1978 Cougar
She was chocolate brown with a white vinyl interior. I felt that Sex Pistols and Circle Jerks bumper stickers would add a certain something. In the end my father demanded that the 'honk if you're a jerk off' sticker be removed at once. Prompting a ridiculous argument where I insisted it was simply a matter of my freedom of expression, while my father's position was it was not up to the community standards.
The man, as always was more well funded and I caved. Tiananmen Square has nothing on Suburban Dallas man.
Best line in festival Express happens when Jerry Garcia is trying to get some kids to stop rioting outside the gates and he says something to the effect of;
'If we could have like 30 minutes of coolness man, we're trying to come up with an idea for a different kind of happening'
Sounding for all the world like Cheech and Chong. Greatness!
R
The man, as always was more well funded and I caved. Tiananmen Square has nothing on Suburban Dallas man.
Best line in festival Express happens when Jerry Garcia is trying to get some kids to stop rioting outside the gates and he says something to the effect of;
'If we could have like 30 minutes of coolness man, we're trying to come up with an idea for a different kind of happening'
Sounding for all the world like Cheech and Chong. Greatness!
R
posted by Robert_M at 11:29 AM
2 Comments:
If the Minter Blog will allow me a little latitude, I'd like to use the forum to launch my first car story. So here it goes . . . .
The first car is always the best car. The crappier, the better.
In 1982, I bought a 1969 Mustang off a guy in Pleasant Grove for $650 with after school job money I made manning the grill at McDonald's.
Nathan, the guy I bought it from, was a construction worker who got out of the joint a year earlier for marijuana possession. And it was quite evident from the looks of "Bertha", the name of the Mustang he sold me, that this was his daily work vehicle. It was caked from headlight to taillight in construction area mud. Underneath the mud, Bertha was some sort of metallic green. She sported four mismatched wheels and tires, a dented front fender, and a trunk that was stashed to the lid with trash. Nevertheless, it was love at first sight.
Not even flinching, I handed Nathan my $650. He handed me the keys. My Dad came with me because I was just 15. For some reason, he allowed this deal to transpire. And he was the only way Bertha was going to arrive at our house, or so we thought, because I wasn't yet a legal driver.
My Dad dusts off the front seat and starts a stubborn Bertha up. He backs her out of Nathan's unpaved driveway. We get about four blocks away from Nathan's when Bertha craps out in front of a dry cleaners. She would not turn over, but wouldn't start. So we walked back to Nathan's to ask him what gives. Nathan tells us "you just have to talk to Bertha." He comes back with us to get Bertha, hops behind the wheel, pats the dash pad and says, "Bertha, it's time to go to work." And sure enough, Bertha fires up with seven of the eight cylinders in the car that still functioned. Nathan agrees to get Bertha to her new home. And through her single glass pack cherry bomb muffler, Bertha roared all the way to Richardson without a hitch.
For months, I cleaned Bertha inside and out. I used a stiff bristle brush to scrub the mud off the carpet. I cleaned out the engine compartment that looked like it hadn’t been opened since 1971. I replaced the mismatched wheels with the correct wheels and hubcaps for a 1969 Mustang. I even cleaned out the trunk --- a monumental task that yielded a number of discoveries including a 8-track cassette of the soundtrack from "Thank God It's Friday" and a rusty Falstaff beer can that was so old, you had to use an oil can punch to get to the long gone lager. And once she was attended to properly, Bertha looked pretty good.
But in the four months I owned Bertha before I got my license, I spent a considerable amount of time just sitting in the car. I'd start her up and listen to her. I knew all of her foibles. If you didn't hit the gas pedal a certain way, she's stall. The steering was way, way off and would not stay centered. And when I got my license on April 30, 1983, two days after my birthday, I became the only person in the United States, save Nathan, who Bertha would allow to drive her. I'd done the time, and it seemed as though she trusted me. My maiden voyage was a 1 and half mile round trip to Tom Thumb for a gallon of milk. We were both so happy to have each other. My Dad, and other friends who wanted to take Bertha for a spin, were met with an immediate stall if they attempted to get Bertha on the road. It was just that kind of exclusive relationship.
Bertha had a stereo --- an antique Kraco with an 8 track player. Butyou could only get sound out of one speaker, unless the car was in reverse. So the only way to hear the super cool speaker fade effects when Billy Thorpe's "Children of the Sun" came on Q102 was to throw Bertha in reverse, a maneuver I performed on more than one occasion.
Bertha took me back and forth to J.J. Pearce High School for two years, to and from my next job at Chuck E. Cheese for a year, and got me home safely from numerous high school parties which usually involved a great deal of illegally obtained Michelob.
During the summer of 1986, I had the bright idea to take Bertha's engine out and replace it with a police interceptor motor I got out of an old California Highway Patrol car. This project didn't progress very well and came to a complete halt a few months later when I left Richardson for college. Bertha was relegated, engineless, to the back yard of my parent’s house for two years. After many complaints from my long-suffering mother, Bertha was eventualy sold engineless to a guy for $650, the same amount of money Nathan got for her four years earlier.
Bertha deserved better than me. We had years of fun together. And at the end, I felt as if I'd left her standing at the automotive alter. I still think about her to this very day. And I'd give anything to have her back.
Sigh.
You always have latitude on this blog for finery like this. You were such a responsible young man. I was riff raff.
R
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