There are certain guys that I envied in just about this order: Mike Littleton, Larry Lankford, Mike Delaney, and Wayne and Allen McNabb. These were the first guys that I remember cruising around in a car while I was still hoofing it. I remember one day down by the baseball field as I was strolling along with a young lady of interest from Lenoir City, Mike L. came driving by. He stopped and chatted with us for a minute or two and was every bit the gentleman. But what that little episode did, unintentionally and no fault of Mike’s, was it drove home the fact that I was of driving age but still walking, and a couple of weeks later that young lady of interest from Lenoir City, lost interest. :)
But I made up for it later. After I joined the Air Force I got my first car! All mine! I no longer had to depend on someone else. I plunked down $300 to a coworker for a 1962 Chevy II. It was beige (wild color, that), had a straight six motor, a 3 on the tree transmission and a bench seat with upholstery held together with duct tape. In that hot Southern California sun, the adhesive on the duct tape would melt and leave little black streaks up the back of my shirt, but who cared? It was used but it was mine, and I drove the hell out of it.
Five dollars would get a retread when one of the tires would blow, another 5 dollars would fill it up, and about every 500 miles or so one of the carburetor jets would clog up and I’d have to raise the hood and beat on the side of the carburetor with a tire iron to get it to start, but I loved it! We went someplace every weekend, anywhere from the beach to Vegas, and I didn’t spend one second worrying whether it would make the trip or not. I was young, I was invincible, and I was more than a little bit naïve. As they say, God looks after kids and fools, and I was a little bit of both, but at least I finally had a car.
Somewhere in a pile of rubber and steel
There's a rusty old shell of an automobile
And if engines could run on desire alone
That old Chevy II would be driving me home
(with apologies to Dan Seals)
1 comment:
Everyone will remember Pat's yellow mustang convertible.What fun we had riding around with the top down circling the A&W's in Loudon,Lenoir City,and Sweetwater.Her Dad got really upset with us for buying 13cents worth of gas.That was about half a gallon back then and all the change we could fine.Pat always referred to it as our car.It wasn't until after we graduated that I got my own car.The memories of the yellow mustang lingers still.
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