I went to a car show recently. Those old cars fascinated me. Not so much by their innards or their sparkling like-new painted bodies, but by the memories they invoked in me as I wandered around them.
I saw a Ford Fairlane 500. That was from sometime in the late 50s or early 60s. Beautifully restored. But what I saw in my mind was the chestnut colored car that got fender-bended the minute it was off the dealer’s lot. Yep. Dad was unhappy! He paid to fix that car and within a week, it got crunched again. And again, the cycle repeated. Finally, Dad gave up. “That car is a jinx!” It went bye bye. Ever since, we remember The Jinx whenever we see an old Fairlane 500.
I wandered over to the “big boat” cars. I learned to drive on an Oldsmobile Delta 88. Oh my goodness. When I looked at that VERY LONG car, I thought, “what a sin to put a 16 year old behind the wheel of that and expect her to parallel park it!” No wonder I spun that car into a snow bank the first time I drove in a snowstorm! At least, sitting in the middle, there was plenty of protection!
Next I looked at a Dodge Charger. Oh yeah! I remember when driving a Charger with the Beach Boys blaring from it was pretty cool. The dashboard surprised me because it was so simple compared to the cockpits of today’s superchargers.
Plenty of my friends drove Chevy Novas. This looks like the calm kind of family car that it was. And I always remember the Dodge Dart being a short shrimp of a car. Nope. My memory is faulty. It was a long car, too. Just not nearly so long as the Olds.
The Model T’s were fun to look over. But, probably my favorite was the box like car probably from the 1920s or 1930s. By the time I remember that car, it was on a racetrack with a few other look-alikes, going in circles. I don’t think they could go very fast, but in the 1950s, it seemed so. My Grandpa, who is now in heaven, drove a brown car on that racetrack. He even got some winner trophies. I’ll never forget our family outings on Sunday afternoons as we watched Grandpa fight his battles on the not-so-fast speedway.
Funny the things that bring our memories back to life. Old cars. Who’d think it?
“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; But we will remember the Name of the Lord our God,” Psalm 20:7.
Leave a Reply