Friday, October 17, 2008

My all-time favorite car

When I was young and beautiful with long, dark hair and flashing blue eyes and figure that made people stare, I bought a 1963 metallic dawn blue Pontiac Bonneville convertible with a matching blue top. A heavenly car - full of power, soft as morning, flashy - this convertible bespoke everything I wanted to be. Unfortunately, I was not yet 21 years old; so the car could not be in my name. I put the car in my lover's name, but no doubt about the true owner.

We went tripping out to Arizona to help her grandmother take care of Grandpa. I loved them dearly. Grandpa finally died of emphysema and congestive heart disease. Before that I often sat outside with him under the palo verde tree and watched him carve. I still have a six inch rifle that he carved for me. Grandma went back home to visit for a few months. Wanda and I moved into an apartment while she was gone. Wanda was gone a lot...and I was left without my beautiful convertible.

When Grandma returned, we moved back in - or at least I did. Wanda, it seemed, had business and love elsewhere. She'd had this love for all the time we'd been together (which really wasn't very long in time but was very long in miles). I asked if I bought her a car would she sign the convertible over to me when I turned 21. Yep. So, I bought her the cutest 1956 Ford - all jazzed up. She moved out and I continued to live with Grandma. We got along fine.

Once when the yard was flooded for irrigation, the fuse blew. The fuse box was in the back of the house; so I donned rubber boots and went around to see what size we needed. They box was taller than me, and I could see that it had those old long tube fuses. I couldn't do a thing. Came back inside and called the fire department. You know those folks came along very quickly (and quietly) and changed that fuse for us. Yep, Grandma and I got along okay.

But I thought I loved Wanda and I longed to be somewhere else. So I put the convertible in the shop to have the ball joints replaced and made my plans to drive to South Dakota to see a guy that I knew and liked. He promised to find me a place to stay while I was there.

Wanda refused to sign the car over to me; she said I didn't need to be driving alone from Phoenix to Sioux Falls. I was tired of taking her stuff; so I talked with the mechanic. He agreed to hold the car until she paid for the repairs or possess it with a mechanic's lien; he didn't like what she was doing either. So, I took the money I would have paid for the repairs and bought a plane ticket to Sioux Falls.

And, that was the end of my beautiful 1963 Pontiac Bonneville convertible.

Here are a couple of pictures of cars from the internet that resembled that one: (my apologies to the owners of these cars - I lost the site address.)

5 comments:

whaleshaman said...

This one's for sale!

It looks just like the beauty a high school friend had [really his father's]. Several of us seniors spent a Saturday [45 years ago], top down, speeding around our little town, trying to get the friend arrested. Rumor was he couldn't be drafted if he had a record.

Needless to say, the cop knew us all, threatened to arrest even the passengers, but sent us on our way with a benign lecture, as I, at 16, blathered on about my civil liberties being denied. That's when he said he'd tell my parents.

I don't know what happened to our friend. Far as I know, there were no war casualties from my class.

Wow, your stories, thanks.

[I stopped in for the first time earlier this week after a "cane begonia" google search--mine won't bloom, I think it needs more sun. Yours is pretty.]

PS: It was a great car for making out, since you could practically lie down across the front seat, the car was so wide-track!]

Enjoy your peaceful retirement, we're not quite there yet, another year or two, I hope. And thanks again for sharing.

Forsythia said...

Oh, those 60's cars. Big as battleships and just as hard to park. Mom had a Cadillac coupe from the same era. In the 90's I had to drive her to Erie to get her cataracts removed. Boy, did I have a time shoehorning that thing into the 90's era space ini the hospital parking garage.

Judy Vaughan-Sterling said...

What a pang of nostalgia I have at the moment for my 1967 blue Malibu, my very first car! I bought it with 88,000 miles on it (who does that? How silly!), and I ran it till 1978 (226,000 miles. Try getting that out of a car today!).

Ah, those were the days.

Janis Bland said...

I have truly enjoyed reading your life's story. {{{Sharecropper}}}

Love the cars too! I'm on the tail end of big cars for driving tests -- I had to parallel park a honkin' '76 or '78 Delta 88. Big enough!

Janis Bland said...

I have truly enjoyed reading your life's story. {{{Sharecropper}}}

Love the cars too! I'm on the tail end of big cars for driving tests -- I had to parallel park a honkin' '76 or '78 Delta 88. Big enough!