My First Car (Published Nov 15, 2021)

My first car was a 1959 Chevy Bel Air, you know, the kind with the big fins in the back. My parents gave me the car when I first got a driver’s license, the day I turned sixteen. I do not remember if it was a hand-me-down or a used car, they specifically bought for me. Thinking back now, I’m pretty sure it was a used car they bought and not a car they drove prior to me getting it. They always drove Oldsmobile’s. The car had a couple of issues. The brakes were not all that good, but I knew how to handle the car so had no problem in stopping it. A couple extra pumps of the brakes did the trick. Plus anticipating when you needed to brake in advance of braking. I’m not sure why I did not tell my parents about the brakes, perhaps it was because I was responsible for the car’s maintenance and did not want to spend the money. Anyway, I was satisfied that I could handle it. The other flaw was being able start the car without a key. You could simply get in and with your hand move the part that held the key to your right and the car would start. This was not really a flaw as it meant I did not have to worry about carrying keys. All was great with this car. As I was one of the first of my friends to get a car, all my friends packed in and we went to many car rallies, cruised down Van Nuys Blvd to Bob’s Big Boy and back, cruised Hollywood Blvd and then over to the Sunset Strip, and regularly drove the car to the beach. From the day I got the car, I stopped riding my bike to school, instead driving to school every day, and driving everywhere. It was a cool looking car. Gas was 15 cents per gallon so $2.00 worth got me everywhere I wanted to go. Besides, as I was the only one with car, my friends were always more than happy to buy the gas if they could drive around. It was near Halloween of my senior year. I remember I was going to dress as a sheriff for a school dance. I bought a badge, a cap, and borrowed a gun and holster. I should add that the gun and holster were real. All were in the trunk of the car ready for the dance the next evening. When I came out to the parking lot after school and after some after school event, the car was gone. As I looked for the car, the Boys Vice Principle dashed out and summons me to the office. On the phone was my dad. He had been called by the police as the car had been driven through someone’s converted garage. He rushed over and picked me up and then we drove to the crash scene. Yes, indeed, the car went in one side of the wall and out the other side. The trunk was open, the gun and holster were laid on top of the car, and the culprit was next to the car in handcuffs. The unnamed suspect was a teammate on the school’s golf team. He really would not be classified as a friend but simply a teammate. If he would have been a friend, he probably would have known about my brake pumping trick, but he did not. But he obviously knew that the car would start without a key. Having a real gun in the back did not help matters for him. I am sort of hazy as to what happened after that. At the end, my dad talked to his dad, who as it turned out, was a defense attorney. Some deal was struck, and the charge was reduced to joyriding and his family paid all the bills. From what I recall, I do not remember running into him at school again. I do not know if he changed schools or what. The only time I ever saw him again, was selling peanuts at Dodger Stadium. My next car was a 1965 Chevy Corvair, a real step down from my sleek 59 Chevy. It id have a couple good features, it took a key to start and the brakes worked fine. No one was ever told, until now, about the brakes in my old 59 Chevy.