My sister and I were close in age so growing up much of what we did was in terms of 'we.'

Our very first car in 1954, built by my dad, had a lawnmower engine and the hood of the car was plywood. There was a little wooden ladder that hung on the side and we had a button to push to blow the siren - it was supposed to be a fire truck. I was in charge of the siren the siren.



Our next car was a 1936 Ford that had belonged to Maude Whipple in our small town. She bought it new and sold it to my dad 35 years later about the time we were learning to drive. My sister, being older did the most driving and we explored all the back roads in our area, driving to nearby farm towns. One time we buried a dead cat in the old Mead, Colorado cemetery at night. I wrote a song for the occasion.

The next 'car' was a 1955 or so International Harvester pickup, turquoise and black. It had running boards.

Next we had a 1965 Massey Ferguson Yellow Chevy pickup (my dad sold tractors for a living). By this time she'd gotten her license back and we drove to Loveland to go to high school. It was the same school district as our school in Berthoud, but the Loveland school was bigger with more diverse classes, such as both French and Spanish instead of just Spanish.

When I graduated from high school and was going to go to the same university as my sister my dad bought us a red Rambler two door sedan. It wasn't a Nash Rambler, it was something else. It had been in wreck so the doors didn't close very well, but we liked it, thought it was sporty.

The next year my dad gave me his old Chevy pickup - a 1969 model that I think was maroon and maybe black, or all maroon. It was a nice ride and I drove it until the spring of 1973 when I bought a Chevy Nova that had standard transmission. It was a bare bones car that someone had special ordered and the bank in my home town (my uncle was the president) foreclosed on the loan. I drove that thing until about 1978 when I sold it at an auction and bought Irma and Cyril Whitlow's 1976 Nova with automatic transmission.

Irma and Cyril were an older couple in my home town. He had been married to her sister Marge and Irma lived with them. After Marge died Irma and Cyril got married so their living together would look right. Their car was fairly new when they sold it to me, but had some dried snot on the front seat cushion.

Comments:

That photo could be of me and my sister. We were towheads as kids, 9 months apart, often mistaken for twins.

My mother had a Chevy Nova that was orange with a tan interior. I think they bought it after she graduated from nursing school and got her first full time job, so it was probably a '72. It was orange with vinyl seats, but automatic transmission. I liked her next car much better - it was a baby blue Chevy Camaro!

Sounds like a lovely childhood. Where does your sis live today?
I had a car only once before marrying Ed. It was an Austin that
had been in a flood. A friend of Jay's and mine, had it
cleaned up and gave it to me. It never worked right and would
fail in midtown New York traffic. I survived the trauma and
abandoned it. Thus I am here today to tell you about it.

Irma and Cyril must have a more fastidious sense of morality than most do today.

What a wonderful history...

I love your first car!! So cute and all of the other cars. My brother and sister-in-law had a white hatch back chevy nova with red and blue pin stripes on it. It had red seats and carpet interior!!

comment by texastar on July 14, 2008 8:40 PM ()

Oh yeah!! Same here!!

reply by texastar on July 15, 2008 4:35 PM ()

Thanks. We don't change cars very often so it's easy to remember them all.

reply by troutbend on July 15, 2008 4:10 PM ()