I was thinking about my first car the other day. I was gonna be in a pilot program my Senior year of High School that would require me to leave my High School at 1:00pm and be gone for the rest of the day. Therefore I would need a car. My Grandparents decided I could have my Grandmother's car and she would get a new one.
SO, I inherited a white, 1962 Buick LeSabre. It was loaded. Power everything. The only thing it didn't have was FM radio, but hey, in a 1962 model car, driven by a grandmother, would you really expect FM? AS a 17 y.o. girl, I couldn't have been any safer inside a TANK. A tank with power steering and brakes and AC. And gas was about $.30/gallon. Unless there was a gas war going on, then it would get down as low as $.19/gallon. No,children, I'm NOT lyin' to you! And I haven't lost my mind. I actually remember those Glory Days. It was before the first Arab Oil Embargo. Oh, my what a wonderful time it was.
The pilot program was called "Teacher Education". We had an hour of classroom time where we discussed theory of education. Then we went to elementary schools and spent 3 hours with K through 2 grade classes as Teacher's Aides. This was all unpaid, of course. It gave us a chance to see if we really wanted to be teachers. Some of us did, some of us didn't.
I also took an Honors Lit. class that year. One of the benefits of that class was that the teacher was a Patron of the Margo Jones Theater in Houston. He arranged fopr us to go to the full dress/technical rehearsal of all their productions during the school year at a reduced rate.
"What does all this have to do with my car?" you're wondering. I'm getting to that you impatient folks! Since I had a car and a lot of my friends didn't, I drove most of the time when we went to the theater. I was talking one night coming out of the underground parking garage, as a lot of teenage drivers will. I cut one of the corners a little too sharply. And hit one of the concrete support pillars!
Now these were pretty big poles. I'd say, if memory serves, about 12" in diameter {sound about right,gbro?}. And I took a big ol' chunk out of the one I hit. I pulled over into a couple of parking spots and got out to look at my beloved car. All my friends got out, too.
Nothing. We looked at the front. We looked at the side. We felt all over the fron and the side. Still nothing. Not a dent. Not even a scratch!
Like I said, a TANK with power steering and brakes and A/C. Take THAT,Civilian Hummer!!!
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2 comments:
Aha! My son is related to his Aunt Holly. Ask him about his run in with a concrete post--his truck didn't come out as well as your tank.
Hey, it was 33 years and counting ago. I get fuzzy on names. YOU know what I meant! Dammit! But thanks for the correction. You're what I have instead of a good memory, and I love you for it. If DaveBoy was still around I'd've called him and checked those pesky details.
I guess Margo Jones stuck in my mind since I walked by a bldg named for her at TWU, I think. And I graduated at Jones Hall in '73, so y'all of a certain age can understand my cornfrusion, right? Not everyoone is blessed with a steel-trap like Engineer's Mind!!!
Do you remember that car? Or just my Mother's station wagon I got stuck in your driveway?
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