw it in neutral,
and the other hand to operate the manual turning signals. I’m sure you can see
the problem by now. When a break in traffic offers itself up for you to pull
out, you won’t have the extra hand to turn the wheel, while you put the car
back in drive, and if there are cops anywhere around, you need to keep
operating the manual turning signals until you have completed your turn, so you
don't get pulled over for an illegal left turn. I stress this last point
because, if you do get pulled over, the cop is going to see that the back of
your seat is missing and the floor is gone! Yes that’s right, it‘s a
Flintstones mobile, (and not even a good one); The cop will no doubt condemn
your car.
Cops have no
sense of humor, nor do they understand the plight of a poor person living on
minimum wage. When they condemn your car that means you are not allowed to
drive it anymore. I have seen this happen before for a lot less than what my
car had wrong with it. So, if I were going to the city for anything, I had to
hornswoggle someone into coming with me, and I was very careful and never got
pulled over that year, and probably would have drove that car until the front
seat, with my ass in it, hit the ground, but for one problem.
If by
chance, I had gotten a flat tire, before I fell through the middle of the car,
I would have been in big trouble. The car could not be jacked up because the
frame had rusted in half. Only those of you who live in the great white north
can appreciate what Michigan roads and salt will do to a car. Let me give you a
visual; if you put the jack on either the side of the car and jacked it up, all
four tires would stay on the ground and the middle of the car would actually
bend like a taco. If you put the jack at the front or the back of the car, it
would fold into a “V” like a book. The tires were bald and I did not want to
pay a towing bill bigger than the cost of the car because of a flat, so when I
realized the car couldn’t be jacked up, off she went to the junk yard, where
they promptly gave me thirty dollars for my troubles!
I swear this to
be the car facts as I remember them, and I dare anybody to top this
ride.
