So, maybe I don't have a pretty picture of my first car, but I do have proof that early on in life, I was an upright, law-abiding, tax-paying citizen. Do you remember you first car? How did you get it? Do you have any good stories about it? Here's mine...I bought my first car after I returned to NJ while taking a hiatus from my "first" freshman year of college. I had earned the money during my high school years as a cashier at Hayeks Market.
My favorite story about the car is going to Indian Ladder Falls (in the Poconos) with eight fellow passengers. (Remember when front seats were still designed as bench rather than bucket seats?) Upon our return down the mountain, I discovered that my master cylinder was out of commission - or sadly well on it's way... So, I promptly ordered ALL the other passengers into the back seat where I thought they would be more safe in the event of an unfortunate (and crunchy) stop. I can't imagine what oncoming traffic thought about a driver chauffering eight passengers in the back seat. I remember joking about our situation being similar to stuffing people in a phone booth...
Well, the fates were with us, and we all returned safely home , physically, if not emotionally unscathed - although I suppose I should take some credit for my expert emergency braking ability.
What's your car story?
Opel Manta.
ReplyDeleteOnly a week after getting my official driver's license, I cracked it up around that crazy curve in Swartswood -- sliding on the gravel into the guard rail -- coming home from a party on the mountain, with Vince Kice, Jeff Barnhill, and Rich Quick accompanying me yelling, "Go! Go! Go!"
Next day at school, Joe Lentini called me "Crash."
Best advice I ever had, though, came from Frank Zweig, just before everyone scattered before the fuzz showed up. "Just tell 'em a deer ran out in front of you," Frank said. It worked.
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ReplyDelete1968 Olds 442. Got it the summer before our Sr. year. Cost $1,500. Put $500 down and my pops co-signed a loan for $1,000. Payment was $63 a month for two years. I remember asking him what would happen if I missed a payment? His reply "Then I will own another car." I remember giving a ride to a certain Hayeks cashier who was walking home and her first words were " Nice car." I knew then I wouldn't miss a payment. It's funny I remember the cars. Tom Paladini had 1967 Camaro Rally Sport. Tommy Driscoll big Chrysler War Wagon. Keith Armstrong had a Mustang that several of us had to actually lift out of a ditch one night. Might have been a Pit party.
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ReplyDelete1951 Chevy 1/4 ton pickup. It had been sitting in the woods on the Santos land and I paid $25 for it. It didn't run and it took a lot of work to get it on the road. My mother cried when she saw it being towed into our driveway and said it was going to drive down the value of the houses in the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteLong past its prime - I once got a warning from a NJ state trooper for going too slow on 206. He told me I had traffic backed up to Sussex and said that I either speed up or get on back roads so traffic could pass. He asked me how I got the truck past the state inspection and the look on my face told him he really didn't want to know!
I also got stopped by the state police leaving a pit party at the Zweigs with at least 20 people on the truck. We were going to another party down the road and people just piled on. The cab was loaded as was the bed and people were standing on the huge running boards. The cops made everyone get off the truck, chewed me out and made me ferry everyone to the next location via several trips with people allowed in the cab only.
The heat didn't work and you had to use an ice scraper on the inside of the windows in the winter because it was so cold in the cab that the moisture from the passenger's breath iced up the windshield. The truck had very large holes in the floor and you could simply throw an empty can downward and it would exit the vehicle!
It was a tank however and I once hit a big buck near St. Pauls Abbey. The deer was dead on impact and damage to the truck was a broken headlight and a slightly bent front bumper. Todays cars would be totaled with the occupants dead and the deer surviving!
It was a real heap, but it was my heap and I still remember it fondly. I see many of that model down here in Florida - lots of old cars here because they were never exposed to the road salt and didn't rot out. Even my kids know to say "Dad, that's your truck" when they spot one of those old beasts lumbering down the highway!
lets see...1st one was a 68 VW bug, when it made 3 spins on the icy road I decided to move to FL, after a yr in FL I decided to move to CA where I bought my favorite car a 57 Chevy that I drove to Tijauna to have the interior re-done ( whole 'nother story) but one of my favorites was hanging with my brother and his friend ( Kevin Dolittle(sp?)in his van with the fuzzy rug interior listening to 8 tracks of Abbey Road ...seems like just yesterday :)
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