Good morning.
The first car I ever rode in was a 1941 two-door Chevrolet sedan. It was green with ugly brown upholstery that smelled like a musty old attic, not the kind with mothballs to protect items made of wool. Getting people in and out of the back seat was a chore for everyone involved in the process, and the car was cold in the winter, despite some sort of heating system, and
wretchedly hot in the summer even if the windows were rolled down, by hand of course.
In 1952 my father purchased a gray Pontiac station wagon. By that time I was aware that he liked to pick up strangers waiting in lousy weather at the bus stop and give them a ride wherever they needed to go, and I always thought he got a station wagon because it had more doors and could hold more passengers. I met a lot of interesting people when it was raining or
snowing.
In 1955 he bought another station wagon, a Ford Country Squire the color of tomato soup. It was completely out of character for someone who liked to rough it in the woods with a couple of sleeping bags, a lantern, and canned stew, but the car went on a camping expedition across the United States the next summer. It stuck out like a sore thumb when it was parked in a forest of pine trees in Colorado but blended in a bit better at the Grand Canyon.
The vast majority of automobiles were manufactured in the United States, but a few were imported from Europe and were
kind of a status symbol even if they were small, like the Austin-Healey, the Renault, and the VW bug that was introduced in 1949. Everyone thought a bug was cool because the engine was in back. Nobody ever thought cars would be brought
in from Asian countries, or appliances either for that matter.
Convertibles were the bomb. People who owned a convertible were like the folks who had a swimming pool; they were cultivated socially by other people. Young men who drove anything, big or small, with a top down were dashing, even if they had bad hair and Coke-bottle glasses. The fair maidens who drove convertibles tended to be gorgeous with their long tresses blowing in the breeze. Even old people looked better, younger, more energetic. The sedan crowd was green with envy at anyone who owned a convertible but didn't have the courage or whatever it took to purchase one.
Doctors drove cars in conservative colors with MD on the license plate so other motorists would let them cut through traffic and get to the hospital. The clergy drove black, unremarkable cars that matched their professional attire; a Presbyterian minister tooling down the street in a white Cadillac would not have found favor with his congregation. My sense is the
men and women of the cloth still tone it down with their vehicles but the docs have branched out considerably.
The deal is that cars are an extension of the human person as anyone who has ever tried to take away the keys from an elderly parent will you. My father's last vehicle was a gray beat-up Buick, but I prefer to think of him in the flashy Ford station wagon. My husband's last car was an old gray Toyota but I still think of him in the powder blue English Vauxhall he drove in high school. Thank God he didn't have a convertible and we'll leave it at that.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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