I see many young people and high school students driving very nice cars, in fact nicer than mine. I am not going to speculate how they come to be able to pay for these fine vehicles but it reminds me of my first car. It was a mess but I loved it. I still have fond memories of it. My wonderful grandpa got me the car and it was a Rolls Royce in my eyes. At the time I was so ecstatic with my independence that it was some time before I realized that there were a few things wrong. It was orange, but it was more than that. It looked like the product of a marriage between a rotted Halloween pumpkin and an overly ripe kumquat.
The headlight, which nearly fell out on numerous occasions and smashed onto the asphalt, was held in place using duct tape (that stuff fixes everything). Needless to say, when you drove down the road it looked as if someone was swinging a flashlight in search of a lost object.
Tires were a big problem for me also. Being that I worked at Mcdonalds after school at the time, I didn't have much money and so I got my tires second hand. I could never get them to last longer than a month. One of the four would always develop a hole in the tread usually the size of a quarter. When I would replace it, I knew it would be back, like a gremlin always returning but never knowing where he'd show his evil little face.
Driving and rolling up the driver's side window was never an easy task. It required well developed hand-eye coordination. While grasping the window and pulling it up with your left hand, you had to turn the window crank (no luxury of power windows back then) with your right hand all the while steering down the road with your knee or chin which I have done also (don't try this at home kiddies). Try that going 60 miles an hour, because by then the car would be vibrating so hard you felt like a small frightened child being shaken down by a big bully stealing lunch money.
All in all the body of the car looked reasonably satisfactory considering it was almost 20 years old, as long as you didn't pull back the rugs in the floorboard, or should I say where the floor boards USED to be. If it wasn't for those rags covering the rusted-out crater, you would notice every tar-filled crack in the pavement, every gooey piece of used gum, and every rigor mortised tortoise that you ran over. One year my friend lost every bit of Halloween candy that vibrated through that gaping hole when her trick or treat bag fell over. She was NOT happy (and yes we were too old to be trick or treating).
Then there was the matter of under the hood of the car where there were many thing wrong. The one that caused the most problems was the solenoid. I had no idea what that was until this car. It's amazing how much you learn when things start going wrong. Starting the car required using a long wrench to connect the poles, causing a large spark and making the car jump to life, almost as if a doctor with a defibrillating machine had placed the gelled-up paddles on it and yelled "CLEAR!"
Inside the car was more of the same. To the untrained eye, it might appear fairly decent, that is until you opened the door. The thick musty smell of old rotting foam and upholstery combined with the mildewed stench of trapped moisture would knock you off your feet. Before everyone had those little character balls people would put on their antennas to help them locate their car in a crowed parking lot, I could easily spot my vehicle. I just looked for the soft glow of pine tree green reflecting off the numerous air fresheners hanging on anything that protruded enough to wrap an elastic string around.
I always hated to see bad weather come. Usually because it meant I would be bailing water like a lone survivor sinking in a raft full of holes in the middle of the ocean. Besides the tidal wave that would inevitably spray up into the car by the immense cavity in the floor, the console, which sat up under the dash, would fill up with enough water that Barbie could invite Ken and the rest of the eleven and a half inch dolls over for a pool party. Snow posed an equally dreaded problem. The mess that didn't get caught by what the tires kicked up was scooped like a shovel, backing snow into the car and collecting under the carpet remnants because of the way that the rusted remaining floor curled.
Now back in the day cassette tapes was the way to take your music on the road with you. My dear, wonderful grandpa wanted me to be happy, so he took out the unwanted AM only radio and replaced it with a radio with FM and cassette. The only problem was the radio I had did not fit into the slender opening designed to hold the now discarded radio. So he set it into the only place he could. Dramatic music please ... Dum dum duuummm. He placed it in what would become the Barbie Pool. When it rained, nobody touched the radio, no matter how much we hated the "Red Wine Polka" or "Lawrence Welk Show," for the fear of being electrocuted.
Rainy days and snow were not the only kind of weather I dreaded, because there were also sunny days and frigid days too. Since the climate controls never worked properly, the heater was stuck in the "on" position, which made an otherwise beautiful day sweltering and stifling. Now if you wanted a little warmth on a chilly day, forget it. The heater would refuse to obey. You couldn't get as much as a puff of hot air, even to defrost the windshield. I was reduced to a human windshield wiper trying to clear a section large enough for at least one eye to see out.
I drove this car for almost five years and what still amazes me is that even with the overpowering stink, the inch-thick layer of frost, and the wandering headlight, my friends were always willing to risk frostbite and electrocution just to cruise through town listening to Lawrence Welk full blast as we polkaed the night away. Independence is a very important thing even with chattering teeth.
