Memories of the vehicular kind...

My son, Z man has developed a recent fascination with the A-team. While watching this has created some uncomfortable memories "Mom..did you really DRESS like that??" "Is that hair FOR REAL??", it has also revealed some that I had forgotten. Like the string of vehicles that have made their way through my life.

The very first car I remember (I was three) my parents owning was one like this:
a 1970 something subaru wagon. It was red and spotted with rust. In fact the rust is what I remember the most about it. There were rust spots that you could actually see through. I remember laying in the backseat (seat belts?!? No! Car seats? well..I DID have one, it was black patent leather and metal, but I rarely sat in it) playing with my toys on the way to PEI. I also remember opening the door while my mother was driving and almost falling out. Yea...I was a GREAT Kid!

This is the second car I remember. A Datsun b210. I remember the night my parents went to get it, they went with their friends Stan and Yolanda, and left me with their two daughters in Twin Mountain. When they got back it was dark (it was winter so it could have been 4:00 for all I know) and my mother kept referring to it as being "Baby shit yellow". She has quite the way with words.

We drove to Florida in that car. I was crammed in the backseat. I hated it because it was a two door and all I could think about (at 7 years old..geesh..can you say neurotic??) was if there was an accident there was no way I would be able to get out. I was happy when we got rid of it a few years later...and got:

a 1980-something econoline van. This thing was da bomb! It had a sliding door on the passengers side, and a HUGE window on the drivers side. In the back were two captains' chairs that were SO slippery that I was always falling out of them. The whole thing was carpeted. My father built a thing up over the two front seats to hold his CB and the 8 track tape player. We were stylin', Man! A few years later he built a set of benches in the very back that converted into a bed. My mom made custom covers for them...out of faux fur that looked like someone went big game hunting on sesame street and brought down the ferocious cookie monster. All we needed was a disco ball, I'm telling you. As hideously decorated as this was, it was by far my favorite travelling vehicle. It had the roominess, it was obviously a fashion statement with all of that carpet and fur..and most of all..it had the horn. Not just ANY horn...but the dukes of hazard horn...well..most of it anyway...it was missing the last note so instead of Dixie coming out: dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun it came out dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun.....and you were left hanging. But it was still awesome! None of my friends had the horn..of course now, looking back..I can understand why..but when I was a kid it was all about how cool being like Bo and Luke was :)

Then my mom got this car. An 80-something ford escort wagon. What memories do I have of this car? Well...I remember how much my mother complained about it and how often she called it a lemon.

Shortly afterward, she got this. A mercury Cougar. She loved it. This is the car I took my drivers test on, the one I took out on weekends and the only car I ever got impounded (that is a story all in itself). Some of my favorite memories were in this car. The mechanic messed up the blowers in the front....and there was no defrost...which, if you live in northern New England as we do, is a BAD thing. Being the ever inventive person she was, she grabbed some Velcro and some dryer vent hose and velcroed them to the vents that did work and pointed the ends up toward the window. It was like driving in a space ship. I loved it!

These were the cars of my childhood. After the cougar there were a string of others, but by then I had my own cars. Maybe that will be another post. What is the first car you remember your family having?