Recently our daughter, Deb, posted a Facebook notice that she had bought a previously owned car to replace one incapacitated by rats chewing on the wires in the engine of her current run-about. She lives in the country outside of San Antonio and is accustomed to the challenges posed by bobcats, coyotes and scorpions, but this was a first-time event. Her posting, which included a list of the ten cars she had previously owned, prompted me to recall the vehicles I, myself, have purchased over the past seven decades.
During my high school and college years, when many of my friends had their own jalopies to drive, I walked or bummed rides with them. My father had no use for a car for the family; he, too, walked everywhere he had to go, or hitched a ride with a friend or relative. For some strange reason, when I graduated from Kent State and was about to go off to graduate school at Cornell, he decided I should have my own car to travel between Ohio and New York. He bought me my first car, a 1957, black-and-white Ford Fairlane 500, a four-door sedan with white sidewall tires. This Ford served me well on my visits to see Karen when she had her summer employment at Camp Wingfoot on Lake Erie. On the other hand, this model did have its electrical system problems, as I noted in my recollection, “House Hunting in Ithaca.” Nevertheless, that Fairlane made it through the winters of ice and snow usually found around the Finger Lakes. Its end came as the result of an elderly driver plowing into us when he made a turn from the highway into his own driveway as he completed his vacation trip.
At the time, we were living in a basement apartment in the home of the owner of the Volkswagen dealership in Ithaca. He sold us a grey beetle we named “Fritz,” the only car we ever personalized. For several years, Fritz accompanied us on our journeys between New York and Ohio as well as providing us with an adventure in which he almost fell on me after an ice storm. (That’s another story recalled under the title, “Falling Volkswagen.”)
We outgrew Fritz, who was replaced, after a few years, by an olive-green and cream microbus that saw us through winters in New Hampshire and a long journey westward to Corvallis, Oregon, as reported in another reflection, “The Oregon Trail.” That microbus caught on fire on a trip from Corvallis to Portland (see “Hot Hymns”) and was replaced by a grey Chevy minivan for the rest of our Oregon years and my cross-country return drive to Bethesda, Maryland.
The grey Chevy was the first car Karen drove, although she had made a few attempts with the Fairlane in the first year of our marriage. When that automatic-shift vehicle was replaced by stick-shift VW’s, she gave up her attempts. However, living in suburban Washington, D.C. prompted her to take additional driving lessons and make use of the minivan for local shopping.
The major driving issue during our first year in Maryland, was the need, each night, to re-park the van in our driveway so that it would face outward each morning in order to pull into the rapidly passing traffic on Cedar Lane, a major street heading into Bethesda. We were able to continue with only a single vehicle, since, upon moving from Bethesda to Wheaton and, later, to Rockville, I was able to share my daily commuting with two NIH neighbors. Before moving to Amherst, I sold this van to one of them, Will Nusser, who wanted to buy it for his son even though he knew from experience that, for some unknown reason, a hole had appeared in the floorboard on the passenger’s side of the vehicle.
The grey Chevy minivan was replaced, for the Massachusetts years, by a brown Mercury four-door sedan, a Marquis Brougham model which Karen would use to convey me, on a five-minute drive, to and from work on the UMass campus. Seven years later Ken and I drove in it from Massachusetts to Texas, with the parking brake partially engaged somewhere along the way, requiring a trip to a local service garage shortly after our arrival.
Karen and I agreed we would now need two cars to survive in Houston. My commuting car became a new Ford Pinto, bright yellow with a stick-shift and a clutch which was constantly engaged in my attempted commute on I-45. This compact car also took me, Ken and Kip on our father-sons encounter with West Texas. Ken planned the vacation; Kip saw most of it from a cramped backseat of the Pinto.
The brown Mercury, now replaced by a red and white Buick LaSabre for the family, became Ken’s means for traveling between Houston and College Station. To personalize his possession, he exchanged the interior roof with his own Texas A&M blanket. Later, the LaSabre became Chris’ means of going back and forth between Houston and San Marcos when he went off to college.
After a few years, the family sedan was replaced by a long, green Chevy station wagon. There was sufficient room for Chris to have the third seat in the far back where he would view where we had gone on our vacations, since he had to ride backwards. Ken and Deb shared the second back seat as well as they could. Fortunately, this station wagon resembled a small tank; it served Karen well when she was hit by an eighteen-wheeler on I-10, having driven several religious persons from the Cenacle, where she volunteered, to the airport. The ‘wagon made a 360 degree turn and ended up on the highway with no major damage to it or her.
After a few years, the Pinto was enlarged by exchanging it for a blue Honda CRV, one that lasted until we moved to Eagle’s Trace upon retirement and decided that one car would be sufficient. The station wagon was sold and the CRV was transferred to one of our grandsons, Jordan, to be used to help with his new family’s life.
Our current car, and no doubt the last one we will own, is a red Honda HRV. Like most males, I expect, I had always wanted a red car. I finally owned one, although it was debatable just how much I would actually be behind the wheel. Karen greatly preferred to be the driver rather than the passenger. This relationship lasted between 2016 and 2023, when she developed the condition of fused vertebrae in her neck and could no longer readily turn her head while driving, a necessity when in Houston’s traffic.
Over the last seventy years, I’ve owned ten vehicles, five of which have been vans or station wagons. I’ve never been overly interested in having a luxury-vehicle to show off. It appears that two of them were involved in accidents, one seriously and the other with no physical damages but with a significant psychological impact. Another minivan was lost through an accidental fire. It’s also the case that several had crumpled fenders from encounters with other vehicles or stationary objects. However, none of them were damaged by any animals eating their wiring! On the other hand, one of our cats, who liked to keep warm by sitting on the top of a tire under the hood, did meet with an untimely demise one cold morning when she did not jump off quickly enough when the motor was turned on. Evidently, both rats and cats do not do well with cars.