Hawaii 2010

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Sunday, September 13, 2009

My First Car













Well, I am clearly in need of some lighter moments. Please blogging friends travel back in time with me to delve into my cache of rescued slides from my mom's Kodak collection. Its a wonderful testimony to her ability to misframe a shot. In this case my 12 year old face.

What I see is an early predilection for holding tummy fat....a family curse, and my Dad's play car, snagged from who knows where the summer of 63. Its a British car, a Morris Minor. Same class as the Volkswagen but front end engine, and we loved it. It sat four comfortably and had a tight four speed stick shift.

When you learn to drive with a stick you have a life long romance with shifting. I would later incur the wrath of my wife for buying a stick shift Saturn which paralyzed her on every incline in our city for four years.

I would also, because of the heritage and love of my dad, buy a lot of cheap cars trying to recapture the Morris Minor spirit for my own kids. I owned a Austin Marina, great British car, worn out, zero parts available, which died an ignoble death due to a frozen and cracked block.

Please understand, I did not inherit the car until I got my license at 16, moved from Troy Al, to Jackson Ms, and gave it a cool paint job and a racing stripe.

2 comments:

Marc Vandersluys said...

"Its a wonderful testimony to her ability to misframe a shot."

Hilarious!

Judy Kelly said...

Don, this is the year before my senior year at college and I came home to work at the resturant out on the highway. I remember driving it to work a couple times and remember trying to get up the hill from the school and not stall out. I still drive a stick shift. I say that I think it make me a better dirver but I think it goes back further to sitting on Daddy's lap and shifting as a very small child. Thanks for the memory.Love Judy