There have been sixteen cars throughout my years. Vehicles have been a very important part of my life. If it wasn’t for transportation I wouldn’t be where I am today. I received my driver’s license ten days after I became eligible when I turned sixteen in 1958. My parents had some friends that lived on a farm about forty miles north of Denver and my dad would take me out to the farm and I was able to drive on the dirt roads in the fields. Many times, when we came back, he would allow me to drive on the freeway until we got close to Denver. Naturally, the traffic was not as hectic and congested as it is these days. I was driving before I was sixteen. My sons followed the tradition. During the summer months they would stay with their grandparents in Nebraska and drive the crop roads out there. You could hardly see them over the dashboard, and one could think that the pickup did not have a driver. These are priceless memories one never forgets. 

Vehicle number one. This was a 1947 four door family car. My parents got a new car, and they knew an additional car would be needed because their sons were getting close to driving age. This car was used to teach my brother and me how to drive. The car was pea green and a typical family car in the fifties.  I forget when my parents got the car. It was a four-cylinder inline flathead. No overhead cams in those days. It was a dog and really had to work when it was taken to the mountains. I took and passed my driving test in this car, and I was nervous when I took the test. The hardest part was pulling up to a car and backing into the parking spot behind that car. The insurance agent came to our home and gave me a lecture on responsible driving and what to do if an accident occurs.  

Vehicle number two. This was my teenage hot rod. I found it in the back lane of a used car lot. I paid a hundred dollars for it. It ran, but that is all about it did. The body sucked, but no dents, original interior but this was all ok. I wanted to make a hot rod out of it. During those times the 1932 Ford 2 door coupe was the hot car to have. They were hard to find, so you had to settle with what you could find. I spent about six months getting it fixed up. Body work, chrome engine goodies, new tires and wheels, shock absorbers, just to name a few. Then I spent three hundred dollars for a paint and upholstery job. One may wonder, where did he get his money. I had a part time job after school and during the summer. I drove it during my Junior and Senior high school years and sometime after graduation. It was a dog though, never won any drag races in it.  

Vehicle number three.  After graduating from high school, I got a job at the company that was making the Titan ICBM for the government. I was making good money and wanted to get a new car. Thanks to my parents’ credit rating I was able to get a brand new 1961 Dodge 2 door hardtop Phoenix. I made all the car payments. This was one of the muscle cars that were available at the time. It had a 383 cubic inch engine with 2 four-barrel carburetors and their new ram induction intake manifold which in my opinion was more hype than improved the horsepower. This car did like to drink premium gasoline though. I had a lot of mechanical problems with the car. Something was wrong with the charging system and a tooth got chipped in the first gear manual transmission and it had a clicking noise when in first gear. In 1963 I decided to trade it in and get a more common-sense car. 

Vehicle number three. The next car was a 1963 Dodge two door hard top. It had a large V8 engine with my first automatic transmission and air conditioning, another first. One may ask, “why did he go with Dodges?” My dad was a Dodge fan. Many have said, the fruit does not fall far from the tree. It was a good car, and I was happy with it. I kept it until March of 1964, and something happened that I never thought of. I was drafted!!! “Your friends and neighbors have selected you to serve in the United States Military”! What was I to do? I have this car payment and no way could I make a car payment making 78 dollars a month in the military. Well, my parents took over the car and made the payments. They kept the car until it was in an auto accident somewhere around 1968 or 1969. A drunk driver swerved in the lane and hit the car on the front driver’s side. Luckily my dad was not injured.  

Vehicles number four. The next two years I was in the US Army, and these were the vehicles in my life. A deuce and a half cargo truck. A three-quarter ton utility vehicle and the world-famous army Jeep. Since I went to Germany instead of Viet Nam, I do not regret the time I spent in the US Army.   

Vehicle number five.  I have been discharged from the army. I started working at the same company before I was drafted. During that era if you were drafted the company you were working for were required by law to hire you back. They fulfilled their obligation and a year later laid me off.  I am still young and have hot-rodding in my blood so, I purchase a 1966 Dodge Charger with a 383 cubic inch V8 with an automatic transmission. Unfortunately, it did not have AC and I regretted that as the time went by. It was a good car and I have many memorable trips in this car. All I did during the time I had was the normal maintenance required. Gas consumption was not one of the better points of this car. This is the car I had when I got married and started my family life. Kept this car until 1975 

Vehicle number six. Here I am, recently married, with a family home and a young baby. My job was eighteen miles away and I had a gas hog for a car. The final straw was when OPEC instituted an oil embargo on the United States. Gasoline was getting close to being over a dollar a gallon. The gas pumps only had two digits and there was panic about what to do when gas exceeded a dollar. We decided that we needed an additional car because my wife also needed a car, and the gas hog was becoming expensive to drive. We found a used 1973 Chevrolet Vega at a used car lot, and it only had 7000 miles on it. I should have realized there was something wrong with a car less than a year old on a used car lot. It was yellow and it gained the name of “The Lemon”. Throughout it had many mechanical issues. However, the car did get forty highway miles to the gallon of gas. Because of future financial issues this car was kept for over ten years. 

Vehicle number seven. Our next car was a 1974 Chevrolet four door Malibu family car. My hot-rodding days are over. This car was purchased in 1975 or 1976, it was a used car. The Charger was sold about a year later to a friend and he got a lot of years out of it. The Malibu was a good family car with air conditioning. It was heavy though and that four-barrel carburetor V8 loved gasoline. The worse fall back was traction. This car was rear wheel drive and in ice and snow this car was useless even with studded snow tires. My wife at the time was born and raised in Nebraska. We took many trips back to her hometown in this Malibu. Life was good, we had a home, two vehicles, enough money coming in to pay the bills and save some money. We were living the American dream. The next vehicle was to continue living the American dream.  

Vehicle number eight. It was a 1973 one half ton Chevrolet delivery van. At that time, I was a department manager that had delivery vehicles. The vehicles were leased vehicles with a three-year lease. I knew the maintenance history and the reliability of the vehicle. When the lease was up in 1976, we made the decision to purchase the van. We were friends with a family that had a recreational van and that friendship prompted us to get into the RV world. The plan was to refurnish the interior and make it a comfortable recreational van. I got some new tires and wheels, made some benches over the wheel wells. I installed a roof vent in the back for ventilation. Unfortunately, my American dream was starting to crumble. The divorce was final in 1982. The boys stayed with their mother at the home. She kept the Malibu, and I took the Vega, (the Lemon). She didn’t want the van, so it went with me also. She kept the family dog. Divorce was the most expensive event in my life.  

Vehicle number nine. Here it is 1982, recently divorced, and have a 1973 Vega which was a piece of junk the day it was made and a 1973 Chevy van that most of the time just sat in the parking lot costing me insurance money. I needed a replacement car. During that time leasing was becoming popular. The deal that you could lease for a down payment and payments of $199 a month sucked me in. I leased a 1981 Chevrolet S10 Blazer with a forty-eight-month lease. I traded in the Vega and the van for the down payment. These days were tough. I made the house payment that my former wife and two boys lived in and paid child support. I also had to pay rent for the apartment I lived in and all the normal monthly expenses. The Blazer was a four-wheel drive with manual transmission and no air conditioning. I forget if it was a V6 or a 4 cylinder. It was a dog. Other than that, it wasn’t a bad vehicle.   

Vehicle number ten.   My lease on the Blazer is up in 1986. I need a vehicle because I worked across the city eighteen miles away. The Blazer purchase price was too high for me since I didn’t really like the vehicle. I find a used 1984 GMC pickup truck equivalent to the S10 series. I purchased the vehicle. It was very similar to the leased S10 Blazer but only two-wheel drive with automatic transmission, but it had AC. I had this truck until 1994. I do not remember exactly what happened but my youngest had been driving since he got his driver’s license in 1990. For some reason the cover was off the bed. However, he had some heavy object in the bed and had to make a sudden stop and the object was higher than the bed frame and it banged into the back of the cab causing significant damage. The insurance company just paid scrap value and I needed another vehicle to find.

Vehicle number eleven. I had to find a vehicle soon. I couldn’t afford a rental car for very long. I found a 1987 Mazda pickup with a cover for the bed. The only money I had was the scrap value money I received from the insurance company. I did not want to go into debt any farther. This truck served its purpose. It got me to point A and back. I was laid off from my good paying job in 1987 and for the next five or six years I drifted around working temp jobs. Unemployment was at seven percent at the time, and I was forty-six. You cannot convince me that there is no age discrimination. I finally got a permanent job at a local newspaper as a district manager. In 1998 the Mazda started to use a lot of oil. For every tank of gas, you needed a quart of oil. It was time to look for another car.

Vehicle number twelve and thirteen. These were acquired at the same time in 1999. I remarried in 1995 and my wife needed a replacement car, and I also needed a replacement. The 1999 green Subaru Impreza was financed and the 1999 silver Subaru DL station wagon for me was leased for 24 months. My wife’s old car was sold to a private party and my Mazda PU was traded in on the station wagon. Since I used my car for the newspaper I worked for they provided a vehicle allowance and that allowance paid for the lease expense. I just paid for gas, maintenance and insurance. They were pretty good reliable cars. I have no complaints about the brand of Subaru. We kept the Impreza until 2011. I turned in the station wagon when the lease was up and purchased vehicle number fourteen in 2001. 

Vehicle number fourteen. This was a 2001 Chevy S10 2-wheel drive standard cab pickup. First time I ever used the internet to find a vehicle. I went to various new car dealer’s websites and searched their inventories. I found one that interested me. They only listed the sticker price and to contact the internet sales manager and he would give me the internet price. The price was 20% off the sticker price and he just made a sale. I still have the truck. The only service and maintenance have been the recommended maintenance. At 60,000 miles the front brakes were replaced, but that is to be expected and the battery has been replaced twice. I drove this truck to work which was a 36-mile trip every day I worked. I retired in 2006 and the mileage at that time was a little over 50,000 miles. Now it has less than 75,000 miles. In the last two years I have driven less than 500 miles per year. I am thinking of getting rid of it since most of the time it sits in the garage, and I still pay insurance. It has been a good vehicle for 23 years.  

Vehicle number fifteen. The Subaru Impreza car my wife drives is now twelve years old with over 90,000 miles on it. It was involved in a hit and run in a parking lot and the right front fender had a big dent. Also, it was hit when parked on the street and that resulted in a large dent in the door behind the driver’s door. They were nice enough to leave a note on the windshield and they reimbursed us for the damage. It was starting to show its age and decided it was time to trade. We selected a 2011 Honda HRV. One may wonder after having two Subaru’s why did you purchase a Honda? We did look at Subaru first, but we found out they did not have any inventory with light interior. There were dark and light exterior cars, and all the interior was only dark. With that we went to the local Honda dealer and found a mixture of both. Kept the car until 2021 and it has 70,000 miles on it. It was a good reliable car, and the only problem was a pressure sensor had to be replaced in the transmission.  

Vehicle number sixteen. In the fall of 2021, I took the HRV in for an oil change. While waiting I roamed the dealership and found a 2022 Honda CRV. The CRV is basically a shrunk down version of the HRV. I wasn’t looking for a new car when I drove in but, I got the new car bug after roaming around all those new shiny cars. I arranged for a test drive and brought the car to show to my wife. She was a bit surprised and asked, “why do we need a new car?” Then I came out with my sales pitch. The HRV has over 70,000 miles and we just had to spend close to four hundred dollars for a pressure censor part. I was concerned that the car may start to nickel dime us to death on repair of this and then of that. Also, COVID created a shortage of vehicles because of the chip shortage. I asked the salesperson if they had any shipments coming in and she said next week, and one half of the shipment has already been sold. The new car lot was half empty. My wife finally said, “well if that is what you think is best, let’s do it”. We now have the CRV over two years and have less than 10,000 miles on it. We are in our senior years and just do not drive much anymore. This will probably be the last car we have.  Life has been good, and I have many good memories to share.