Notsocranky and Cars

Last week when I arrived in Boston after 6 days on the road (Frankfurt trip), my '94 Honda Civic had a flat tire. I knew something was up with it before leaving home (I found it VERY low on air one morning). As many cars do, the Honda has one of those little "suicide" spares that, *ahem*, aren't supposed to be driven over 50 mph. There's no way I was going to drive 50 or less from Boston to NH, so I put an extra wheel (one of the 2 snow tires we have for it), properly inflated, in the trunk. I double-checked the jack and threw in the metal pipe I use as a breaker-bar. I was ready for it to be flat when I got back.

Sure enough, the tire was completely flat when I reached the employee parking lot. After a quick call to Cranky to let him know I'd be a little late, I went to work changing the tire, even noting the time to see how fast I could do it. Five minutes later it was jacked up with the lug nuts removed. But the wheel did not come off! WTF?! Apparently it was rusted on. I tried everything I could to get that wheel off, but I finally ended up calling a repair service. The guy needed a sledge hammer to knock it loose! So after 2 hours in a rainy parking lot, I finally headed home, greasy hands and all.

That car does not have air conditioning, and I had already decided I wasn't going to drive in Boston rush hour traffic any more, especially with summer weather coming. The flat tire ordeal was the last straw! Last weekend, I bought my neighbor's '99 Toyota Camry. The following day, I sold the Civic. Ahhh...

It's just the latest chapter in my history with cars. This is how it all began.

On a nice day* in March of 1966 my father took my 3 sisters to go buy a new car. He bought a '66 Chevrolet convertible, that we called "THE convertible". My mother was not with them that day, because she was in the hospital giving birth to me! How would I know what was going on the day I was born? Whenever my birthday came up in discussion, my sisters would say, "oh yah, you were born the day we bought the convertible."


(Ours was light blue, like this picture from this '66 Chevy ad.)

I guess from that day forward, I was hooked on cars.

When I was a kid, I used to go looking at cars with my father. My 3 older sisters liked to go shopping with my mother, but I was not interested. I came across this picture of me recently but I don't know where it was taken or even what kind of car it is:


When I was almost old enough to drive, my father thought it would be a good idea for me to buy my own car. My sisters had shared a car, but I was the only kid left at home at the time. My father paid for half of it, so he had a lot of influence in the selection. He thought I should have a Volkswagen because they were easy to fix and the parts were cheap. So I bought a '72 Super Beetle just before I turned 16. My dad gave me a couple of shop manuals** for it and I was now a proud car owner. I even rebuilt the carburetor! Here it is:


My friends called it the "pumpkin". :))

But the car I liked to drive most was my father's '64 Corvette. I'd been washing it for my dad for many years. I loved riding in it when I was young. He would let me drive it occasionally while I was in high school and when I came home in the summer from college, it was mine to use. (My mother had given away my VW when I left home.) He used to say he let me drive it so I would come home to visit.*** My friend Alexandra ("Alex") and I liked to take it to the CT shore:



After my father died, my mother couldn't bring herself to sell the Corvette so she called me. Since I couldn't afford to buy it from her outright, we came up with a payment plan and the car stayed in my mother's garage in Connecticut. Shortly before Cranky and I were married, we drove it from CT to Tacoma, Washington, where we were living at the time. It was a really fun road trip.

Now it sits under a cover in our garage in New Hampshire. I used to drive it when our daughter was young (and the only kid), but I haven't had time to get it running again. Maybe soon....

* I assume it was a nice day. Why else would my father take his 3 little girls, ages 4, 6 & 7, to go buy a new convertible?

** The official Volkswagen manual and a Chilton's manual. I could fix anything with all that information.

*** Alex told me this. She saw him washing the Corvette one day and he told her he was getting it ready so I would come home to visit. Of course, that certainly was not the reason I came home. I hope he realized that.