I didn’t own a car in high school. I was able to borrow my parent’s car on the weekends in high school to go places. I also was able to borrow their car to get to my summer jobs. I didn’t really think about having my own car. Whatever money I made I tried to save for college. I went to college in Ashland, Oregon and lived on campus. I moved off-campus to downtown Ashland my junior year. I enjoyed the 2 mile walk to school. It never seemed to be a problem to me to not have a car. The first time I owned a car was when I got married, my husband came with a car! Unfortunately it wasn’t always working. We borrowed my parent’s car for our honeymoon down the Oregon and California coasts.
Brian, my husband, decided to buy a motorcycle a few months before we were married because his car wasn’t running. It was a Honda 350 bored out to 450cc’s and it had been used for racing…just what a 21 year-old college student needs! He made a down payment with his student loan and figured he’d make the monthly payments with the $50.00 stipend his parents sent him each month for college. That didn’t work out too well, once his parents learned he’d purchased a motorcycle they stopped the monthly stipend. This was our only means of transportation for a while. There was no place to put your feet if you were the passenger on the back…me. I had to just hold my feet up in the air. One time Brian decided to see how the motorcycle would do going up a steep dirt hillside with me on the back. It got about half of the way up and fell over with the hot muffler on my leg. That hurt and left a scar for a long time. Another time, being mature 21 year olds, we decided we needed to get a cat. The Humane Society was about 15 miles away in Medford, Oregon. We rode the motorcycle to the Humane Society and picked out the kitty we wanted. I had brought along a big burlap type purse. I still have the purse. It has a zipper on top so I could close it up, which I did most of the way home. I put the kitty in the purse, got on the back of the motorcycle with the purse on my lap, and away we went with my legs in the air. This was also while I was pregnant with our first child. The kitty survived the trip home and was a great cat, we named her Kippy.
The motorcycle had mechanical problems after awhile and we ended up with a blue 56 Ford sedan that had been an army surplus vehicle. It was named the “Blue Bomb” and had been in Brian’s family for awhile. I really liked that car but it didn’t last long either. Its engine blew up when Brian was driving to student teaching in Medford.
My first experiences with cars was not very good. The cars never seemed to work for long. They were old and inexpensive—just what two college students with a baby could afford. Over the years we had a ’55 Willys Jeep Wagon, a ’65 Jeep Wagoneer, a ’59 Chevy pickup, and a Volkswagen bus from the ’60’s. They all had to be roll started sometimes. I remember sitting in parking lots being so envious of everyone who got in their car and turned the key and their car started.
Once when I was shopping at a grocery store in Redding, CA. The Volkswagen bus wouldn’t start. I was 9 months pregnant and had Todd with me. He was five years old. The parking lot didn’t have much of a slope. I was outside the car pushing and then would try to jump in to start it. I ended up pushing it out towards the street because that’s where the down hill slope went. The bus ended up on Court street. Todd was behind the wheel steering and I was trying to push it back up into the parking lot. Thank goodness some men across the street at the donut shop saw my predicament and came running to help.
We always struggled with old dilapidated cars, until my Dad became a car salesman and we were able to buy good used cars from him. It is such a good feeling to drive a car that you are confident will get you to where you need to go and that starts up when you turn the key. I’m sure these days to have towing insurance. I still get stuck with car breakdowns, but at least I know help will eventually be on its way.
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