My First Car

I went to school during a couple of the most fun eras ever. I was in elementary school during the 50's and Jr. High and High School during the 60's. The world was changing at lightning speed. It was a time when we were racing from the fifties towards the space age and even more modern conveniences, lifestyles and ideals. And yet, we held onto everything romantic and nostalgic about the fifties and hated to let go. Even though I dreamed about poodle skirts, '57 Chevy's, sock hops, Johnny Mathis and Elvis, I played the space age game and became all about granny glasses, go-go boots, mini skirts, big hair, the Beatles and the British Invasion in general and eventually about bell-bottoms, tye-dye and flower power.

Daddy took me to get a job when I was 15 because I thought I just HAD to have hair spray and panty hose and mom and dad just didn't think that was nearly as important as I did. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 17 because the family station wagon we had would never have passed inspection, so most days I walked the few blocks to work. My mom finally arranged for us to borrow a car so I could take my test.

It was a great help to her once I got my license because I could go to the grocery store for her and haul my brothers and sister around to school functions while she took care of a new baby, her invalid mother, went to beauty college during the day, studied and worked nights at the hospital. Yes, it was a fun time, but life was still very hard in spite of all the new modern conveniences. But my mom was superwoman and she passed beauty college with 99%, opened her own beauty shop in the utility room at grandma's house and was able to quit her night job, work from home and take care of everybody.

Most of the kids I knew were driving either their own car or one of their parents cars to school everyday. I lusted over a '57 Chevy with the for sale sign in the window that sat at the gas station across the street from where I worked. I saved my money and when I had saved up enough I asked mama to help me go buy the Chevy. But she discouraged me because the price was 'too good to be true'. In retrospect, I am sure she was right.

I shared a room with my grandmother and most nights I listened to the radio, waiting for Ferry Cross The Mercy by Gary and The Pacemakers to come on. When it finally did, I'd stare out the window and day dream about the world elsewhere. But the old, gray, rusty 1951 De Soto sitting on concrete blocks (with the tires removed) just outside the window invariably brought me back to reality. And after some time it started looking good to me because...

1... it was old enough to be cool
2... 1951 was the year I was born (also cool), and
3... it was my reality and within my grasp (unlike a new Mustang)

One morning at the breakfast table, I got up the nerve to nonchalantly ask about it and was told that it was still running the last time anybody drove it. But it was now 17 years old and considered ancient because this was now the space age, after all. The next morning at the breakfast table I asked again, showing a little more interest. Everybody looked up from their cereal bowls and stared at me like I had just grown another head... everybody but my dad, and I could almost see the little light bulb shining right above his head.

It was decided that I could buy it for $1.00 so it would be in my name BUT I had to buy new tires, a new battery and plugs, get the tag updated, buy the insurance, gas, etc, and dad would help me put it all back together. I didn't care about any of that, what mattered to me was that it be cool... I wanted a baby blue car.

Just so happened that one of my dad's jobs (he had at least two at the time) was that he worked for his friend who owned his own garage, sold new tractors and repaired old ones. My dad could take one apart piece by piece and put it back together. And he could paint them and make them not only run like brand new but look like brand new, too. And because he had access to the garage, could buy the paint wholesale and we could do the work ourselves after hours, he convinced me that Ford Tractor Blue was really baby blue.

Once we got it up and running, dad drove it out to the garage to be painted. On weekends, between jobs, he taught me how to sand the rusty spots and we taped off all the glass and chrome. When it was finally ready, he painted it Ford Tractor Blue, I mean baby blue. And it was beautiful. More importantly, it was cool. It was way past cool... it was GROOVY.

My boyfriend (now husband) had taught me how to drive standard shift in his dad's old work truck but I would need to be taught how to drive the De-Soto because it was a little different... something about it being half standard and half automatic or something ridiculous like that. So one Saturday afternoon in the fall, when the sun was warm and the air was cool, my family stood in the driveway and waved and giggled as my dad, boyfriend and I drove off to the country for my driving lesson.

When we were a safe distance from traffic, houses and people in general, I was allowed to sit behind the wheel. Wow, it was just so big and heavy, it was like a TANK. When I gave it gas it would barely go. It was like it was being pulled slowly forward with rubber bands. Surely I was doing something wrong? No, daddy says... it's just the way those old cars ran and is why it used to take two full hours or so to drive 50 miles. While he found comfort in the fact that speeding would not be something I was likely to get into trouble for, I was terrified knowing that I also wouldn't be able to get out of anybody's way if I ever needed to.

Dad let me drive slowly on and on down the old gravel country road. When we came to a very steep hill he began talking me through it, telling me how I was going to need to shift gears about mid-way up the hill and give it plenty of gas. Well, I could barely make it mid-way up the hill, it just wouldn't go and dad began to yell at me. 'Put it low, put it in low! Give it gas, give it gas! Do this! Do that! Go! Go! Go!'

I was pushing, pulling and stepping on everything in that car trying to get it up the hill. I wanted to do good. After all, my boyfriend was in the back seat and I didn't want to be embarassed. And my dad had almost worked himself to death fixing the car up for me and I didn't want to disappoint him. So I put it into what I thought was low gear and gave it all the gas I could. And boy did we start going fast! Finally, we were going fast... backwards!

Yelling turned into screaming and instead of hearing 'go, go, go', I was hearing 'stop, stop, stop'. Everything was going by so fast that the landscape had become a blur. I caught a glimpse of my boyfriend in the rear view mirror, bouncing all about the back seat in spite of the fact that he had braced himself by holding onto each door handle. He was screaming, too... he wasn't screaming anything in particular, he was just screaming. Time seemed to be frozen, or was it just speeding by so fast that it seemed that way. My foot felt like it was stuck to the gas peddle and I couldn't move it, because this... did not... compute.

I was going so fast that when I finally lost complete control and hit the ditch, I didn't go down inside the ditch, I just flew over the top of it and straddled the ditch lengthwise, with two wheels on one side of the ditch and two on the other, up against an embankment, which brought me to a very abrupt halt. We coughed and choked back the dust and when it finally cleared away and we had all silently checked one another for injuries, mortal or otherwise, and saw that everyone had survived intact, the cussing and the crying started. Daddy couldn't get out on his side so I opened my door and could see that we were in a very precarious position. One wrong move one way or the other might be really bad. I had to kind of jump out on my side and rolled down the embankment, skinning my knees, which thankfully was my only injury. My boyfriend and daddy got out ok.

I felt awful. I had done the best I could and my best was terrible. The car was ok, I don't think it even had a scratch on it. But it was kind of stuck where it was and there was nobody else around because we were waaaaaaaaay out in the country. Dad decided I should stay with the car and he and my boyfriend would go for help. I watched as they walked down the long country road and daddy flailed his arms around in the air and let the cusswords fly. I watched as he'd pick up a rock and throw it as hard as he could to the ground and then cuss some more. I was watching as they were walking side by side and my boyfriend turned around to grin at me just before they rounded the corner.

They returned in about an hour with help. I don't remember how they got it out. I just remember I had to go back home with my knees skinned and my ego and my coolness shot all to pieces. I refused to drive it again. My little brother who was soon to turn 16 was ecstatic. I sold it to him for $50. I don't think he ever drove it ether. But he had a lot of fun fixing up the inside. Years later, the folks had to pay somebody to have it hauled away.

As with lots of things that seem terrible at the time, time has a way of helping you find the funny in things. This was no different. Over the years dad loved to tease my now husband and tell how he was screaming like a girl in the back seat. And he let me know, in his way, that he had been proud me for being willing to work so hard on it instead of expecting them to give me a new car. Even though I only got to drive it once it was one awesome ride. And I wouldn't trade that whole experience from beginning to end (cussing, crying and all) for all the cars in the world.

Connie May