Driving Me Happy - Forward

 

c. 2025 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(2-25)

 

 

Four decades after purchasing my 1981 Chevy Chevette, from a Pontiac dealer in the Ohio community where I landed after coming home from New York, I still find myself emotionally connected to that utilitarian car. It is a personal honor probably undeserved in view of the minimal return received for my purchase price of about $3000.00. Yet with each passing year, I find myself returning, again and again, to that automotive benchmark. It served to calibrate my perceptions of good and bad, like a mechanic’s diagnostic tool. And thus, keep me keenly aware of what qualities were important to consider, when shopping for a daily driver.

 

In my native region of the Midwest, engine displacement and off-roading capabilities were of paramount importance. Or, at least having some hints of racing style, incorporated. The idea of owning a boxy, underpowered hunk of tin, fit for nothing except getting from one place to another, was loathsome to ponder. Friends had trucks, early SUV varieties, or sporty holdovers from the muscle car era. So, crowded in between such fine and fancy vehicles, in the parking lot at work, I felt nearly invisible behind the steering wheel of my GM econobox.

 

My father, who was wise and old and well-versed in dispensing the wisdom of many years lived, knew of my plight. He had owned dozens of roadgoing mules, even hundreds, perhaps. But his grayed perspective as a head-of-household and counselor gave him the sort of overview I needed at that seminal moment. I was broke, homeless, and unemployed when arriving on his doorstep in Geauga County. My summer escapade in the Empire State had proven to be a foolish fit of failure. At that moment, I needed to be practical and realistic.

 

“Rodney, it’s a ‘Vette you can afford! But more than that, it’s the kind you need right now! For once in your life, think rationally! It’s time to grow up and act like an adult! Otherwise, you’ll be back to living under a bridge, and shivering in the cold!”

 

No one I knew would mistake my new acquisition for a Corvette. In fact, I realized before long that it was colloquially known as a ‘Shove-it.’ A nickname that dripped with sarcasm and accuracy, in equal measures.

 

The notion of living with such austere guidelines in effect made me physically ill. Yet my sire was correct. I had exhausted the goodwill of friends, neighbors, and family members. He and my mother were the only salvation I had left. By their grace, and that of a loving God, I would survive and prosper, with enough hard work invested. Without those gifts, I was literally doomed. Damned to suffer the consequences of my own impulses.

 

The Chevette was everything I feared, tucked tidily into a neat and thrifty package. It was plain, and even anonymous to behold. Slow, cramped, noisy, uncomfortable, creaky, and the butt of jokes from coworkers and cohorts along our avenue. It rattled like a farm wagon when in motion. It was not good in snow, or mud, or a friendly place to spend hot, summer days. It did nothing to bolster my public image, or attract interest from potential dating candidates. Others who shared membership in the tribe spoke about reliability issues, being stranded away from home, and spending weeks walking while their own versions of the breed were sitting in a repair bay, waiting for parts. These stories left my own confidence shaken and stirred. But in the end, mattered not enough to solve my conundrum.

 

My 1973 Volkswagen Beetle was all but dead. I had to do something, immediately.

 

I had taken a job with a remodel crew, at a department store across town. My weekly pay envelope was thin, by any measure. Around a hundred bucks, if I was blessed with enough labor hours on my timecard. This meant that one fourth of my income went just to satisfy the new loan payment. To afford cigarettes, beer, and other guilty pleasures, like going to clubs in the nearby social nexus of Mentor, I had to be very judicious. The minimalist Chevrolet made it possible though, by gleaming with one, singular characteristic that was its best attribute. It sipped gasoline with the patient thirst of a desert camel, seeking hydration. Often going for days and more without needing to refuel.

 

Throughout my teenage years, our family owned a series of Ford LTD Country Squire wagons. They were huge, ponderous, stodgy, and went through gallons of gasoline with every turn of the ignition key. But the Chevette flipped that paradigm completely. I could peel a five-dollar bill out of my wallet, stop at our local Convenient Food Mart on Cherry Street, and dribble enough refined crude into the tank for an entire week.

 

In addition to using its onboard resources efficiently, the car soon manifested another quality that garnered respect from those in my circle. It was deceptively inconspicuous when traveling. So willfully bland as to be a mobile blind-spot on police radar. Eventually, this tiny nugget of General Motors hardware ended up serving as a taxi for jaunts to Denny’s restaurants after hours. Trailing fumes of Marlboro Reds and cheap booze, after having listened to raucous music at venues around the area.

 

“Let’s take your car, dude! We never get pulled over in that thing! It has a cloaking device in place, just like Star Trek! That’s freaking awesome!”

 

Everything I owned in the aftermath of that experience seemed better by comparison. Vans, pickup trucks, family sedans, and such. All of which were roomier, faster, and more appealing to the eye. I never felt so humbled, again. Yet when debating the merits of any motorized beast with wheels akimbo, that marker has remained in place. Like a tattoo chosen in a fit of drunken rage or the swoon of a love interest, too soon abandoned.

 

That box had been checked, indelibly.

 

No one would ever forget owning a vehicle like the Chevy Chevette. And I could not, under any circumstances. Its identity was branded into my heart, mind, and flesh, forever, with a simple signature on the DMV title.