So, just after Cliff read my last post about his car, while laughing he said, "I'm glad you didn't drive it at night." Which reminded me that the headlights are so poor that he leaves them on bright at all times, still can't see more than a few feet ahead, and never gets bright-lighted by other cars to turn them down.
Also after making my last post, my dear friend Julie reminded me that I had quite a history with my own set of vehicles. Which in turn, reminded me of my sketchy teenage past with bad driving experiences. (Post on that to come later.)
Just after my parents were married, they bought their first new car together. A 1973 Chevy Vega. Canary yellow. Stick shift. And then my dad had a black lace pattern added right down the middle of the hood and trunk, which seems to me to be some kind of racing stripe gone bad, but he claims it was totally in style at the time.
Here are some examples of other Vegas from 1973, which prove a solid black (or white) stripe was in style.
Also after making my last post, my dear friend Julie reminded me that I had quite a history with my own set of vehicles. Which in turn, reminded me of my sketchy teenage past with bad driving experiences. (Post on that to come later.)
Just after my parents were married, they bought their first new car together. A 1973 Chevy Vega. Canary yellow. Stick shift. And then my dad had a black lace pattern added right down the middle of the hood and trunk, which seems to me to be some kind of racing stripe gone bad, but he claims it was totally in style at the time.
Here are some examples of other Vegas from 1973, which prove a solid black (or white) stripe was in style.
And here's an ad for the Vega, which even mentions the stripe. This is the color of my parent's Vega.
Two years later, they bought a brand new bright blue Ford pickup. Here is what it looked like in a different color.
And here is the color it actually was (without those wheels).
And 10-12 years later, those were the two vehicles my parents still owned. As a child, the Vega was cool. The back seats folded down and there was no separation from the trunk, so we could roll around back there, stretch out, and watch the sky out of the glass in the hatch. Since it was a sporty car, my mom treated it that way. She peeled out a lot and revved and gunned the engine a lot. She also got several speeding tickets.
When I turned five, after much deliberation and shopping, my parents finally bought another brand new car. They had saved and saved and paid cash for their special ordered 1985 Chevy Caprice Classic.
It looked just like this, except with only two doors instead of four (you know, for extra safety with their three young children.)
(This car inspired a post on my old blog, which I will post again soon for your enjoyment!)
The Caprice became "the good car". Every time we were shuffled out the door, we begged and begged to take "the good car." Usually, we still drove the Vega.
But, by the time I turned sixteen, my parents were mostly driving the Caprice and the Vega had pretty much been parked. The year I turned sixteen, they bought a brand new, white, Ford one ton dually, flat-bed truck. Obviously, I wasn't interested in driving that. So, I inherited the Vega as "my" car.
That's me driving to school in "my" car just after getting my license on my sixteenth birthday. I had to time it just right to get to school every morning when the least amount of people would see me. And I had to drive a certain route so that the least rusty side showed toward my schoolmates. But that little Vega got me around. If it hadn't been for the rust, it would have been a really, really great car. Besides the fact that every time I pushed in the clutch the whole car lurched to the right and all of my friends screamed and hung on for dear life.
By the time I left for college, my parents had decided to buy a brand new 1998 Ford Explorer to take a road trip to California and back. And about one year into my license I had burned up the engine in "my" Vega. So, I then inherited the Caprice, which had no rust, but was even more embarrassing since it practically took up two parking spaces. But, that baby could get me and about seventeen friends wherever we wanted to go...in one carload.
After that, I ended my bad car history (which also included several times of driving the blue Ford pickup) and bought my own first new car, which was worthy of a post on my old blog. I'll re-post it soon, too.
So, Cliff and I are now even with our bad vehicle pasts...or maybe I'm even a little in the hole.
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Note the wooden flatbed on the truck.