My dad gave me my first car the summer I turned seventeen. I had pestered him for more than a year. I thumbed catalogs at the local auto parts store (it was 1980, long before the Internet). I envisioned a Mustang, maybe a 280ZX. I had no particular car in mind, just dreams of something sport, fun. You know what I mean.
So when my dad told me he had my car and I walked outside, I just about cried. A rust-covered 1969 Toyota Corolla Station Wagon sat in the driveway. We sanded that car for days and then painted and detailed it. We tore its engine apart and rebuilt it together. I put in my first transmission.
Even so, driving to school my senior year was a trip. Talk about shake, rattle, and roll, to me, the Corolla was your basic tin box on wheels.
While I never learned to love that car, the vision of working late at night in the garage with my dad remains precious. The hard work we put into stripping the paint from the car. His grease-covered hands as he handed me a wrench. I have never been a car guy. But at times, I wish I were, just so I could give my son that same experience.
The car is gone, but the memories live on.
3 comments:
First car. So much memories.
I learned to drive my father's Datsun 280z with hatchback top, bright tomato red, looked like a can of soup. Bought my own Mustang Gia, 1978, the same as one the Angel's drove in the TV Series Charlies Angels. I had the car and my brother had the Farrah Hair poster. Years later Grandma, bless her heart, gave me her 1969 bright red Datsun wagon. Drove the daylights out of it. Those were the days of fun. Rebecca, creator of Dogs Rule Cats Drool at wordpress.com.
It is amazing how fond we become of these old memories as they fade into the past. I used to think I took to many pictures as my wife and I wandered the world in our 20s. Now I think I didn't take enough. Sadly, I have no pictures of my first car. I just picked something to evoke the feeling.
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