Recently Max at Power Pop… posted about his first car and asked others what their first car was. I talked about the Chevy Impala my dad bought me and the big engine it had (a 454 I think it was, spoken as a non-mechanic) and how I used to love challenging others at traffic lights. Vic asked me earlier how many races I’d ran and how many I won. I mostly did the challenging without any finish line, similar to foreplay without completion. It was still fun.
That made me go looking in my old photo albums, as I knew I had at least one pic of the car. I found one but it isn’t of the whole car, as you can see. The kid is my baby brother. My mom, stepdad, and siblings had moved out to Coopersville, a small town about 20 miles out of Grand Rapids. My mom worked as a bartender in a nearby berg and my stepdad worked for the C&O Railroad in Grand Rapids so the move out there benefited both of them. Me, being a rebellious 16 year-old teenager, decided to stay in town and live with my dad. He bought me the car, but he didn’t realize I’d dropped out of school 6 months afterwards and was hanging with a rough crowd. There is a lot more to this story, but I’ll leave it here for now.
I was almost 18 when this pic was taken. My dad gave me the car back and I ended up living out in the sticks for awhile with my mom and stepdad. I used it to get back and forth to my first real job aside from babysitting, at the small town bakery (Kastelins.)
Tao Talk 
awesome!
It sounds cool! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I bet that car had to have a hell of a takeoff! It probably got around 12 mpg…but gas was what? 50 cents a gallon?
I could look at seventies pictures all day. I love the color tone and warmth of the pictures. I get on youtube and check out seventies home movies of towns and old cars.
Great post Lisa.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Max. You’re right gas was way way cheaper then. I honestly think that hard copy pictures are on their way out. Everybody seems to store them digitally nowadays 😦 Old pictures mean a lot to me. Sitting around the table going through the photo albums was something my family used to do. That’s neat you check out those old movies and cars on youtube.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We did the same thing. We picked up my sister today and she brought pictures. A picture is a tangible memory…hard to beat that.
Yea I’m sad about hard copies are leaving.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah…that sepia shade to the pictures.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds like you were really badass, Lisa, getting into car challenges!😆
I guess I was a “good boy” and not much of a rebel. I was more on the shy side. I became more outspoken once I turned 17/18.
At that time in Germany there was lots of debate about nuclear missiles and whether you needed more when you already could kill mankind multiple times over with the existing arsenal.
I became a bit of an activist, going to large peace rallies, demonstrating against nuclear missiles. I was a fierce critic of the Reagan Administration.
Some of these rallies drew several hundred thousand people! Various prominent German music artists supported the “peace movement” and I got to see some of them live. These were my very first live concerts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Christian, I was more just bad lol. I think that’s why I loved my old job so much. I really knew where these kids were coming from. There is nothing wrong with being a “good boy” and it sounds like peace activism and music are linked in your mind. Sounds amazing to be out in a crowd of several hundred thousand, pushing for peace.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I started out in my mothers 62 Bel Air; white with no ac. Then she let me drive her 64 Impala, which at 14, I should never been behind the wheel. I actually gave my wife a few rides in my moms car, she was 12 and her brother was my age. In the day, we could obtain a drivers license at 14. Texas was different, everyone drove a tractor, a truck, a Cushman scooter or a car of sorts. We didn’t need no stinking license or insurance, we just got in that bitch and drove. I eventually got the 64 Impala as my main ride. It had a 327 and AC, but black plastic seats. I still have burn scars on the backs of my legs and butt. Upon graduation in 69, I was awarded a 68 Chevy Malibu 327, 4 speed with AC. I was extremely impressed with myself and proceeded to garner many traffic tickets, as we all did back then. My wife’s Dad drove a Lavender 65 GTO, 4 speed 389. She would borrow it for a trip to the library and then drag race us guys on Renner Road. She always won. Now we both drive Honda’s. Getting old aint for sissy’s.
LikeLike
Um…I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass, here but, your photo, above, isn’t a 1968 Impala. The back-end is too short and the tail-end/trunk door has waves or indentions. A ’68 Impala trunk is smooth and rounded down.
Your original link:
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1968-chevrolet-impala-ss396/
The back end doesn’t match.
Here is a 454 (big block):
http://davidsclassiccars.com/chevrolet/422119-1968-impala-fastback-454-big-block-stroked-to-482-disc-brakes-street-muscle.html
I don’t doubt your own memory but, the picture doesn’t match an Impala.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh it’s an Impala. I know that much.
LikeLike
Do some investigation on a 1969.
LikeLike
Also, Vic, if you want sworn affadavits (with accompanying DNA verification that he is my biological kin) from my brother, I’m sure that can be arranged lol
LikeLike
you always remember your first…car! those Impalas were nice cars… lots of people in my neighborhood had one that looked about like what I can see of yours. First car I remember our family having when I was a kid was a Pontiac Parisseienne , of about the same era…much like an Impala. It was huge inside and had a huge trunk.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, you do! Dave, I just googled that car and it’s a beauty. The old cars did seem so much roomier inside. I love the old style cars! There’s a car museum, “The Gilmore” a little bit east of Kalamazoo, way out in the boonies, that has every kind of car you can think of. I’ve been there multiple times and love it every time! The really old ones are HUGE!
On the subject of old cars, my stepdad had a Buick Wildcat convertible. The body was a dark color (blue?) and the top was white. No wonder my mom fell for him 😉
LikeLike
Never owned a car. My younger daughter, who hasn’t driven in years, and has also never owned one, is obsessed with them though. Go figure. (K)
LikeLiked by 1 person
One of the benes of living in a place where mass transit is streamlined for distant things in the city and everything else is within walking. Not easy at all for you all during Covid though. Are things starting to get back to “normal” in the transporation respect there? One thing I know about owning a car is that it is *expensive* to buy, to insure, to plate, to put gas in, to repair, to change oil, etc. I’ve dreamed of living somewhere where I don’t need a car for a very long time. What is it your younger daughter is so obsessed about with them? Oh, I forgot, they are also damned dangerous! So many people drive drunk or otherwise medicated, texting, distracted, etc. Feel free to show her this comment lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
She likes the way they look–some of them anyway. Always on the lookout for interesting ones.
I always wonder how anyone can afford a car. My older daughter uses zipcar when she needs one, although she fantasizes about the convenience of owning one. But the cost brings her back to earth.
I can pretty much walk to anywhere I need to go now, but I’m thinking of getting on the subway again to go up and take stock of what’s in the storage room. Just a hump to get over, like that first visit to the grocery store after the lockdown. Fingers crossed there’s not another surge in cases–I’m not sure our health care providers can get through much more.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think she possibly could satisfy her jones by going to a dealer and doing some test drives. Not sure if you have car dealers in the city or if they are in the burbs? You know what would be cool? Having a car share, where 7 people would go in together on one and share the expenses and use it one day a week, or some arrangement everybody likes. Wow, that would actually work if you had the right group of people.
My DIL has a drivers license but she has no car and never drives. My son or her parents get her where she needs to go.
I understand about not being super keen about getting out in it again. I still don’t go in grocery stores, I do curbside. I do hope you get a chance to go to your storage room as I’m sure there are lots of goodies in there 🙂 I hear you on the health care providers! Where my older son works they’ve had to hire “travelers” to come in and also some branch of the govt (state? fed?) sent in a special team to help lighten the load.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There are lots of kids who grow up in the city that never drive. Some never even get licenses. It’s been so long for me–I wouldn’t trust myself. It sounds like a good idea to share a car, but not sure how it would work in practice. There’s always one, if not more, that bend the rules.
I’ve heard that about traveling nurses. That’s a tough job under the best of circumstances. I know there are shortages here too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, the car scene when you’re sixteen is most boys centre of attention. Well, that along with certain other driving urges. For what it’s worth my first car was a mustard hot dog yellow Renault of some sort. It ran maybe twenty miles and oilily expired, and we pushed it onto the ‘lawn’ by dads garage. Someone towed it away for parts eventually. Piece of merde.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dangit that isn’t a very long life for a car. It would have been easy to see if you’d gotten to drive it more.
LikeLiked by 1 person