Fond memories...

So I've been thinking about cars a bit lately. Maybe it's because I had a minor fender-bender this past weekend, maybe it's because I've been doing some recent Facebooking and reminiscing about all things glory days. As I cogitate on that, I realize that nothing puts me back in the day more than thinking about my first car. I mean, think about it -- the people that graced the seats, the places that car has been, the sheer number of hours logged in that thing....it's kind of staggering really.

So, my first car story begins as a sixteenth birthday present. My father had his own ideas about the kind of car that his daughter should have. Basically, it needed to run. And be reliable enough for him to trust it with precious cargo on the backroads of rural South Dakota. That's it and no other considerations made. The good news is that my dad usually does things with flair, even when he doesn't mean to. So a quick trip down to the used car lot and he sets his sights on my new ride.

It was a mint condition 1978 black Chevy Nova with red interior. The car was owned by a little old lady who was on the verge of losing her license when she originally got the car and hadn't driven it since for years. She decided to sell and basically took it in with clear instructions to the dealer: "no one is gonna buy a piece of crap car from me, so make sure everything works". I love tenacious elderly folk. New plugs, new wires, new tubes, new tires....freshly detailed and the for sale sign was out on the dash.

Along comes my dad. $1200 and a full tank of gas later, he drove it into the driveway and called me outside to present me with the keys on a keyring he had picked out himself -- a pink "J". He had even hung a pair of red fuzzy dice from the rearview mirror. See? Flair. Gotta love the B-O-B.

And I loved that car. My friends dubbed it the "Mighty Nova" -- not because of the V8 engine it sported, but because we basically put it through hell. Miles of backroads, ditches, cornfields, mud, snow, you name it. And it never let us down. It always got us home. Pile in a couple of crazy teenagers with nothing better to do on a summer Friday night but roll down the windows, turn up some tunes and drive. Looking back now, it really didn't get much better than that.

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for that car. Even now, whenever I see one, I give in to my undeniable urge to slow down so I can let my gaze linger.