MY FIRST CAR

I left home at age 17 after having graduated class of 65 from EHS. I was invited to live with Carl and Robin, my debonair cousin and his wife.  They lived in Petaluma.  I spent the summer a bit disoriented.  Carl got me a babysitting gig over a long weekend and I wound up somewhere in Russian River babysitting a 13 year old while the parents and teenager and friend attended a local dance.  Hell, the kid should have gone and learned some social skills or at least watched her parents dance together.  Carl told me about Fairchild Conductor and he took me there to fill out an application, shortly after I turned 18 and was hired and became a wage earning, tax paying, emancipated minor.  I got a roommate not to long after that and we lived in a fairly nice house in Novato.  Sue had a car so no problems there.  She kept wrecking them though.  One of the ladies we worked with told us that her husband who was in the Air Force at the nearby airbase sold used cars.  Yeah sign me up.  He sold me a brown 57 VW, it was a stick and I learned how to hold a pause on a steep San Francisco hill without burning up the clutch.  However long before that I was stuck somewhere and the car broke.  I tried to start it, Sue kept yelling, "Pop the clutch!" I had NO idea what she was talking about.  I called a local foreign car repair who towed it and repaired it.  Crank shaft had cracked right down the middle.  So how do I get this thing repaired.  I used the pink slip for the repair shop to hold until it paid for the repairs.  Pam's husband felt sorry for me and left me have it for the amount that I had paid so far, about 250 bucks.  She was pissed at his poor business practice.  So I puttered around in that thing for a couple of years.  One summer visit, Dad decided I needed a better car so they traded their 65 Barracuda to me for the VW.  All the girls learned to drive the thing.  Oh I remember now why Dad gave me the car,  That summer I was home I lost the brakes on the VW and he decided to step in.  Also the drive across the desert was boring, no radio.  So I sang my way "Going to Winnemucca, Winnemucca here I come!", topped out at 35 mph going up the foothills of the Sierra's to get to Reno.  Only other mishap I ever had was running the battery down, when I had stopped at Bergies drive in, you summoned the carhop by turning on your lights.  Gotta remember to turn them off.  I learned how to change tires as my bald tires would go flat or shred at inopportune times.  I paid about 100 dollars for a set of four around then.  I am sure I could have shopped around for a better deal. Uncle Carl asked me how much and I think I lied and said I got a bargain. So my adventures with the Barracuda began.  It was just the right size to fit a twin sized mattress in the back and other bits and bobs of a young person moving from place to place.  It was fairly powerful and kept me on time for work.  Only accident it was ever in was when I loaned it to a friend while I flew home  Got home and dummy had poked a hole in the frame near the hood.  I never got it repaired. And I never loaned it out again...ever.  Oh wait the only OTHER accident to the Barracuda was the winter I decided to drive home because IT WOULD SAVE MONEY.  I did okay until I hit a patch of black ice and blew up the engine just outside of Rome, Oregon.  Called the folks, eventually got it towed, had one valve reground that cost 65 bucks at the time and got a loan from Grandma Horn so I could pay for the repairs.  And Dad insisted on taking me home.  Boy was I pissed/relieved.  God bless him.