I was gassing up at Costco the other day when the guy in front of me says, “Well, at least gas prices have come down.” “Yeah,” I replied, “we’re getting a good price on gas but we can’t go anywhere.” Which got me to thinking about how great it would be to get out on the road and just start driving. I didn’t — but I sure thought about it.
The coolest car my dad ever owned was a Pontiac Tempest, circa 1968. He bought it used like all of his cars, but we didn’t have it for long — like all of his cars. I never understood his fondness for woefully unattractive cars… The VW Bug, dad owned several of them. The anti-cool car. If cars were food, the VW would be kale. I get the healthiness of it, but why put me through that? While all of my friends were shuttling around in Chevy Impalas or Ford Galaxies, I was cramming into the back seat of a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle with my younger brother and older sister. We were a close family - but not by choice. There we were, a family of 5, rolling down the street in a loud, convulsing, bad tempered, inverted goldfish bowl of a car. Blending in was only a pipe dream in those days.