The day I drove the 1965 Plymouth home, it pulled to the side when I stopped. I noticed that the odometer had been turned back to zero miles, although it had had about 100 on it when I had test driven it.
I returned it to the dealer, complaining that the brakes were pulling to one side. I added, "Perhaps, if you hadn't turned back the mileage, you wouldn't have screwed up the brakes."
They, of course, said they hadn't turned back the mileage.
I added enough mileage that it too became a she.
Buying that "fancy" Plymouth Belvedere with its thin black stripe along each red side and its black vinyl roof, not to mention its mid-size V8 engine troubled me, both before and after I bought it.
The "troubling" was partly because that year Plymouth also offered a small sedan with a V3 or something that made it really hurry in the event you drove off a cliff and a tiny body into which we could fit either my wife and I but not our baby or our baby and I but not our wife or my wife and our baby but not me.
In those days, we didn't have a dog, nor our current 18-pound cat, Big Guy. Nor three other bread snappers.
The "troubling" also came due to my being a minister. We were around other ministers and missionaries, who were home from wherever they had become heroes by going to serve God. And, we were "supported" by several churches because our tiny church in Bethel could not afford a minister. We gratefully received that "support," and I worked in a wood mill -- as did most who lived in Bethel in the 1960s.
Some of the ministers, including those returned missionaries, felt I was being too "worldly" if I bought the Belvedere. The missionaries in Lower Whatever Country they had missionaried, had driven a Plymouth (or some other breed) Tiny. It was unthinkable that a minister who wasn't making the ultimate sacrifice of being a missionary would buy a Plymouth Big. (Actually, Plymouth Big was a Satellite in those days, so those "helpful" missionaries had misunderstood the whole issue of choice. Belvedere was middle, not big.)
And some churches felt they shouldn't support such an arrogant, wasteful minister -- those two adjectives meaning "one who drove a Belvedere." Those "supporters" didn't want their "supportee" to have a Big car, even if it was mid-size.
I wrestled with smaller vs. larger and how long each might last, including how many people each would carry. I bought the Belvedere, and for a week or two afterwards lay awake at night wondering if I had made the right choice. After all, $2,500 was a lot of money.
The car served us well, and at 125,000 miles I had the automatic transmission adjusted as it seemed a bit sloppy.
"Not a bad car with forty thousands miles," the mechanic said.
I finally knew I had made the right choice.
I left the ministry to teach school and bought another Plymouth, this time a year-old rental sedan which ran fine. When Mom-in-law bought a new car and gave us her 1971 Big Chevy station wagon, we sold the Plymouth. Four kids, two Labs, two canoes, and a herd of bicycles made that practical.
That wagon ran fine, but she must have worn out because we bought another Chevy, a red Caprice, which also ran fine until at about whoknowshowmany miles she blew a head gasket. A used-car-dealer-mechanic friend traded even for the most powerful, longest, blue-est-but-with-mismatching-doors, Pontiac our part of Maine had ever seen. Another winner, but when I bought a little Ford Fairlane wagon I gave the Pontiac to friends. They remained friends.
The Fairlane boasted, I believe, four cylinders and four-on-the-floor, which required a lot of down shifting. She also had problems on damp days, kind of like I do now, except that she would cough black smoke and stall. I don't cough black smoke -- in fact, don't smoke at all -- but feel like stalling some cold, dark mornings when I get up to go find and drive my bus to Bar Harbor.
I also stall a good bit about writing. What if it doesn't sell? Well, if I don't get it finished, I don't have to worry about that, do I?
Eventually, while I was teaching in a private school near Lewiston, she began to use so much oil I "sold" her to another teacher for $25 and bought a huge 1985 LTD Ford wagon that had been driven 120,000 miles. She turned out to be Henrietta.
She also turned out to race, the engine that is, even while idling. I had been warned by the previous owner. But racing or not, she chopped ten minutes from my 40 minute commute to the private school by simply not having to be down shifted as had the Fairlane with the subsequent waiting for the engine to then grab again and haul me up that next hill.
I took her to the Ford dealer to have the racing corrected. They phoned that she was fixed, but when I went to pick up Henrietta they told me that I couldn't have her after all. She was now stalling when she idled.
"I need to get to work in forty-five minutes," I said. "Bring her to me."
They did, and I got there in 30 minutes. It was just that I had to keep nudging the gas pedal when she idled, or else she wouldn't.
Her great adventure was coming home from church one Sunday with our and several other kids in the car. When I pulled out to pass an MG on a narrow, rural road, the MG sped up and would not let me in again. Seeing a curve ahead, I tramped Henrietta's accelerator and off we flew. When I saw in the mirror the MG had dropped back far enough, I pulled back to the right lane. The kids asked what I would have done had the MG kept up.
"Pulled over into the right lane anyway," I answered.
When one drives a monster wagon filled with kids, one doesn't have to fear a puny little MG.
At 212,000 miles, I gave her to a man who needed a wagon for his family.
By then, our family was sort-of growing up, leaving home, and our number count was falling.
I was ready for my first Subaru, which followed my first and only orange 1979 VW Microbus sporting Grateful Dead stickers.
To be continued next week, Part III of a two-part series
Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.
Milton M. Gross Copyright 2008
