Adventures in Car Ownership: A Fond Look Back at My First Automobile

Everyone has fond memories of her first car. Well, at least memories of her first car, I wouldn't say I was fond of mine at the time. My first car was only two years younger than I was, a '78 Ford Fairmont. It was green. Not a nice subtle green in the way that cars today pull off, but a true Crayola crayon green. It also had this really nifty tan vinyl top that was peeling in most places. She was a thing of beauty. My best friend Jenny dubbed her "The Pickle" and the name was appropriate on many different levels.

The Pickle, looking back, had potential. The only problem was, as a teenage girl in a family without the cash flow to sink into a dying car, that potential was never to be reached. I decided to try and improve her look myself...huge mistake. The first undertaking was the peeling vinyl top. I just figured I would finish what Mother Nature started and peel the rest off. When it was done, instead of a tan top, I was left with a bunch of glue blobs with tan vinyl chunks still desperately clinging to the glory they felt when they were new. Oh well. The next "improvement" was the head liner...that thin piece of cloth that covers the inside of the roof. It had a tendency to flap around when the windows were open. As a rule, a teenager must ride around with the windows down and the latest, coolest music must be blasting from the speakers so that all her peers can see how cool she is, therefore this flapping must be brought under control with duct tape. In retrospect, I realize that absolutely nothing could have upped the "cool" factor of that car. Nothing.

Aside from her many cosmetic woes, the Pickle was in need of some serious internal medicine as well. She was 14, and in Ford years, that's about 702. She, being the old lady that she was, did not like to go out in the cold and would often decide that she didn't want to start if the weather was bad. When I could convince her to get going, it was very hard to keep her going. The Pickle's idle switch was bad and therefore if you took your foot off the gas, there was a good chance she would take a nap. And an even better chance that if she took a nap, she would want to sleep for a while. This terrified me as a new driver and I learned all the ways around town that did not require taking her out on heavy traffic roads. I was convinced that the moment I got onto the highway, old Pickle would decide that that was as far as she wanted to go that day and cause a major traffic jam. Fortunately, I learned a trick. I found out that if I kept the brake mashed to the floor, I could still press the gas and keep her idling. She may have been old, but I was crafty. That trick actually gave the old girl and me some amusement. One day I was stopped at a crosswalk waiting for some teenage boys to get out of my way. They were pointing and laughing at my old car. This upset us, as I am the only one that is allowed to do that. Little did they know that my foot was on the gas, and so I just gave it a little extra juice. The Pickle roared like a lion and lurched against the brake...those boys jumped about a foot into the air and then wasted no time clearing our path. My car might have been an old lady, but she was a mean old lady with attitude.

As much as I hated that car, she did serve me well. She was a softball player shuttle, an escape from the school bus, and the place where I got my first kiss from a high school crush. She got me to work (except when she didn't feel like it) and she gave me my first sense of automotive freedom. I even think that the person we sold her to gave her that internal TLC that she needed. So if you are riding around central Virginia and you see a pickle-green car with a tan head liner flapping in the wind, tell her I said "Hi!"