My 1st Car

     I learned how to drive in a 1959 Green Oldsmobile (4dr) (automatic) which was my Dad’s car. It was big and powerful but clearly a family car.  The next car my Dad bought was this really cool 1965 Canary Yellow Chevy Impala (2dr) (automatic) it did not look like a family car, it was sporty and I got to take to my Senior Prom.

     The 1^st car I bought was a 1958 Chevy Belray, maroon with black interior, 6 cyl with a 3 speed on the floor.  The previous owner was a kid so it needed some work.  The hood emblems (bull nosed) had been removed and body putty was used to fill the holes left by the rust then had the car cheaply painted.  He also moved the shifter from the column to the floor but he put it in backwards, 1^st was where reverse should have been but to complicate it more he put a 4 speed gear shift knob on the stick.  If you were not aware of that it was difficult to drive because of the shift pattern, it would have been a parking attendant nightmare. It also needed some engine work so my Dad had a buddy Leonard B that knew enough about cars to get it running smoothly, at least good enough to get to my Uncle Clarence’s Standard Station for more extensive work.  When it was in reasonable shape I took it over and made minor cosmetic changes like adding speakers, headrests, fuzzy dice, reverberation radio (poor man’s stereo).  

     This was my first car and it was a stick, which I wanted but I didn’t know how to drive it.   So Dad took me out to parking lots until I got good enough to go it alone but even when I did, starting on a hill presented a problem as a new driver of a standard transmission.  I remember driving around with the Bill L & Bill K when I drove down Goodfellow by the ammunitions plant, which had a hill, well as you might expect the light turned red and I had to stop.  Not to get sidetracked but when I was younger I thought the ammunitions plant was a blimp plant because it was oddly shaped with two huge winged shaped structures on the roof what I thought were doors that could open up to let the blimps out, that would have been more interesting but sadly I was wrong.  
     Anyway back to the real story, I killed the engine several times trying to pull away from the stoplight and each time I failed both Bills would roar with laughter, which just made it more difficult since I started laughing as well.  I can’t remember how many stoplights change before I got up that hill but it was many (possibly 8 or 9).  That’s what teenage boys did anytime there was an opportunity is give the other guy a hard time. This time it was my turn to be harassed and for a split second my reaction was to get mad but it was just too funny to keep from laughing.  At this age I was hanging out more with Bill L and Bill K more than the Pamplin boys.  We used to ride around through Steak n Shake (Jennings or sometimes Circle Steak) kinda like American Graffitti (some minor street drag racing) but not quite as exciting, always looking for damsels in distress but never finding any.  We still hung out with the Pamplin boys playing football, baseball etc. but we went to different high schools so things started to change a little. 

    This was my 1st car so I learned how to do some repairs and modifications because it always seemed like it needed some work or I wanted to change something on it.   My ‘58 had a cloth headliner, which after a few years would break loose from the metal rods stretching from on side to the other, so you would be driving and the headliner would fall down draping the top of your head.  This was annoying but you saw it all the time and it could easily be fixed which I did. After a few years of dodging the headliner that repeated fell down and finally learning to master standing hill starts I went in search for a new car with Dads help.