The last big gas crunch was in the late 70's early 80's. My father had a side job where he drove a lot. Chevrolet started making smaller cars for fuel efficiency so my father bought...a Chevette. Being very interested in gas mileage, he bought one with manual transmission.
He actually had two of them. The first one he owned was silver, it was the first model they came out with. It met its demise before I was old enough to drive. My father inspected houses for an insurance company and drove all over Tennessee. On one particular occasion, the house was on a hill, he parked but didn't set the emergency brake. The car popped out of gear and was able to gain enough speed to jump a curb, clear a creek and nose dive on the bank. He bought a second one that I learned to drive with and yes it became my 'date car'. The unfortunate demise of the first Chevette was merely foreshadowing of things to come.
I'm sure that you can imagine the excitement of my dates when they saw me drive up in this fine piece of machinery. Little did they know the fun we were to have.
On one occasion, I was dating a girl that lived between Hendersonville and Gallatin. An area call Bluegrass I think. Anyway, at that time, it was a fairly new area and wasn't big on street lights yet. I drove my date home one evening, it was pitch dark we couldn't see a thing outside. She opened the door to get out of the car and immediately hit the ground. Unfortunately, I didn't get the car in gear when we stopped and we were rolling backwards and didn't know it. (We did continue to date)
On another occasion, I dated a girl whose driveway was at a steep incline. I went to her house one evening and when I left, we walked outside, the car was gone. We both thought it had been stolen (unlikely) I found it nicely perched in the yard of their neighbor across the street. It didn't hit a thing. I ran across the street, started the car, and drove home with heart pounding.
Right before my son turned 15, I bought a truck for him to drive. The one stipulation was that it had to have a manual transmission. He thinks it is because I want him to have certain driving skills. Little does he know that I just want him to have some stories to tell 30 years from now.
2 comments:
Ah the Chevette! On our first date, Richard came to pick me up in the family Chevette. It was banana yellow and had wood grain side panels! His parents had traded a van to Max Lucado for his Chevette. Oh well, that is a bit of Tara Trivia you probably didn't know, or care to know!
I was the date with the steep driveway! That story still makes me laugh until I ache. He really did just sprint across the street, start up the Chevette and drive out of their yard without a backwards glance. Soooo funny.
Post a Comment