Memories of Diaries Automobiles Past
Today The Chronicle included their insert, listing and describing the 100 best area restaurants. I love reading about this subject and read about every restaurant. Although some had reasonable prices, many featured $300 fixed price dinners and $200 wine flights. Many of these require reservations and some have long waiting lists. I know the tech sector of San Francisco and Silicon Valley is well paid, but the prices still boggle the mind. I thought of writing about this but checking back…….I already have. Restaurants, pricey or not. and Restaurant Reviews.
So from restaurants I have known I’ll go back further to automobiles I have known. When I was 15 every kid was salivating over the fact that one could get a learner’s driving license at 16. This would become permanent after passing a test, which in my case was driving around the block where the police station was located, with an officer in the car. “Didn’t crash? You’re good to go, kid.”
I drove the family 1951 Ford which was one of Ford’s first automatic transmission cars. I remember the difficulty of my first stick shift, a 1955 Mercury. It was quite a while till I could smoothly engage the clutch without shaking everyone in the car. In college I bought a 1938 Plymouth for $50 and sold it years later for…...$50. From there we drove a 47 Plymouth sedan until we had graduated from college after which we started our run of Volvos, first a 444, then four 544s, then two P1800 sports cars.
For a number of years during the hippie era (actually, I’m still there) I drove Gastonia, my 1945 Chevy Panel truck. This had no synchromesh so it required double-clutching from 1st to 4th and back down. Happy times.
Two Hondas were followed by my Ford Probe. I loved that car but the quality control was lacking and it rattled no matter what I did, plus multiple A/C replacements.
In 2006 we got a Prius which has been a spectacular car in every way. And that was traded for a 2018 which is even better.
I know that younger folks have been eschewing owning cars, using Uber and Lyft when necessary. But car culture is so much of the American experience they will miss something. On the other hand all the ads on the few TV programs I watch are either for medicine (“side effects: loss of vision or death”) or wonderful automobiles driving down uncrowded roads into sunset scenes with flocks of birds. They will be around for a while, as self-driving cars gradually take all the fun out of it.
Do you remember some or all of the cars in your life? Is driving still (or ever) fun? Have you given up driving or owning a car? Which car was your absolute favorite? Do you still have it? Will you despair when the DMV takes your license away? Or even some other authority figure? (Your T-Bird)