No, a tree hasn’t fallen on my house. Yet…
But the GG came home and, sandwiched in between conversations about our jobs (nothing bad but you don’t wanna know), he randomly brought up the topic of the Chevrolet Corvair. Well, yes. My family owned one of those once. I wish I had a picture of it but, although one probably exists, I don’t know where it is. The Corvair is the third car that I can remember. My baby car was an old black Ford of some sort. I remember being driven all over the place in that vee-hickle. Down to the locks in Sault Ste. Siberia. Out to the cabin over the old gravel roads. Down to St. Ignace to have lunch watching the Mackinac Bridge being built. Daytwa to visit my grandparents. “We go to Detroit in the middle of the night.” Meaning that we had to leave Siberia at something like 3:00 AM in order to catch the first ferry across the Straits of Mackinac. Where there is now a large suspension bridge that I twitter about whenever I cross it. I still remember the ferries.
Around the time my brother was born, Grandroobly bought another Ford. I don’t know the model. The Engineer would and maybe The Commander will comment. It was two-tone, light green and white. I remember It was kind of a lemon in some ways. The Corvair was more of a lemon. Once when we tried to drive north from our grandparents’ house in Daytwa, Grandroobly almost decided that we wouldn’t make it, but somehow we did.
It turned out that my high-school boyfriend ended up owning that dern Corvair. It was his first car and I don’t think he bought it from Grandroobly. I think there was at least one interim owner in between. I don’t think my boyfriend was old enough to drive when Grandroobly sold the Corvair. By the time I knew him, he had a brand new AMC Gremlin. Remember AMC? Cool car and the one I drove around in with him. With Alice Cooper playing on the 8-track tape deck. “I’m eighteen and I don’t know what I want.” Yawn. Goodnight. -KW.
March 3rd, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Eight track tapes–ah! I remember the Corvair and the Gremlin. (never owned one though) We had a silver Vega.
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:12 pm
I had a Corvair for my first car and I loved it. It took me to school and work. I was sad that I had to sell it when I got married. My brother Garth needed a car so he bought it. It was a good cat=r for us.
March 4th, 2010 at 1:37 am
My very first car was a 1965 Barracuda. V8. My dad bought it for me in my junior year of high school and my mom had a fit because “those back seats lay down!” I had absolutely no idea why that was an issue.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
I think we still have the KEY to that old Ford! Apparently that car was significant in the life of The Engineer, for him to have so carefully preserved it!
And… do you remember that The Engineer briefly owned a Gremlin, too? Bought it off another Toot while we were still at Tech, then he had to “pop-rivet” some sheet metal over some of the rusted-out holes in the door panels (guess it was to keep the snow out, eh?). He didn’t keep that one for very long 😉