Wheels

Spurred on by Shakesville’s Mustang Bobby, I’d like to tell you about my first set of gas-powered wheels. But first, check out my idea of procrastination . . .

Jess’s Eight Women Who Look Better Bald Than Britney. Yeah, it’s outdated, but I found this while making a point to an old friend and well PERSYS KHAMBATTA IS HOT, OKAY? Do hhhaawt bald women need any other reason?

Jackie Kessler gives it away. (An iPod Nano, three iPod Shuffles, and a Byzantine bracelet, to be exact.) No purchase necessary.

Who says ear, nose, and throat docs aren’t fun-loving guys and gals? All depends what you call fun. Watch that video to the end, and you’ll understand why some of the women I scope say (while watching themselves on the monitor), “Is that . . . ? NO! You couldn’t be down that far!”

Amazing, the poor anatomic knowledge some folks have.

Follow me below the fold for the coolest car ever made.

I’m not a car guy. Never have been, never will be. When I drove my mom’s ’66 Mustang in high school, guys my age would pull up alongside and nod, smiling, as if I were playing Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven at top volume, or I had three girls in the car with me, two in the back leaning forward to run their fingers through my then-ample hair, one in the front giving me head. From my peers’ points of view, it didn’t matter if I hoped to top Charles Manson’s greatest hits. The Car said everything they needed to know about me.

This isn’t the car, by the way. I don’t have a picture of it, can’t get a picture of it, will never again bounce my tush on those busted-out back seats. No, I found this on a Google Image search. It’s a fair match for my mom’s Mustang. She eventually painted it a shade of silver best described as Icky Gray Blech, and then she . . . well, stay tuned.

When I first drove it, the Mustang had been my mom’s car for about ten years. It had absorbed my mother’s personality. The Mustang was to neurosis what Christine was to homicidal tendencies. There are cautious drivers. There are aggressive drivers. My mother’s driving style can only be described as: Accelerate, accelerate, accelerate, NO NO GOD NO HIT THE BRAKES! no, too slow, time to hit the gas again OH GOD NOT AGAIN, THE BRAKES! WHERE ARE THE BRAKES? Phew! No, sorry, too slow, now where was I?

The Mustang handled like a whipped dog — cringing, servile, eager to please, quick to turn on its owner.

It tried to kill me at least once. The gf and I were driving through a bad part of East LA when the engine overheated. We pulled into a service station and the mechanic informed me I was very lucky. Why? Because I had simultaneously developed a leak in the coolant line and the gas line. I was dripping gasoline on an overheated engine.

Sometimes I wonder if the gf thinks about the Mustang. I taught her to drive in that car. She had two parents and three older sibs, but no one else would take her out for practice. I wish I could claim these as happy memories. One too many times, though, I would scream, “Turn left, LEFT!” ten maybe fifteen feet from the intersection. Yup, I was not a very pleasant driving instructor.

So, yeah. What happened to the Mustang:

My mom sold it for a few thousand dollars, and I do mean a few.

This was in the late 90s. Did she ask me if I wanted to buy it from her? No.

Sigh. Not that I needed a car that got only 13 mpg, highway, but it was the principle of the thing.

D.

13 Comments

  1. Dean says:

    Hey, maybe I should write about my first car.

    I have never taught anyone to drive. Actually, considering how incompetent most of the human race is, and how many cars and trips there are, it’s amazing that there are any of us left alive.

  2. Pat J says:

    The first car I ever drove was a 1982 Dodge Caravan — slow and boxy. The first car I ever owned was a 1988 Pontiac Tempest, right at the age where everything started to go wrong with it.

    Now I drive a ten-year-old Ford Escort, and I recently rented a Dodge Caliber. I should blog about that Caliber; I can’t say I was impressed.

  3. Da Nator says:

    You’re lucky. The first car I drove was a doo-doo brown, early 70s Delta 88. The second was a white, mid-seventies Skylark (with the old 88’s transmission jerry-rigged into it).

    Having moved to NYC at the age of 17, I’ve never actually owned a car! Those old ‘stangers are somethin’ else, though.

  4. kate r says:

    my first car = a little round yellow honda civic. Handled beautifully even though I named it “blister”

  5. Dean says:

    First car I ever drove was a 1963 Chrysler New Yorker. First car I owned was a 1966 Plymouth Valiant. It was the basic, basic, basic model. Didn’t even have a rear window defroster. The air vents were little doors with stiff hinges. They worked well, too, that car got major airflow going through it, important in the semi-desert in July.

  6. Walnut says:

    The first car I really-truly OWNED was a stinky beat-up old Plymouth Champ. Stinky because I cooked my own wedding rehearsal dinner, and this required me to spill adobo sauce in the “trunk” of the hatchback. I can still smell it.

  7. mm says:

    I learned to drive an AMC Pacer. That’s right. I was cool.

  8. First car I owned was a ’78 Ford Pinto (in, oh, 1988/89 or so). Ford evidently offered a V-6 as an option that year (the model’s last, IIRC) – and I know this how? Because I sold it to some guy who built stockcars for a living – he was looking for a ’78 Pinto because “…if they could get a V-6 into it, I can get a V-8 in there.”

    He thought it would be the perfect car for his wife; who am I to argue? I can just picture the monstrosity sitting at a stoplight, rocking from side to side because of all the excess torque put off by a V-8…

    Oh, and you ain’t had a stinky car until you’ve had a bottle of non-dairy infant formula ferment and turn into soy-cheese on you. Let’s just say that it was mid-summer in DC, I’d parked my car on the roof of my office’s parking garage, and a friend of ours had left a bottle in the back seat.

    Remember the scene in Pulp Fiction where Vincent and Jules blow Marvin’s head off in the back of the car? Imagine that scene played out with cottage cheese. Toxic, foul-smelling cottage cheese.

  9. Walnut says:

    I never doubted your coolness, Mo. But tell me, who’s that woman lurking on your blog profile-pic? She scares me.

    ps, I am now envisioning Great Cinematic Moments, a Redux in Food.

  10. Darla says:

    *whimper* OMG, that’s a gorgeous car.

    I thought I was fortunate to be able to drive my mom’s ’73 Mustang in high school. She too sold it for just a couple thousand bucks without even offering to let me buy it. And yeah, she cited the lack of fuel economy as a reason. Like I’d’ve cared?

    She apparently missed it, too, as she keeps buying new ones. The last one was a Cobra.

    No convertibles, though–mine’s cooler than hers. Unfortunately, it’s in the garage in San Antonio. Fortunately, the kid can’t drive a stick.

  11. Da Nator says:

    I just have to add an aside re: Dean’s Valiant. Those early and mid 60s Valiants were built to last. When my mom first got her driver’s license around ’76 or so, she got a little periwinkle blue Valiant that had already been ridden hard. It kept going like nobody’s business, through thousands of miles and several accidents, until my brother finally killed it by letting it run out of oil in maybe ’86. I firmly believe it would still be chugging along if it weren’t for that. Great little car.

  12. Walnut says:

    Darla, I want the new Miata, the one that goes from coupe to convertible with the push of a button. The ’66 convertible Mustangs, those were the best.

    Da Nator, that must have been before they invented planned obsolescence 😉

  13. Darla says:

    *sigh* I really want to look for an old Mustang convertible. No idea where we’d put it, but I’d make room. We don’t need a back yard, do we?

    Or, to tell you the truth, anything old. We have annual passes to the Auto-Technik museum, and I love to just wander around and drool over all the old cars. There’s an amphibious car from the 50s or maybe 60s (?) that I’d kill for.