Cars!
My first car was a '56 Chevy. I bought it for $300 cash from a friend up the street in August of 1965, before I could even drive. When my birthday rolled around the next year, I took my driver's test, tagged my insurance onto my folks' policy, and was the envy of the neighborhood. I mean, really - Tri-fives have always been objects of idol worship, and although my druthers would have pointed me to a '55, a '56 suited me just fine.
It was a Midnight Blue tudor post, not perfect, mind you, but good enough for a sixteen year old from Northeast Kansas City. Granted, it still had the original 235 c.i. oil-starved Stovebolt six-banger and a crisp Powerglide transmission, but to me, it was the best blank canvas a budding automotive artist could ask for. I started making plans for an engine and transmission swap. To me this car was a Detroit Dream and my ticket to immortality..
My dad thought otherwise.
One day, dad offered to take me to school, and said he wanted to have the Chevy tuned up and lubed. He told me that after school, I could find him at the Standard station at Independence Avenue and Van Brunt. When 3:15 finally rolled around, I wandered down the street to find dad and my car, but when I got to the station, all I saw was Dad.
"Where's my car? I wandered back outside and looked in the parking area.
"In there on the lift." Dad beamed. I mean literally beamed. This was bad.
"I don't see it."
As I looked inside the twin service bays, I saw the mechanics, Lynn and Joel, huddled in the corner, pretending to be engaged in a meaningful discussion about fan belts or muffler bearings or something equally complex.
There were only two cars in the service bays - a '63 Ford Galaxie and a two-tone '57 Pontiac four door hardtop. It turned out that one of those cars was mine, and it wasn't the Ford.
"Dad!"
Dad, in his infinite wisdom had decided to trade in my "unreliable and unsafe" '56 Chevy on, get this, a '57 Pontiac - a FOUR DOOR '57 Pontiac - Sky Blue and Gunmetal Gray TWOTONE, FOUR DOOR, NINETEEN FIFTY-FREAKIN'-SEVEN PONTIAC. The salesman at Jerry Green Chevrolet just knew that I was going to love owning a Pontiac, and that the thrill of owning this fully armed and operational battle station would make me forget forever how much I didn't mind the noisy rocker arms and the admiring looks of my peers as I cruised Smaks drive-in in an awesome '56 Chevy.
It was a Midnight Blue tudor post, not perfect, mind you, but good enough for a sixteen year old from Northeast Kansas City. Granted, it still had the original 235 c.i. oil-starved Stovebolt six-banger and a crisp Powerglide transmission, but to me, it was the best blank canvas a budding automotive artist could ask for. I started making plans for an engine and transmission swap. To me this car was a Detroit Dream and my ticket to immortality..
My dad thought otherwise.
One day, dad offered to take me to school, and said he wanted to have the Chevy tuned up and lubed. He told me that after school, I could find him at the Standard station at Independence Avenue and Van Brunt. When 3:15 finally rolled around, I wandered down the street to find dad and my car, but when I got to the station, all I saw was Dad.
"Where's my car? I wandered back outside and looked in the parking area.
"In there on the lift." Dad beamed. I mean literally beamed. This was bad.
"I don't see it."
As I looked inside the twin service bays, I saw the mechanics, Lynn and Joel, huddled in the corner, pretending to be engaged in a meaningful discussion about fan belts or muffler bearings or something equally complex.
There were only two cars in the service bays - a '63 Ford Galaxie and a two-tone '57 Pontiac four door hardtop. It turned out that one of those cars was mine, and it wasn't the Ford.
"Dad!"
Dad, in his infinite wisdom had decided to trade in my "unreliable and unsafe" '56 Chevy on, get this, a '57 Pontiac - a FOUR DOOR '57 Pontiac - Sky Blue and Gunmetal Gray TWOTONE, FOUR DOOR, NINETEEN FIFTY-FREAKIN'-SEVEN PONTIAC. The salesman at Jerry Green Chevrolet just knew that I was going to love owning a Pontiac, and that the thrill of owning this fully armed and operational battle station would make me forget forever how much I didn't mind the noisy rocker arms and the admiring looks of my peers as I cruised Smaks drive-in in an awesome '56 Chevy.
Look how happy these people are with their new Pontiac. They're all drunk.
Long, lean, ladies love a Pontiac!
I woke up the next morning, quite sure that it had all been a horrible dream, but it was there, parked next to the house, and I was going to have to drive it to school. Every day. Until the end of time.
I think I may have spoken to my dad at least once over the course of the next few weeks, but I doubt it.
I'm not sure what kind of deep reality distortion well my dad lived in, but I'm grateful that there doesn't seem to be a repeating genetic component to it. I'm mostly normal. Please note the use of the qualifier - I'm just three clicks counter-clockwise from really normal, but close enough is good enough.
Over the next two years, I did everything I could think of to destroy that titanic Detroit monster, but it took a licking and kept on ticking. Our best trick was to load it with kids, take it up on Gladstone Boulevard and get it going backwards at about fifty miles per hour, and then slam it into "D" and mash the throttle. We kept looking back through the cloud of tire smoke for the pile of twisted metal that should have been laying in the street, but it never happened. I must have bought ten sets of rear tires in the first year alone. But no transmissions. It was bulletproof.
After a while, I settled into my role as automotive laughing stock and actually started to enjoy driving that big ol' Indian. Typically, I'd head off for school from 11th and Spruce, run up to 9th and Norton and pick up Eddie and Mark Saunders, swing by the Concourse and pick up Mike and Mark Rittermeyer, Karen and Debbie Stover and Al Ratcliff. That's eight so far. Karen always sat next to me, Mark was the shotgun rider. By the time we got to our regular parking place at the corner of Smart and Lawn, a block or so from Northeast High School, I had usually picked up a couple more deserving pedestrians, and we were well on our way to finishing our third cigarettes. The other cars would drive by and pay homage to the collected hormone casserole, by now oozing out of the doors and windows like a teenage soufflé, as we waited for our favorite songs to come on the radio, smoked even more cigarettes and waited for Frank O'Bara to drive his buzzy little red Mercury Comet as close as he could get to my car without clicking mirrors.
Occasionally, the contingent from East High School would come looking for trouble, take one look at all the circus clowns jammed in that blue car and hightail it back to their own territory across Truman Road. It bears mentioning that except for the sparkly and bespectacled Sharon Showers, my first young-boy crush, few of those of the East Bears persuasion were able to tell my Pontiac from a Patton Tank. Sharon cruised by every morning - every morning - and always waved and winked as she passed the blue whale in her Impala SS ragtop. I was too stupid and socially inept to realize she was trying to tell me something. Another opportunity missed.
Anyway . . .
The Pontiac earned a reputation as a bus, and rarely had fewer than five on board. One night, on a Shakey's run, one of the five was Steve Drinkwater. Steve was the consummate smart-ass, cut-up and class clown and that night, he was determined to piss me off. He sat behind me as I drove, and kept thumping me on the head - after a while, I got fed up. Steve's bad luck was that I had reached my limit at about twentieth and Blue Ridge Boulevard - "Dogpatch" unincorprated Jackson County - and that it was dark as hell that night. I dragged him out of the car, and left him standing in the middle of the road, staring at my taillights as we drove off. We went a mile or so down the road and pulled over and sat for about twenty minutes. By the time we went back after him, he was as white as Annette Funicello's bobby socks, and was extremely polite for the rest of the night.
When I finally got rid of the Pontiac, it was mechanically as strong as the day I first tried to kill it, but it was time to move on. One of dad's friend's friends had a '62 Chevy two-door post (you see a pattern developing here?) and we drove out to Grandview and picked it up.
I think I may have spoken to my dad at least once over the course of the next few weeks, but I doubt it.
I'm not sure what kind of deep reality distortion well my dad lived in, but I'm grateful that there doesn't seem to be a repeating genetic component to it. I'm mostly normal. Please note the use of the qualifier - I'm just three clicks counter-clockwise from really normal, but close enough is good enough.
Over the next two years, I did everything I could think of to destroy that titanic Detroit monster, but it took a licking and kept on ticking. Our best trick was to load it with kids, take it up on Gladstone Boulevard and get it going backwards at about fifty miles per hour, and then slam it into "D" and mash the throttle. We kept looking back through the cloud of tire smoke for the pile of twisted metal that should have been laying in the street, but it never happened. I must have bought ten sets of rear tires in the first year alone. But no transmissions. It was bulletproof.
After a while, I settled into my role as automotive laughing stock and actually started to enjoy driving that big ol' Indian. Typically, I'd head off for school from 11th and Spruce, run up to 9th and Norton and pick up Eddie and Mark Saunders, swing by the Concourse and pick up Mike and Mark Rittermeyer, Karen and Debbie Stover and Al Ratcliff. That's eight so far. Karen always sat next to me, Mark was the shotgun rider. By the time we got to our regular parking place at the corner of Smart and Lawn, a block or so from Northeast High School, I had usually picked up a couple more deserving pedestrians, and we were well on our way to finishing our third cigarettes. The other cars would drive by and pay homage to the collected hormone casserole, by now oozing out of the doors and windows like a teenage soufflé, as we waited for our favorite songs to come on the radio, smoked even more cigarettes and waited for Frank O'Bara to drive his buzzy little red Mercury Comet as close as he could get to my car without clicking mirrors.
Occasionally, the contingent from East High School would come looking for trouble, take one look at all the circus clowns jammed in that blue car and hightail it back to their own territory across Truman Road. It bears mentioning that except for the sparkly and bespectacled Sharon Showers, my first young-boy crush, few of those of the East Bears persuasion were able to tell my Pontiac from a Patton Tank. Sharon cruised by every morning - every morning - and always waved and winked as she passed the blue whale in her Impala SS ragtop. I was too stupid and socially inept to realize she was trying to tell me something. Another opportunity missed.
Anyway . . .
The Pontiac earned a reputation as a bus, and rarely had fewer than five on board. One night, on a Shakey's run, one of the five was Steve Drinkwater. Steve was the consummate smart-ass, cut-up and class clown and that night, he was determined to piss me off. He sat behind me as I drove, and kept thumping me on the head - after a while, I got fed up. Steve's bad luck was that I had reached my limit at about twentieth and Blue Ridge Boulevard - "Dogpatch" unincorprated Jackson County - and that it was dark as hell that night. I dragged him out of the car, and left him standing in the middle of the road, staring at my taillights as we drove off. We went a mile or so down the road and pulled over and sat for about twenty minutes. By the time we went back after him, he was as white as Annette Funicello's bobby socks, and was extremely polite for the rest of the night.
When I finally got rid of the Pontiac, it was mechanically as strong as the day I first tried to kill it, but it was time to move on. One of dad's friend's friends had a '62 Chevy two-door post (you see a pattern developing here?) and we drove out to Grandview and picked it up.
It was beige. It had a 283 and a 'Glide, but it looked more like a real car than anything I had owned up to that point. This wasn't good enough. I got the $29.95 Double-Whizzo metallic root beer paint job from Earl Scheib, bolted on a set of chrome reverse wheels with wide ovals, and proceeded to terrorize the streets of Kansas City - for about a week.
The bottom end of that motor was as loose as a prom dress at midnight, and it let go on a doomed Shakey's pizza run on I-70. There wasn't anything left in that oil pan but metal shavings and oily paperweights. Dad strikes again. Nothing money can't cure, so I dropped in another motor, new cam, carb, and air shocks and drove the '62 for a few more years. It caused traffic to come to a standstill on Keokuk Iowa's main drag. Used, abused, raced and disgraced, the '62 never let me down. Scared me a few times, but what's life without a few good butt-puckers? I'm entirely too fortunate to even be alive after my teenage years, and we haven't even started talking motorcycles yet.
Dad never got too involved with my cars after that, and watched my parade of Detroit iron - my '62 Corvair Monza Turbo Spyder, the '64 Barracuda goldfish bowl, and finally, the OPEC Special - my first ever brand-new car, a Gold '72 Mustang Mach I - shown below, actual size. Dad thought the Mach was highly impractical and way too expensive, (over $3500, in 1972!)
He was right. It was a handful of sleeper. 351 Cleveland without the Cleveland markings, four speed, four barrel. When I stood on the throttle, a cloud of burning rubber smoke proved my masculinity and my financial ability to buy tires. The interior was designed after a jet cockpit, or so it seemed to me. The radio even had FM! The console held exactly one bottle of Ripple or Boone's Farm wine. We were made for one another.
One day, just before I moved to Colorado, dad walked up to the me as I was washing and waxing the Mach I in the back yard.
The bottom end of that motor was as loose as a prom dress at midnight, and it let go on a doomed Shakey's pizza run on I-70. There wasn't anything left in that oil pan but metal shavings and oily paperweights. Dad strikes again. Nothing money can't cure, so I dropped in another motor, new cam, carb, and air shocks and drove the '62 for a few more years. It caused traffic to come to a standstill on Keokuk Iowa's main drag. Used, abused, raced and disgraced, the '62 never let me down. Scared me a few times, but what's life without a few good butt-puckers? I'm entirely too fortunate to even be alive after my teenage years, and we haven't even started talking motorcycles yet.
Dad never got too involved with my cars after that, and watched my parade of Detroit iron - my '62 Corvair Monza Turbo Spyder, the '64 Barracuda goldfish bowl, and finally, the OPEC Special - my first ever brand-new car, a Gold '72 Mustang Mach I - shown below, actual size. Dad thought the Mach was highly impractical and way too expensive, (over $3500, in 1972!)
He was right. It was a handful of sleeper. 351 Cleveland without the Cleveland markings, four speed, four barrel. When I stood on the throttle, a cloud of burning rubber smoke proved my masculinity and my financial ability to buy tires. The interior was designed after a jet cockpit, or so it seemed to me. The radio even had FM! The console held exactly one bottle of Ripple or Boone's Farm wine. We were made for one another.
One day, just before I moved to Colorado, dad walked up to the me as I was washing and waxing the Mach I in the back yard.
"Have you ever thought about a larger car, maybe an Oldsmobile. Might be safer."
"No, thanks, dad! I'm good."
"Just thought I'd ask."
A few days later, I hooked up a small U-Haul trailer to the back of the Mach I, and in the deepening gloom of a September Missouri evening, after spending the day packing and drinking beer with a few buddies, I took off for Colorado and a new chapter. I saw my dad cry for the first time.
"No, thanks, dad! I'm good."
"Just thought I'd ask."
A few days later, I hooked up a small U-Haul trailer to the back of the Mach I, and in the deepening gloom of a September Missouri evening, after spending the day packing and drinking beer with a few buddies, I took off for Colorado and a new chapter. I saw my dad cry for the first time.
