Cars I Have Known

        When I turned 16 in the summer of 1963 one of the first things I did, just like everyone else, was to get my driver’s license. The second thing I did was buy a car. We weren’t one of those families where kids were given cars by their parents. Anything I wanted other than a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on the table I had to pay for myself. That included going to college, but that’s another story. Fortunately I had a job that allowed me to save money for the things I wanted, so I managed. The first car I bought was a 1954 Ford, painted bright pink. I’m not sure why it was that color, but I suspect it had been in an accident and the previous owner repainted it to cover up the remaining defects. It cost me $200.00, which seemed a little too much but I agreed to pay it. At first I didn’t use it much; I continued to ride my bike to school so I could deliver my newspaper route after my last class ended at 3:00. It came in handy on the weekends, though as I was the only one in my social group to have a car and we frequently went bowling, to the movies, or played golf. There were even a few dates scattered in there somewhere. The car had a stick shift of course, automatic transmissions being rare and costly in those days. It had no air conditioning, though, and this was Phoenix. It got hot in the spring, summer, and fall. So after just a few months I sold it (for the same $200.00) and bought my second car.   

        This one was a 1956 Chevrolet, and although it was still a stick shift it had air conditioning. This car was extremely comfortable except for the after-market A/C that sat between the front seats. There were no seat belts or head supports, and the windows were still hand cranked. The look of this vehicle was much more modern and streamlined than the ’54 Ford. That car still retained some of the look of the cars of the forties, while the ’56 Chevrolet was definitely part of the new generation. It didn’t get great gas mileage (maybe 10 mpg) but gas was cheap (maybe $.20 a gallon) and I didn’t drive that much anyway. I drove it for the rest of high school and for my first job after, a summer gig paying minimum wage ($1.25/hour) working with the paperboys the ranks of whom I had only recently left. I left it with my folks when I went to college and asked them to have it ready for me when I came home at Christmas and the following summer. It was there over the Christmas break but not the next summer.

        During the summer of 1966 I had a job at the Post Office as a substitute letter carrier. I got it by taking the civil service exam, and I always did great with exams. I would be given a truck to do the mail route, but I had to get to the office I was assigned to in South Phoenix by 6:00 each morning and there was no public transportation available that would get me there. I needed that car! But when I got home I discovered that my folks had sold it (for $200.00 again) because they needed the money. I guess they forged my signature on the title, but I didn’t ask. I told my Dad I needed a car to go to work, so we went out and he bought me a 1961 Fiat to make up for it. I bet you can guess how much it cost: that’s right, $200.00. I knew very little about Fiats, but that car was fun to drive. It was a four-speed floor mounted stick shift, and as I drove each morning I fantasized that it was a race car as I ran through the gears. Every day I picked up my friend Ernie, who also got a job at the post office, and we rolled in to work at 6:00 a.m. The Fiat was a tiny car, with a postage-stamp sized back seat, but its size and the fact that it had a stick shift meant I could start it by pushing it from the open door, jumping inside, shifting into first gear, and popping the clutch. I had to do this pretty regularly since the Fiat had a lot of problems, the battery and the starter being among them. Even though it was tiny we filled it with the four of us (me, Ernie, Frank, and Lenny) and would cruise Central Avenue looking for girls. The only time we were successful a girl in a car full of girls asked us if we had a light for her cigarette. Unfortunately we did not, and I imagine they got a good laugh at our expense as we drove away with out figurative tails between our legs.

         I never went home for the summer again after 1966 and it was just as well. I took a job as an actor/technician in a summer stock company in 1967 and was able to ride there and back with a friend who was also in the company. I had use of a company SUV that summer, but when I got back to college it was several weeks before school started and I had to depend on friends and public transportation to get around. I even got to Cleveland for the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, to which I had tickets. The young woman with whom I went not only provided a vehicle but also a room in her parents’ house. It’s not what you think; she was my roommate Joe’s girlfriend, and our relationship was purely platonic.

        I managed without a car for most of the next year, but in about March it became clear that I would need a car for the summer. I had accepted a job as an actor/TD/LD in a summer stock company in Colorado and this time I wouldn’t be able to hitch a ride. So I bought a used 1962 Chevrolet Impala for $225.00—the most expensive car I had ever owned! It had an automatic transmission, air conditioning, and electric windows. Because I was not allowed to have a car on campus I rented a parking placve in town. The extra expense was not crippling but it hurt. 

        I expected my 1962 Chevrolet to last through college and into grad school, but fate had other plans. It did well enough to start; I got to Colorado and through the mountains, and even down to Phoenix for a visit. Later that summer I went to Kent, Ohio, to visit a friend, and along the way met his girlfriend, to whom I was instantly attracted. I drove to Massachusetts for the wedding of my friend Kate, then known as Kathy. I made a quick trip to Pennsylvania to visit a friend’s family, and on the way back the transmission began to slip. So I put in some transmission fluid and it seemed ok. But I was worried. Turns out I had good reason to worry. When the transmission began to slip again I took it to a shop and they told me it needed a new transmission. The cost of that was barely within my budget (my roommate Joe and I were living off-campus in a studio apartment to save money), and would be less than buying a new used car, so I went ahead with it. When I got it back the new transmission worked fine and I used the car through the winter. In the spring, though, the engine completely gave out and repairs were beyond hope. So I scrapped the car and with it all my hopes for a smooth transition to grad school.

        During the summer of 1969 I worked as an actor in a summer stock company at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. To get there from East Lansing, Michigan, I took a bus to Chicago, the airport shuttle to Ohare, and a plane to Terre Haute, all the while totting all my worldly goods except for a trunk I left with my friend Dick in his fraternity house. Since at that time I had a portable stereo it was no easy task, but in the end I managed it. The portable stereo came in handy; the theatre’s sound system went out during a tech rehearsal and we had to re-record all of the sound cues on different media. I was able to jury-rig a hook up from my stereo to a tape recorder and all was well. I was desperate to figure out my next move. I had to get to grad school at Kent State and had no way to get there. Luckily for me one of the directors in the company, an assistant professor at Indiana State, had bought a new car and was looking to sell his old one, a 1962 Chevy II station wagon. I had played a small role in his production of Life With Father and we got along pretty well. I told him I was interested in buying his car but would have to pay it off over several months. He said that would be fine and he signed the title over to me and told me to send him the money when I could. I was able to repay that generous man before Christmas, and I was the proud owner of a station wagon. 

        That fine vehicle got me to Rochester, New York, to visit Carol; to Massachusetts to visit Kate, expecting the birth of her daughter soon; back to Rochester; and eventually to Kent State. It was the car I drove back to Rochester after the events of May 4, and the car in which we went to Letchworth State Park for our honeymoon (did I neglect to tell you that along the way Carol and I became engaged and got married?). It was the car that pulled our U-Haul trailer to Bowling Green, Ohio, for more graduate study. Unfortunately it did not see us through graduate school; in 1972 the overworked engine with more than 100,000 miles on it gave up the ghost. So we sold it for parts and looked for a replacement.

        We found one at a dealership in Toledo, Ohio. We could not afford a new car, or even a lease, so we bought another used car, a 1968 VW. We were taking a chance, since Carol couldn’t drive a stick shift and had only recently gotten her license. But the VW got us through grad school; a year of me commuting to Ohio Northern University where I taught and directed as a Visiting Assistant Professor; and our move to Philadelphia where I taught at Beaver College and where Carol taught part-time at both Villanova University and LaSalle College. It was well worth its cost of $1,000.00, even though (like virtually all VWs) it needed an expensive ring and valve job after it had gone 50,000 miles. But Carol still could not drive a stick shift, it was awkward for me to drive her to and from work and still do my job, and public transportation was time-consuming and unsafe. We needed a car she could drive. So we got a new 1975 Plymouth Valiant with an automatic transmission. Since we were both working we were able to pay cash for it—the incredible (to us) sum of $3,700.00. The Valiant served us well for nine years. It saw us through the commuting years in Philadelphia; the many trips to Rochester, New York, to visit Carol’s family; and our move to Rochester, Michigan, where we both taught at Oakland University.

        When Carol took a job teaching at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston we celebrated by getting her a new car: a 1981 VW Rabbit. We were officially a two-car family. I continued to drive the Valiant until I left Michigan for a job teaching at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, a mere three hours from Charleston. For the occasion of my departure I bought a new 1984 Toyota Corolla, a small car but considerably bigger and more comfortable than the Fiat I had owned almost twenty years earlier. The Rabbit had an automatic but the Corolla had a stick shift. As far as I could tell there was no reason for Carol ever to drive it, and so it proved.

        Nine years of owing a car seems to be a pretty good benchmark for us. We had the Valiant for nine years; Carol kept the Rabbit for nine years; and I kept the Corolla for nine years. While on sabbatical in 1990 Carol traded the Rabbit in for a 1980 Toyota Corolla station wagon. She liked the idea of carting things around, and it proved helpful in that way for—you guessed it— nine years. I kept the Corolla until I left Carbondale for Chicago and the Illinois Appellate Court in 1993. Then I made a major mistake. Instead of buying another Toyota, which was my inclination, I bought a new 1993 Saturn with, at Carol’s urging, an automatic transmission. She felt it would be better for driving in Chicago traffic. In that she was right, although rather than driving to work I took the elevated train (“the L”) every day. By 1999 I was working in Mattoon and living in Charleston. My work took me to courthouse literally all over the state. I needed a car I could depend on, and that was not the Saturn. 

        When Carol traded her 1990 Toyota Corolla station wagon in for a new Toyota Camry, I got an identical model for the identical price soon thereafter. The beauty of my job was that I got paid mileage every month for all of my travel, and the total over four years was more than enough to pay for my new car. The downside was that I put a lot of miles on a car in a very short time, so I was ready for a new car (again paid for by my clients indirectly, being charged mileage for my travel) in 2006, only seven years later instead of the usual nine. Carol more than made up for it, keeping her 1999 Camry until 2012, a total of thirteen years. She had been retired for three years, and decided she once again wanted the versatility of a station wagon. So she got a new 2012 Toyota Prius V, with a hatch back and folding seats forming a cargo area. She continues to drive it to this day, nine years later. 

        I also retired in 2009 but continued to drive my 2006 Camry until 2017, a lifetime record for me. In 2017, though, I decided I wanted a little more comfort and a lot better gas mileage, so I traded my Camry in on a new hybrid Toyota Avalon. I admit I could have picked a hybrid Camry and saved a lot of money, but I felt like the comfort and safety features were worth it. I still do. I also admit that I miss the monthly mileage checks, but the pension checks more than make up for it. 

        Carol doesn’t drive much anymore, but she really doesn’t need to. Because of the pandemic we have groceries delivered, and once a week I run errands to the cleaners, the pharmacy, Starbucks (for coffee beans; I make our own daily lattes), the health food store, or whatever else we need. I get her and me to doctor’s appointments, haircuts, massages, and manicures. We do our long trip to Oregon every summer (except last summer, of course) on Amtrak and a friend picks up our car at the train station and drops it back off when we come home. This summer we’re going back to Letchworth State Park to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary one year and two vaccinations each later. The only difference is we’re staying in the honeymoon suite we couldn’t afford in 1970 and we’ll stay in Hilton Garden Inns two nights each way instead of one night each way as we used to. 

        The only tentative plan I have regarding future cars is to keep the Avalon until I’m 80. At that point it will be 10 years old and ready to trade even if it has low mileage. I’m thinking that at that point I’ll want to lease something rather than make any long-term financial commitment. I’m hoping to get either an all-electric or a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, and by then I hope there will be sufficient infrastructure to support it. We’ll see. If I keep that car for nine years we can talk again then.