52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy - Week 3, Cars

Cars!  Some of my earliest memories involve the family cars.  My father was a Plymouth man.  We always had the big land yacht Plymouths, Belvedere's and Fury's when I was young.  I recall a blue one and a white one from when I was very young.  Bench seats and huge trunks, automatic shift on the column.  BIG V-8 engines.  Seat belts were mandatory equipment by the time I was aware, but rarely used.  Car seats were unheard of.  I recall once standing in the middle of the front bench seat between my parents, with another adult sleeping across the bench seat in back, when we missed a turn and went off-road into a large ditch area.  I bit my tongue.  Other than that, everyone was okay.  I may have been three years old, but I'm not positive of that.

In about 1976, my father made his first departure from the Plymouth line.  He bought a white 1974 Ford Custom 500.  And regretted it the whole time he owned that beast.  That car just had its own philosophy that didn't mesh with Dad's Plymouth mindset.  We kept it for a long time, though, as I drove that car when I started driving in 1982.  It had a V-8 engine, the 351 Windsor.  Not the Cleveland variant that powered muscle cars of the era.  It leaked oil.  It rusted, Dad patched it with Bondo.  It died mysteriously, Dad talked with a guy from church who was a Ford man.  They made it work again.  I don't remember for sure when we disposed of it, but I think it probably went straight to the crusher of whatever junkyard received it after we traded it in on the next car, a pale blue 1980 AMC Pacer.

Yeah.  AMC Pacer, almost all glass upside down goldfish bowl, hatchback.  HOT in the summer, the air conditioner could barely keep up.  This thing had bench seats in front, and automatic transmission on the hump in the middle.  The straight six cylinder engine had enough power.  Rear defroster was a new thing for us, and in Minnesota it's an important feature.  So much glass meant a lot of window scraping in the winter, we appreciated not having to scrape the rear window as well.  We had that car for a number of years as well.  It also got rusty toward the end, as most American cars of that era did.  Cars now have much better design to avoid water collecting, better rust-proofing, and in many cases, plastic body panels that they don't rust out anywhere near like they used to back in the day!

Me driving the 1992 Chevy Citation

In 1992, my paternal grandmother (she who infected me with the family history bug!) died.  My father inherited her car, a maroon 1985 Chevrolet Citation with about 5,000 miles on it.  A 7 year old car with 5,000 miles!  Like new!  That car was a 4 cylinder with manual transmission. By this time, I was away in the Navy, so I don't know how that car ended.  Mom got a Reliant K car at some point.  When Dad retired, he bought a Pontiac Grand Am that he still has.

In 1984, my girlfriend (who became my wife) bought a gold 1973 Mercury Montego.  Mercury was just a fancy name for Ford.  It had the same 351 Windsor engine as my family's Custom 500.  It also leaked oil.  I'm told that oil leakage was a feature of that engine.  It had many of the same issues as the Ford mentioned above.  In 1986, she bought a brand new white Chevrolet Spectrum, a model soon shifted to the Geo brand.  It was a 2-door hatchback with a 1.6 liter 4-cylinder engine and manual transmission.  Learning experience!  I had picked up stick shift somewhere, but she had not.  She bought the car with my assurance that I would teach her how to drive it.  She learned well, and that car went with us when we married and moved to Virginia Beach, VA when I enlisted in the Navy.  We kept that car until a few months before I got out of the navy. We traded it for a blue 1991 Isuzu Stylus, about which more later. 

1986 Chevy Spectrum getting a cleanup

Before this point, I had needed a second car for driving to work on the Navy base and back.  I picked up an old red VW Beetle, which was very temperamental, but I liked it when it worked.  I later decided I would prefer the VW Bus for the added space.  I found and purchased one in 1990, a 1979 with the 2-liter air cooled flat four engine with hydraulic lifters.  It was beige over brown in the 2-color scheme a lot of those had at the time.  I picked up the Idiot's Guide for VW owners and read it.  I needed it.  Mostly, though, this van ran pretty well, after we found the fuel clogs in the tank.  I fell in love with that van!  It was the last of the old bread loaf style vans.  When we left Virginia to move back to Minnesota, some of our household goods went into that VW van.  About 1/3 of what we owned, I'd guess, which meant it was packed from the front seats back, there was not even air spaces.  I sat in the driver's seat, and our dogs rode on the passenger side in front.  Even loaded up this way, that thing was fast for a VW.  On the freeway, the speedometer showed 82MPH, and truckers I passed were chatting on the CB about it, saying they'd never seen one of those go that fast.

The aforementioned Isuzu Stylus was a sporty little 4-door with a 1.6 liter 4-cylinder engine and manual transmission as well.  We got the upscale model with handling package by Lotus!  It handled like a dream, and would do in excess of 100MPH, when the front end would start to float.  Or so I'm told... *wink*  That car was great fun on dry pavement, but really not suited at all to Minnesota winters.  It was light enough, and the tires on it were for performance, not snow, that we had very poor traction.  We kept it a couple of years after returning to Minnesota, but eventually ended up trading it in on something more appropriate for the area, a maroon 1988 Chevrolet Astro Extended Van.

My wife had misgivings about driving something so big after years in smaller compact cars, but quickly fell in love with the traction and visibility it offered in the winter.  It also had anti-lock brakes which came in very handy in icy Minnesota driving!  It was large enough to accommodate our growing family, easy to get kids and gear in and out.  It was even large enough to carry everything we needed to go camping.  During this time, we were both working, so I needed something to drive.  The VW Bus quickly rusted in the Minnesota winters, so I garaged it until I could restore it. I went through a series of $500 junkers that were sufficient to get me to work and back.  I remember a Chevrolet Caprice and a Chevrolet Celebrity wagon.  That one had stick, which amused me, a small station wagon with stick shift!  Eventually, I got a dark blue 1990 Chevy Astro, a base model old thing.

We were a two Astro (and one VW) family.  Eventually I realized I was never going to have the time and money to do the VW justice, so I gave it to a friend of my brother-in-law who wanted to restore it for his sister to drive.  I just wanted to see it fixed up and back in use.  He did restore it, and did a great job, but his sister didn't like driving it, and last I heard, it sits in her yard.  I wasn't real fond of the pea-green color he painted it, but that was no longer my worry.  I wish I could afford to buy it back!  The low-end Astro died, so we got a white 1998 GMC Safari (GMC's version of the Astro - we had certainly become a family of van enthusiasts!) for her to drive, and I started using the older Astro.  A couple of years later, I got a job some distance away, and rather than throw half my pay into a gas guzzling all-wheel-drive van, in 2007 I traded it in on a champagne colored 2000 Toyota Camry. This is the car I am driving today. 

To come back to the beginning of this post, I spoke about old cars rusting out and dying relatively young.  If you got more than 50-75 thousand miles out of a car you were doing well, and rolling the odometer over 100,000 was newsworthy.  The cars would generally rust to pieces even if the engine and drive train were still functional. When I bought the Toyota in 2007, it was already 7 years old and had 160 thousand miles on it!  The car was in great shape, obviously the previous owners had cared for it well, and those were all highway miles.  The car still shows almost no rust.  I had an unusual happening, the main bearings went in the engine, so I had to replace it. Everyone kept saying how unusual it was for this to happen in a Toyota.  I should get many more years of service from this car.  Back when I was a kid, cars might sell with a 10,000 mile warranty.  Now it's not unusual for new cars to sell with a 10-year, 100,000 mile warranty.  As much as we gripe about car problems, they are extremely robust and reliable compared to 30+ years ago.  Think about that next time your car demands a little TLC!

If you've stayed with me this far, congratulations, and thanks for reading this novel!  What cars did you and your family own when you were growing up?  Do you have any interesting stories?  Share them in the comments below!

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Winter

Amy Coffin of the We Tree blog has developed this year-long series of weekly subjects to promote regular blog updates and provide interesting ideas for discussion.  This is at least her third such series.  Amy is a trained librarian and semi-professional blogger.  You should check out her site!

Week 2: Winter. What was winter like where and when you grew up? Describe not only the climate, but how the season influenced your activities, food choices, etc.

This challenge runs from Saturday, January 8, 2011 through Friday, January 14, 2011.

I was born and raised in Minnesota, so winter has always had a significant impact in my life.  My early years bring back memories of  heavy snowfalls in the 70's except 1976/77 when it was bitterly cold (I remember -40 readings several times, and stretches of weeks when it never got above zero!) but we got very little snow all winter.  Most years were more moderate, though in Minnesota more moderate still means some times below zero and months below freezing. 

I was always a short kid growing up, so I recall snowbanks taller than me most years, and some years wondering where we would put any additional snow if it came.  We kids used to head for the nearest cleared parking lot to tunnel into the enormous piles of snow to make snow forts.  I remember one year one guy was digging down into the fort from above, and fell headfirst into his own unfinished hole and got stuck!  We had to get an adult to help us get him out.

In addition to snow forts, there were frequent trips to the sledding hills around town, both alone and accompanied by adults depending on if it was far enough away to need a ride.  Back in those days, if it was close enough to walk there, we didn't need adult supervision.  In fact, most times we went where we wanted, just had to be home for supper.  Sledding was a lot more fun when I had less body mass to haul back up the hill, and the energy of youth to propel me!  We spent hours going up and down the hills, which quickly packed down and turned icy for even more speed.  After a while they would form dips and bumps, which would unexpectedly launch a sled airborne to land with a heavy THUMP!  And once in a while someone would get the wind knocked out of them, or swerve into a tree.  We never had helmets, and the injuries were rarely more than a bruise.  We usually got back home to a steaming mug of hot chocolate to warm us back up!

Ice skating was another popular activity.  Several of the city parks had skating rinks made each year, and the "lake" downtown was cleared of snow and lighted for skating.  Crowds of people would put on skates and zip across the ice or set up impromptu hockey games.  These days, they clear a small portion of the "lake", and I rarely see more than a dozen people there.  I'm not sure why that activity has gone into decline, as hockey is still popular.  I do remember being alternatively frozen so bad my toes hurt, then roasted in the warming house, only to go back out until frozen again.  I usually wore a full snow suit, which became a problem when I would inevitably have to use the bathroom at some point during the outing...

Skiing was popular, both downhill and cross-country.  The first time I went downhill skiing I was about 8 years old.  There's a ski "resort" about half an hour away that has a chalet, several lines of lifts or tow ropes, and rents out equipment.  I remember having some trouble learning how to use the tow ropes and bars without being dumped or having my mitten yanked off.  We didn't have a lot of extra money when I was young, so I never went enough to get good at skiing, but I did enjoy the few times I went.  The only times I got to try cross-country skiing were in high school, where it was a unit in Phy Ed class.  It was better than a lot of Phy Ed activities, but still not something I was very excited about.

Back in those days, Christmas didn't start until after Thanksgiving.  The city put up decorations on the downtown light poles, which meant Christmas was getting close!  But they did that the weekend after Thanksgiving, and stores never put out Christmas advertising or decorations until then.  My family had a mix of real and artificial Christmas trees, but mostly artificial.  There was always the concern of fire with real trees as they would dry out, and the lights used back then were the big, hot incandescent bulbs that would burn your fingers if you touched them!  The cool LED lights now are much safer as well as more energy efficient.  We never had a big yard display outside, but a few people did, and we drove around to look at the lights some years.  Now you drive anywhere and so many people have ridiculous amounts of lights and stuff out, it's not as special as those few who did it back in the day.

I'm now in my mid-40's, so I'm sure some of you reading are older than me.  How was your winter different from mine, aside from having to walk to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways?   Let me know in the comments below!