I have read that cowboys depended on their horses so treated them well. I have depended on my cars and have usually treated them well. Sometimes they treated me well.

Sometimes not. Most of the time they did.

My first car, my brother’s hand-me-down 1936 Plymouth, which I received when he bought his brand-new 1953 Ford, was a gem. She had that romantic tar top and windshield that you could crank open, although I never tried it because I never thought bugs splattering on your glasses helped your driving much. She had a "cool" electric heater, which sat on or just above the floor of the passenger’s side and which worked pretty well. She had those great old vacuum-driven windshield wipers, so when you stepped on the gas they would slow down or stop -- adding sport to your driving fun.

She had a long gearshift lever on the floor and was geared loosely -- by the mid-1950s. One day as I approached a "stop" sign on a snowy road and she began to slide, I slipped that long lever into reverse and backed up to a perfect stop.

She also had a somethingorother, perhaps called vapor lock, that on hot days made her stall and stay stalled. Luckily she usually stalled near Valley Creek, and I carried my fishing pole. Waiting for her to start wasn't all that painful.

That 'good old days' car reminds me of the 1962 Studebaker station wagon* in Southwest Harbor I show the tourists on my Island Explorer bus run. I ask them if that car reminds them of the good old days, and, of course, the older folk say, "Yes." I then ask them if they remember the tires on those 'good old days' cars, which when they went flat, did so, right there and right then. You were driving along, and then you weren't.

The point of this tale is, why did -- and still do -- we call those good old cars, pickups, canoes, boats, and anything else that carries us "she?"

Later in life, Dolores and I began to name our cars to avoid that stereotype, which some group probably finds offensive. We had Sally Subaru, Tommy Toyota, Bobby Beater (Subaru), and now Ellie Echo. Long ago, back when I taught in a school for troubled kids -- and troubled teachers -- I drove those kids all over western Maine in my big old 1985 Ford LTD wagon with a V-8 engine so big I think it may have shared the passenger compartment. No, I'm wrong, that was our black Lab-Setter, Springer. The kids from the school called the Ford Henrietta.

I finally ditched the 1936 after my father commented to my brother that the engine of the somewhat deteriorating critter ran well.

"You can't drive around on an engine," my brother commented.

My brother bought a 1953 Ford sedan.

Next big brother traded up to a 1957 Chevy, the middle-priced six-cylinder variety with some chrome but not too much. It was all light blue. Very tame, very suburban, very like my brother.

I received the 1953 hand-me-down. The automatic transmission probably weighed as much as the car, which was somewhat powered by a six-cylinder engine. And when you started up from a stop or tried to speed up, you could count on enough time to finish a chapter in your present novel before she responded. But she toted us all over the place, including to Maine on those vacations which led to my taking that vow of poverty and moving to our fair Pine Tree State right out of college in 1965.

After the 1953, I bought my two-year-old 1957 Chevy for about $1,500 or less. She was the same model as my big brothers only boasted a white top to contrast with her blue body. Big brother named her "Chevrollac." She ran well, but when I noticed the engine becoming dirty with oil or some kind of grit at about 80,000 miles, I traded her for a two-year-old 1962 Rambler.

Now as I drive my 2007 Island Explorer bus named "Will we get there on time," I pass a classic Chevrolet alongside a house in Bass Harbor. It is identical to my Chevrollac. Did I make a bad decision somewhere?

That gold colored Rambler sedan, whom I don't think we named, was my first car as an imported Maineiac -- or "sport," or "flatlander," or "from awayer," as I have been dubbed by true 14-generation Maineiacs during the passing years. This nameless she had reclining front seats, which begged us to take the beastie camping.

So we did, at Hastings Campground in the western Maine part of the White Mountain National Forest, which a letter from Senator Olympia Snowe the other day informed me had received funding. (It’s nice that funding finally came through. I "wrote it" into a 'Wilderness' designation during my time of fun and games with the Lewiston Sun Journal. Last week's announced funding may actually have been to protect a yet-unprotected, privately owned trailhead there.)

As darkness fell, we rolled up the Rambler's windows, tilted those seats back into a bed, and tried for a great outdoors sleep. But then came those nasty stings. I dreamed that a whole bevy of doctors were giving me injections for my insanity of camping in a Rambler.

Later I learned the "doctors" were "no see-ums."

My publisher e-mailed me this week that where he was raised in MI, which may be Michigan (or raised in WI, which may be Wisconsin -- I can't remember which, for sure), they were called gnats. They may have been called that in PA, which may be Pennsylvania, where I was raised and from where I abandoned ship to flee to Maine. I don't recall. My softdrive memory is limited.

But Miss Rambler finally blew her head gasket. I was informed, after she did, of course, that I never should have put water into her radiator. Nineteen sixty-two ramblers had aluminum motors, which could not tolerate was in their radiators.

Which led to our really "cool" 1967 V-8 Plymouth Belvedere with the black stripe down her red sides and boasting a black vinyl top, our first brand new automobile. Her other-than-being-new-not-overly-exciting story will have to wait until next week's Car Dribbles, Part II.

* I tell the tourists I read this history in a magazine, thus proving that bus drivers either can read or make up really good history. In the late 1800s, the guests of large wooden hotels throughout New England and New York State generally arrived by train. When the train was due, a hotel worker would drive a horse and wagon to the station to meet those guests, some of whom brought their families, servants, and way too much luggage to fit into Ellie's Echo’s trunk. Gradually those wagons came to be dubbed, the "station wagons." Henry Ford heard about them, and his business soared.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.

First Rights, Milton M. Gross Copyright 2008

Editor's Note: I can understand the confusion, as I was born in Wisconsin but raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, not far from the Wisconsin border. -- Ken Anderson