My Cars

Since college, I have had three cars. That doesn't seem like many, but I drive them into the ground. I actually learned to drive on a 1956 Dodge. It was black and white and had fins. It drove like a bus with a really big steering wheel. As I tried to get my driver's license, I took driving lessons from Baldwin. It was a good thing to do. We were going down the freeway one morning, and there was a lumber truck in front of us. I asked Mr. Baldwin if I should pass the truck. He told me that we either pass it, or we are going to die. Good advice, Mr. Baldwin. It took me 6 tries to get my license--4 times for the written and twice for the driving tests. I was trying to remember everything Mr. Baldwin had taught me. I tried to parallel park and did quite well, but forgot to take it out of reverse. I stepped on the gas to pull out of the place, and the car went backward and broke the backstop of the place. I looked in the mirror and saw the wood backstop fall. My mother then got a Plymouth Valiant. That was a good car. I didn't have a car of my own, until I got out of college, so I drove the Valiant when I could. I even drove it from Columbia to Anderson to see Sandra for the last time. My father never let me drive his car. I was a good driver. He just had reservations. When I got out of college, I worked for a year to buy my first car--a 1973 green Ford Maverick. I drove it from Columbia to Ft. Worth, and did that several times (1022 miles each way). It was a good car, but a little strange. There were times where I would cut off the engine, and it would remain running. There were other times where I would have to jam an ice scraper into the air filter to get it started. I had my only wreck in the car. I was coming off of the freeway in Ft. Worth. It had been raining, and the pavement was a little slick. I put on the brakes, and they locked. I slid into the car in front of me. I did $600 damage to my car and 50 cents to the car in front. The radiator was pushed into the car. There was some body damage. The car never really was the same. On my last trip back to Columbia, the engine blew up, but I got back. A mechanic told me that it was a miracle that it made it back. You know the scene in "The Blues Brothers", where their car falls apart upon getting to Chicago? It was like that. My next car was a Datsun Sentra. It was brown. I had that from 1979-89. I drove that car until I was about a block from home and heard a bang. I took the car to a gas station nearby and found that a nut had come off of a screw in the engine and had blown a hole out the back. They said that had it had blown upwards, which it should have, it would have killed me like a bullet. In 1989, I bought my current car--a white Nissan Sentra. It has over $160,000 miles on it, and is rusty, but it still runs. I rented a Kia recently to go to Atlanta for my Aunt's funeral and was impressed with that car, so that may be my next car, when I can afford it. Another million dollars I don't have.