First Cars....

Annie takes us back to our first cars......

....surely you remember your first car! What was your first car?
Do you have an interesting experience to share about learning to drive or about your first driving experiences?....




Well----this part of my past I am not particularly proud of! Like the good little straight A student that I was in High School, I took Driver's Ed at age 16 and passed with flying colors. That was not the problem....the problem was passing the state's drivers test! I took the written test 5 times before I passed it....sigh....honestly, the hang up was all the motorcycle questions. Anyway, I finally got up my courage to take the driving portion of the test while we were visiting some family friends who lived several hours away in a small town. I failed it. I was doing fine until I had to parallel park on the street. The real street. Where there was a lot of traffic whizzing by. Did I mention it was raining cats and dogs? I pulled into my spot with great difficulty and trepidation. Then I pulled out. Then I kind of bumped the extended bumper on the big huge pick-up truck parked in front of me. I learned later that the officer would have passed me still, except that I bumped that darn old bumper a second time....which did not impress him much. Sooo.....I just made sure that I had boy friends with cars and licenses at all times! :) I never owned my own car, obviously at this time in my life and my dad owned several different ones off and on until I left for college.

After my first year of college, I re-met Kerry and we fell in love and got engaged. During our engagement, his old '65 Chevelle died and we looked for a new (used) car for us. We found a great one and it was oh-so practical for us 2 years later when we became parents. A two door, Chevy Monza Spyder, complete with spider decal on the hood. It looked sort of like this one, only blue. It had a V-8 engine. Very cool.
Do you how long it has taken me to find a picture of this car?? They stopped making them 26 years ago, but persistence has paid off.

I even found this next picture of a blue one, which is the exact same model and color we owned. (the blue one) Can't you see me opening that door and trying to heave a car seat containing a child in to that backseat??
Oh, yes sir, a VERY practical family car.

I still did not have my license but I drove anyway. How stupid was that? Baby #1 came and then baby #2 was on his way. We decided I really needed to get my official license. So Itook the test when I was 8 months pregnant, in this car that we now owned....and I PASSED! Six months later we moved to a new state which did not have a reciprocity agreement with the previous state and I found myself in the situation of needing to take the test again. Are you kidding me? No way. And so I didn't for about 6 more years. Looking back, I am appalled about this. What made me think I was above the law? God was merciful in keeping us safe...if I had been in an accident we would have been in BIG trouble. To this day I am not sure why my wonderful, law abiding, husband allowed such behavior from me and for so long??? I do want to assure you all that I do, now, have a valid license although I will NOT be posting that picture online!!

I just have to leave you with this last picture because it shows the cool spider decal so well that was on the hood of our blue Spyder.