The First

firebird, originally uploaded by paddy's wandering.

The first car I ever owned, had my name on the title and the whole Sheeple Enchilada, was a 1976 Firebird. This was 'the' car; a 350 engine and four barrel carburetor, slicks on the back with air shocks that had a valve in the trunk to adjust ride height, deep dark blue with the spoiler hanging on the back and built for speed. It did have an 8-track player and an automatic, but that didn't deter me at all.

After going through drivers ed the summer of '81 at the high school, driving little Chevettes and learning how not to crush a cone, with a trip along the Great Road to learn how to drive on the highway, I got my drivers license that fall and was ready to take on the road.

One small detail, I did not have a car! Yikes! But that was cool, I could drive the Sheeple Wagon('76 Suburban), so I drove that beast for awhile. Let me tell ya, you could cram an awful lot of teenagers into that monstrosity. And all was fine, still saving for a car and trying to find that ultimate cool car.

Flash forward to Spring of '82 and my dad comes home with a car on the trailer and says he bought a car for me I could afford, only 500 clams. Whoo hoo! I truck out the back door into the garage and there it is, the Firebird. Except...it was smashed. The car was in a front end collision, front all smashed in and a faceprint dent in the windshield. That was not so good. It got better. My dad loves cars and restores them and says we will fix it up and you can learn about cars. Being sixteen and doing all the stuff I wanted to do other then sleep was a twenty hour a day job, but I dug into it with him and tried to learn and help.

I did not learn much, being a mouthy know it all teenager but I did learn two things. I learned how to adjust and work on a carburetor and I learned an appreciation of cars.

Toward the end of summer as football practice was starting we were almost ready to roll. I traded, reluctantly at the time(boy I was stupid), a couple of weekend days and cleaned out the paint room of a local body shop. My dad was friends with the owner and we traded my labor for a paint job. Good old Dick did a great job painting the car and threw in the decals for good measure.

So between the morning practice session and the afternoon, feeling the pain of football practice in every move I made, we went over to pick up the car. They added the tires on as a surprise and I had not seen it finished. Man I was sixteen with big tears in my eyes, that car was awesome. I had not even driven the car yet, but my dad says here is the keys, go drive yourself to practice.

So I jumped in and started it up, gave it a little gas to rev the motor just a little, rolled down the window, turned on the radio and said thanks to my dad and Dick. They kinda just laughed and said hey, no lighting the tires up and have fun.

So I pulled out of the body shop on to Woodside Avenue and floored it! Radio blasting, tires squealing, I laughed like an idiot all the way to football practice. To this day I know when I looked in the rear view mirror I caught a glimpse of those two laughing, I know I did. They successfully passed on the American Dream, the Car.