"Cars and Transport"

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

This blog post  is part of my participation in a weekly writing meme called, "The Book of Me, Written By You"  You too can be part of this experiment/experience at this Facebook page.

I may or may not publicly share what I write each week. This week I share.

Week 27 the prompt is:  Cars and Transport.

Did you have a car in your family whilst you were growing up?
What methods of transport were there? And what did you & your family typically use?
Your Driving Test
Where Did you learn? - Can you drive?
Your first car?
Your Favourite Car?
Do you name your cars?
Can you remember the registration details? And perhaps explain what the registration means.

We always had cars when I was growing up, yes, in fact, for many years, my parents had two cars.  I remember very little about most of them, except, the Metropolitan, which I wrote about here.

Methods of transportation, since we did not live in the city, I am not sure there were any methods available for our use.

My driving test.  GROAN.  OK, the short of it is, the way I remember it, I flunked the first time, something about a stop sign??  Passed the second.  I took private driver's training class during the summer, I believe the public classes were full.

My first car?  My first personal car was a Jeep that my father rented for his business.  Man's first car, a 57 Chevy.  Love the 'no socks' look, don't you?

Man and I had a blue 62 Bel Air Chevy when we were first married. At least that is what he tells me, I have conveniently stored that memory in a non-retrievable memory bank.

Over the years I have been blogging at Reflections, I have written a number of posts on cars:

Sharing a Slice of Life, Get Into My Car, where you can read about the Opal Cadet and the 1986 Ford conversion van.

This was the first "second" car we had after we were married.  A big ole Chevy station wagon.  I loved that car, and it was mine to drive most of the time.  Man did not like it so much, as he felt it had too many mechanical issues.  Did I say, I loved that car??

Below is the 1976 Suburban, which came to us via Man's Mother.  This was one great vehicle, was used for many years for towing and camping and eventually for a beast for the kids to learn to drive in.  And, yep, it saw an accident during that time frame.  Many memories with this vehicle.  

There was the time that 8 of us were traveling from Norfolk Virginia to Charleston South Carolina, Man, his mother, my brother, our 3 kids, my grandmother and moi.  We took the ferry route from Nags Head to Wilmington North Carolina.  And, one of the boys managed to lock the door, with the door open.  Of course, something had to jam and now the door would not shut.  Mom (that would be Moi) was NOT a happy Mom.  Mom (that would be me) freaked!  Brother and Man fixed the door lock, and I think I took a sea sickness pill and slept the rest of the trip to Wilmington.  

I believe this may have been the vehicle that I left running in the garage one very cold winter day, for 6 or more hours.  (Garage was NOT attached to the house and the main garage door was left open.) Yep, I did.  The details are foggy, but there was something about carrying groceries in, 3 sons grabbing my attention with other issues, and my forgetting the car was running.  Yep.  Burnt the transmission fluid up good on that one.  Needless to say, Man was not happy.  Oops.

In 1980 Man bought a Honda, in 1985 he totaled it. He was one lucky dude that day. This could have been much worse. He was not hurt, he had to crawl out the other door, but, not so much as a scrape.

The replacement was a 1982 model, it was driven till it was passed on to one of the sons for his college wheels.  He drove it many, many more miles. (Man's mother smiling at him taking the photo.)

Back to stories told on Reflections:  There is the story of my kinda tricking Man into driving the tunnels on the Needles Highway with Big Butt (the predecessor to Jolly).  Part two is here.

Favorite car?  Honestly I am not sure I had a favorite.  Lots of memories, but, not sure there is a favorite.

Do you name your cars?  Until we got the GM dually truck in 2003 I can never remember naming a vehicle. But, we names that one, Big Butt.   Here is a fun post, telling of the naming of Big Butt, Big WHAT?? - How Big Butt Got His Name - 104th COG.   When Jolly came into our lives, we had a bit of fun picking a name.

Registration details:  We pay the fees mandated by the state we live in.  Nothing exciting, nothing special.

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