Yesterday I happened to drive by the neighborhood elementary school and found myself caught up in traffic just as school was ending for the day. There's a circular drive in front of the school and the parents/caretakers start lining up in their cars around 1:45pm. Over the years I have, thankfully, noticed that the SUVs and mini vans are not as popular as they once were. They may be practical but so are station wagons and I can see around those.
My parents had a white Chevy Impala station wagon during part of my years in elementary school. We even had it during our time living in more than one state. That was unusual for my parents. They liked to trade every few years and always have a new/almost new car. Which brings me to a childhood experience that, as I loved to tell my father, 'scarred' me for life.
My dad had been transferred to a town in South Carolina called Aiken. There wasn't a real Air Force base there. Just a place called Aiken Air Force Station. Aiken was this kind of sleepy, pretty little town with green rolling hills and lots of trees. It wasn't too far from the South Carolina/Georgia state line. We lived there in the mid-1960's for just over a year. Ironically, in the years since, Aiken has become this posh country club town with lots of seasonal wealthy people and their thoroughbred horses. Who knew?
I was seven and in the second grade. Pam had started kindergarten and Carol was born during the time we lived there in May of 1963. There wasn't much to the Air Force station so we lived in a pretty house in one of the neighborhoods and I went to the local elementary school. My dad often picked me up and dropped me off at school. I don't know if it was because it would have been too far for me to walk or if there was no bus system. At 7 years old, I wouldn't have been allowed to walk alone, anyway, even though Aiken wasn't exactly a hotbed of crime.
During our time there, I knew that my father had found some sort of old car that my grandfather was interested in buying. Finally Dad brought it home one night. It was this ugly old dirty black car with big buggy looking headlights. Dad found someone to 'restore' it before my grandfather saw it. I know now that it was a Ford Model A (similar to the one pictured). I didn't know that then and didn't care. It was old and
ugly. Even after a new paint job and new seat covers -- I remember they were red -- I wasn't impressed.
Then, one day the unthinkable happened. I was looking for our station wagon while walking out with some kids from my class and wondering where my dad was. That's when I saw it. NO!!!!!!!!!!!! Dad was there to pick me up in the Model A. I ran over to the car where Dad had opened the passenger door for me and hoped he'd hurry up and get as far from the school as possible. Ugh. Dad was smiling the whole time while I asked him "why are you driving this?", "I didn't think it would even go", "where's our station wagon?"
Dad said he decided to give the Model A a spin and that it was fun. I was mortified that my friends saw it. He just laughed and told me it was a 'classic' and to enjoy the ride. I was getting knocked around by the not-so-smooth ride and the car was so loud that we almost had to shout to talk. Poor Dad didn't realize that his explanations and attempts to explain the history of this car didn't matter to a 7 year old girl.
After that, Dad took me to school a few times in the Model A because people he worked with wanted to see it. I begged, pleaded, wheedled -- everything I could think of to get out of being seen in that car. I asked him to
please let me off a block before the school ("I love walking! I never get to walk enough"). He said that was silly and that the other kids liked seeing the car. I told him, melodramatically, "but, everyone will think we're poor!" That didn't work, either. The best I could do was slide down as far as possible in the seat clutching my red plaid school satchel
until I could make my get-away. I practically ran to my classroom holding my satchel almost to my shoulder in a vain attempt to hide. I remember looking back and seeing my dad showing the car to some of the boys. Meh. Boys. What did they know.
When we took our next vacation, just before being transferred to Kansas, we towed the Model A from South Carolina to Florida. My grandparents lived in Tampa and we visited them whenever we took a vacation, usually during the summer. It was actually kind of cool towing the Model A behind our station wagon. People kept honking their horns and pointing to the car and smiling. Whenever we stopped for gas or to eat, people gathered around and asked my dad questions about the car.
My grandfather loved it when he saw it and kept it in a separate garage/tool shed behind his and my grandmother's house. Later, Pam and our cousin Ricky and I got to take a ride in the rumble seat. That really was fun. All three of us squeezed into a seat really meant for two but we were small enough that it wasn't a problem. The rumble seat ride helped to salve my wounded pride from my humiliation in Aiken -- but only a little.
