Butchblog

I’ve had a bunch of them – all kinds of colors and body types. I can almost measure my life by the vehicles I’ve owned.

            The first was a 1954 Buick Special – two-tone gray and white, a hand me down from my father, and the car I learned to drive in. My mother taught me – sort of. I mean she didn’t seem to be paying a lot of attention during our lessons. She mostly smoked cigarettes and looked out the window. Once when I went straight through a stop sign, she didn’t even notice. I was cool with that.

            Near the end of my senior year in college, I talked my dad into putting up the money for my first brand new car. I told him I would start paying him back when I graduated. I never did re-pay the full amount, which I still feel guilty about. Dad went with me to visit the auto showrooms. It was different back in 1966. There were fewer choices in cars, mostly all American-made – Fords and Chevys and even those ugly Studebakers, but I was attracted to the new Volkswagen dealership. The tiny cars seemed almost like toys, compared to the big Pontiac and Oldsmobile cruisers Dad and I test drove. I didn’t think then about the implications of a Jewish guy buying a car from a company that supported the Nazis; neither did my dad say anything about it, which I still wonder about. I ended up buying a dark green Beetle, with a sliding sunroof. Paid $1300 dollars, or rather Dad did. I loved everything about that car: the smell, the tinny little radio, the way it tried so hard to get up to speed on the highway, that extra gallon of gas holder so that you would always have enough to get to the next gas station. I felt the car was right for me.

            Unfortunately, that first summer after graduation, I was driving in the rain, too fast, hit a skid on the Long Beach Island Causeway, and spun halfway through a guard rail that stopped me from plunging a thousand feet down into Barnegat Bay. While the car careened, I remember thinking that I was about to die, which surprisingly filled me with a sort of inner peace. I survived, unhurt, but the little Bug was totaled.

            After that I didn’t have the heart (or money) to purchase another new car and settled for a series of $500 junkers. Most served me about as well as I thought they would. Some were even pretty cool to own, like the black 1949 Ford that I bought for $75 before anybody realized that such cars were “classics.”

            After I got married and my wife and I had our first child and decided that we wanted to move out west – hippies that we were – we got our limited cash together and bought a bright red 1972 Dodge pick-up. And I set to work building a camper home on the back for our cross-country voyage. I way over-built that rig, used 2×4’s and ¾ inch plywood for the body. The rear of the truck sagged, but it was cozy inside. I fashioned a bunk with storage space underneath and found an old camper stove. We felt like pioneers, travelling across the breadth of the country, stopping to camp by the side of the road or along a riverbank, waking up in a new place every day.  It was all a great adventure. It got us to Seattle, our new home.

            When our second child, Gabrielle, was born, we graduated to a full-blown recreational vehicle, an old one to be sure, but a damn beauty. Bought it from a friend for $1,000 – the best deal of my life. It was a 1969 International ¾ ton pick-up with a Travel Queen camper mounted on the bed. Though old, it had been treated very well by the previous owner, my friend’s dad. It had all the bells and whistles I wanted: foldout bunks, a full kitchenette with an oven, a sink and a propane furnace, and, best of all, an extension over the cab of the truck which served as a bed and hideout for Gabe and Jessie. The rig even had an intercom system so the girls could talk to us from their bunk while we were driving down the highway. The girls loved their little hideaway.

            We went camping almost every weekend and holiday when we had the Travel Queen. I was teaching during the week, but free once Friday came around. For a time, that vehicle saved our marriage. We didn’t seem to fight as much when we were on the road. It wasn’t just escapism, though that played a part. But in the camper, we had a shared purpose and destination; we worked together well, something we failed at miserably in our stationary environment.

            As the kids grew older and developed their own sets of friends, they had less and less interest in taking camping trips with Mom and Dad, and so we eventually sold the hardy Travel Queen. I still miss it. Funny how you can come to be so fond of an inanimate object.

            In mid-life, when I was a proper citizen and working hard each day to support my family and mostly forgetting about my youthful dreams and aspirations, I had boring cars. Just whatever would get me back and forth to work and look presentable. I have no fond memories of these vehicles: a yellow Volvo, a Ford Focus, a Volkswagen Fox, blah, blah, fucking blah.       

            And then after 22 years, my wife and I decided we’d had enough. I think we both were scared, but breathed a sigh of relief, and went our separate ways. I gave Cathy whatever car we had at the time. I truthfully don’t remember what it was. Then I went out and bought another pick-up, one with a shell camper, just big enough for one. It was time to start over.