get you a date from any classy circa 1976 gal. What feathered-hair hottie could resist those faux-wood, side panels and that puke, olive-green sheen?Too much crappola to fit in the spacious hatchback? No problemo, tie it on top like a pro.
Yes folks, welcome to a Watson flashback, the Plymouth Volare.
Now just imagine many, MANY, semi-annual, cross-country trips with two exhausted adults, three fighting kids, and one mammoth dog, Frodo, who was some kind of cross between a boarhound, German Shepherd, Great Dane, a little Saint Bernard maybe and of course Dinosaur, and you'll get the general gist. Of course our "little" Frodo had a drooling problem and would get a bit warm nestled in all our luggage (that wasn't tied on top of the roof) driving through Southern California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Kansas in the middle of summer. His drool would slide down those faux-leather green seats to our necks and backs.
We were the Griswalds. And we really drove in the nearest thing to the Family Truckster.
How my parent's marriage survived those family vacations I'll never know, nor how they didn't leave one (or all) of us at one of the secluded, tumbleweed-lined rest stops.
I'm glad they didn't because I'm putting our lima-bean green, wood-paneled Volare in my story. In memorial of all the car sickness and family times that brought us SO close together.
Here's a link to a volare station wagon commercial. I love reading the comments underneath, especially the last one:
"I had a '77 non-wagon for my first car. Terrible car. Still miss it. Kind of like my first girlfriend. Terrible person. Still miss her."
Too funny. My family went on those cross-country trips in a Buick sedan that always ended up in some sort of craziness. Bet your story is going to be great!
ReplyDeleteMy best friend's mom drove one of these! We'd sit in the back and play "Con-cen-tra-tion, concentration is a game. Keep the rhy-thm, keep the rhythm all the same..." as we drove to the public pool. Such sweet memories :)
ReplyDeleteI hope so Vivian, if I can ever finish my dang story!
ReplyDeleteNice to meet you Solvang Sherrie, your public pool trip just opened another locked up memory cache in my brain. The worst part for me was when they'd make everybody get out of the pool to add chlorine or to test the ph or whatever and we'd all have to wait behind the fence like cows. And wait.
I don't know why, but I always had the smallest towel in history. Some kids had these luxurious thick soft towels that you could lay on and it felt like a feather bed. Not me, mine was thin and too short. I'm the youngest so it was probably a hand-me-down. May as well have used a wash cloth.
Too funny. Brings me back to my family's road trips too. If only we had had such an awesome car...
ReplyDeleteThis is the car I drove to high school in the early nineties! Except, it was blue, not green. My dad bought it at a yard sale for $200 dollars and rigged it to start with the flip of a light switch (yes, the kind you would usually see on a WALL). He's a resourceful guy, my dad.
ReplyDeleteThat is so cool! A light switch to turn your car on? Wow! Your dad sounds really cool. What other stuff could we rig to start with the flip of a switch? I could think of a BUNCH of stuff, some even that would get me in trouble...
ReplyDelete: )
HOLY JEEZ, Ben. You do NOT want people to find out about THAT car. Let's just count our blessings while we have 'em.
ReplyDeleteYou may have forgotten who rolled in that Family Truckster during high school....
Well, I am sure the Sherrifs have not forgotten. Ah, the joys of leaving an area for good. heh heh.
Quiet, Russ.
Excuse me, man. And don't let your mother catch a whiff of that beer on your breath.
ReplyDeleteAh Chevy, RIP. What he's not dead? What the heck happened to him? It's like as if George Lucas suddenly forgot how to make movies or something. Wait, bad example.
And yes, I'd say the Watson family move probably buried plenty of sheriff reports on both of us. They should probably stay buried too. What's that? Oh yeah I'm writing a book about that area. Great, real smart Ben.