1970 Green Buick Skylark

I know the color doesn't matter, but to us, it did. My twin brother and I had saved up our money to buy a "cool" car. We had our eye on this slick looking Chevrolet Camaro that was placed high above all the other vehicles (it was on ramps) on that used car lot between Rockwell and Council in Bethany, Oklahoma, and it was the "one". I think it was blue, it screamed "drive me, fast!" It beckoned us each time we saw it twinkle as the sun hit the windshield just right. Although we never did test drive it or even inquire about the price, we still consider it the one that got away.

We were sitting at home one night when our dad asked us for our money, the same money we had saved to buy the Camaro. We told him about our jewel on 39^th Expressway which was called Route 66. He said he had another car in mind and I guess when you trust your dad enough to hand him $1200.00 for a used car you're going to be happy with what he buys. We were devastated when we hopped off the bus the next day to see this light green, old; we had other words for it, car parked in the second driveway. We quickly engaged our father as to why he would buy such a car. He told us that he had saved us some money and something about it being an old lady's car that was only driven on Sunday, blah, blah, blah, we didn't care, we wanted a "cool" car. I'm sure if I could change my reaction that day I would, but it was an ego blow none the less.

Although we had no choice and the sale was final, we decided to make the most of it and took it for a car wash. We grumbled about it for a while but eventually we were happy to drive our own car. After a while we grew to like our car primarily because we didn't have to ride the bus anymore. We went to a good high school, Putnam City West, Go Patriots! We would park our Buick with all the other cars in student parking, we thought it stuck out like a sore thumb, after a while it was just another car.

It was green with black interior, vinyl black interior; it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. We would leave the windows down at night in the summer; remember those days, so it wouldn't be hot when we went to drive it the next day. It took us to school and work and on some dates, we even went cruising in it. Pretty soon we realized it was the only car of its kind and we started to add some newer speakers and then we weren't so ashamed to drive it. We even flipped the air filter cover over so when you punched the gas it sounded tough.

Since we were teenagers we didn't really think about how our wear and tear would affect our car. It didn't have power steering or power brakes so we had to take extra care even though we didn't want to. I liked to drum on the dashboard with my drumsticks, eventually it started to look two teenagers drove it. Confession: One night we were racing a classmate, he was in a Corvette and we were not. He rounded the corner on 15^th street and we followed, more like we skipped sideways as our wheels tried to grip the pavement. We narrowly missed the descended drainage ditch and popped up on the curb, my brother recovered the best way he could only to hit the curb on the other side but at a lower level. Our car was stalled half way in the neighbor's yard and half way in the street. My brother jumped in the back seat because he was freaked out so I jumped in the front seat and turned the ignition key. Luckily it started, by then a few neighbors had come out on their porch to bear witness to two white faced teens carefully driving their car down the long street to the end so we could turn right and slink home unnoticed.

The next day our dad wanted to drive our car to work, well, you can guess what he asked after he got home that day. "What did you do to the car?!?" We lied and said that we hit the curb on our driveway too hard pulling in one day. After that our little green car didn't fair so well, I got another car and our first car sat for a while. My brother called me one day and told me they were towing it away from the house. All in all it was a great first car; it got us from point A to point Z, and dad, thanks for buying us our first car and helping inspire this article.