Welcome to
my new blog. I have decided to retire the old one, but you can still read the archives
online.
Since I have
become a contributor to Hemmings Classic
Car with my monthly column, “Detroit Underdogs,” and after eight years editing
a car club newsletter, I find that I want to focus on driving in the United
States rather than just backing out of my driveway at the trailer park, where I
reside with my co-pilot, Rose Marie, my rescue puppy.
How much
more can I say about manufactured living? But, to those fans of the trailer park
trash existence, I will pepper this new blog with anecdotes from the mobile
life when apropos.
For those
who don’t know me, I belong to seven antique car clubs, three that are gay, and
four that are make specific. I prefer the independents to the Big Three, but I
have owned my share of Mopars and Fords along with AMCs over the years. Presently, I own
two cars, a 2011 GMC Canyon base-model pick-up with a steering wheel, a radio
and little else. It has roll-up windows and manual door locks. Surprisingly, it
has a bed liner and cruise control. I drove it cross-country last year with no
problems even though seven people insisted I rent a car with a trunk. I don’t take
advice well.
My other car
is a 1954 Hudson Jet Liner. Unlike other Jet Liners, this one has no fender
skirts, continental kit or full wheel covers, and that is why I bought it
because those are three things along with fins that I do not like. For future
reference, the Canyon is Caroline Appleby and the Jet Liner is Fred Mertz. I
used to name my cars after Bewitched
characters, but that only resulted in them leaving a trail of smoke and fire
every time I took off and having to page Dr. Bombay every couple of months.
So here goes
…
It is the
middle of winter. The weatherman said we have actually passed the coldest part
of winter, but I am inside and I cannot feel my fingers or toes or other things
that stick out … like my nose. Yesterday, or was it the day before, Atlanta got
hit with a rare blizzard that dropped three inches of snow on the ground,
causing a traffic situation that was indescribable. Every time I see something
like this, I think of what would happen during a terrorist attack. Every car in
the pictures of the mess was either an SUV or front-wheel drive sedan, and they
were black, gray or white. I miss colorful cars. There were also an inordinate
amount of eighteen wheelers stuck in the malaise.
Several
years ago, there was a twenty-minute thunderstorm in Rockville, which knocked
out power lines. It took almost three weeks to get the power back on, so we have our own problems, which is why I don't live in Rockville anymore.
Back to the South.
I grew up in the South in southeastern, Virginia. Yes, that is the South
because it was an hour south of the capital of the Confederacy. We didn’t get a
lot of snow, but on the rare occasions we did, we got whoppers, and many times
they were ice storms. These were the days before every man had front wheel
drive and every grandmother had an SUV. With the exception of the hippy professor
types, I can guarantee you we drove big heavy cars with rear-wheel drive.
As luck
would have it, I was always the one who was stuck at work in these freak
blizzards with a 1973 Ford LTD – a yellow four-door with a brown vinyl roof. Yes,
it was that ugly but a nice car to drive. Going back a few years before I
learned how to drive, my brother became a man in 1972. No, not like that. That was
the year of his Bar Mitzvah. Aunt Honey and Uncle Sam and Aunt Min and Uncle Iz
came down to stay with Grandma in her one-bedroom apartment. Uncle Sam was the
only one with a license and a car – a green four-door 1972 Chevrolet Nova. It was
December, and they had driven down in a snow storm, and I remember it as if it
were yesterday. Uncle Sam said, “The secret to driving in the snow and ice is
letting the car take off on its own before applying the gas.” He was right.
The problem
is not everyone met Uncle Sam, so we ended up with the situation on the roads
this past week. However, I think we have another problem – overconfidence.
When we
drove rear-wheel cars, we knew the limitations. We knew that you couldn’t go
the speed limit in the snow and you only drove in ice if you needed to get
someone to the emergency room to have a limb attached and only if there was a
sixty percent chance of saving it!
Although I
remembered what Uncle Sam said, this didn’t matter to my parents. During a blizzard, they would
call me at work every ten minutes telling me to go home. It was annoying and embarrassing,
and once, when I was in my late twenties, I threatened to report them to the
FBI. It didn’t work; they called back ten minutes later. I worked as a manager
in the food service industry, and they expected me to drop everything and leave
with customers sitting in the establishment. One time, I handed the phone to a
customer and said, “Tell my mother you are waiting for your lasagna.” She
thought it was one of my friends.
At the end
of my shift that winter in 1979, I was ready to leave, and there was no more
traffic on the road. In addition, no snow plows had come through. At the time,
I worried about that, but sometimes if they plow without salting and sanding,
they just create a sheet of ice.
I called home
to assure them I was leaving, and I hung up on my father mid-sentence, which I
know pissed him off, but I had already spoken to him three dozen times that
afternoon.
One of my
co-workers needed a ride home, so we brushed off all the snow on the LTD.
Speaking of which, why don’t people do this? I hate being behind someone and being
pelted by ice sheets and big-ass snowballs.
Kristine, my
co-worker, asked if I knew what I was doing. I assured her I did even though
this was my first time driving in this kind of weather. I had a positive
attitude even then. My parents thought I would die, but I was sure I would get
home safe and sound.
I was parked
behind the restaurant, and I needed to negotiate a small road before hitting
Warwick Boulevard in Newport News. Remembering Uncle Sam, I let the car take
off on its own, which was easy with a 429 cubic inch four barrel V-8 under the
hood, and off we went.
She lived
off two side streets, and I even managed to pull into her driveway and back out
without slipping or getting stuck. Keep in mind, this car had rear-wheel drive
and no positraction. The drive home required me to go down Warwick Boulevard, make
a left on Main Street, and go through an underpass. I felt like Lucy with the
Pontiac stuck to the Cadillac. Although I was the only car within sight, I
still followed the traffic signals because I always follow the rules. The light turned green. I allowed
the car to make the left then eased on the gas and picked up just enough speed
to go under and emerge on the other side. Well, that was easy, and there was no
other car stuck to my bumper.
I then had
to negotiate the winding section of Main Street and managed to do so with no
slipping or sliding. I was really beginning to appreciate “road hugging weight.”
Then onto Beech Drive to our house on Dresden Drive. Now, I had managed to get
through all these streets with no problem, and I knew when I arrived at the
house, I would need to have enough speed to get up the driveway or that was the
most likely place for me to get stuck. I thought I was such an expert driver at this
point.
I rounded
the corner, eyeing our house, which was the second one on the right, and what did
I see? My brother and father standing there attempting to shovel the snow and standing
in my direct path. I beeped the horn and waved my arm for them to get out of
the way, and instead, my brother started giving me signals as if he was guiding
an airplane into an arrival gate. They wouldn’t move! What did I do? I stopped
the car and got out, and I said, “I didn’t want to run you two over, so get it
up the driveway, yourselves.” I then went into the house.
Needless to
say, my last nerve was plucked from all the phone calls, I just piloted that tank
of a car along a treacherous route and just when I needed to have a clear path
into the driveway, I risked making my mother a single parent with one angry
child.
I will not
share what happened after they managed to get it into the driveway, but let’s
say there was more screaming than on an episode of All in the Family.
I never got
credit for driving that car in a blizzard. I had the best driving record in my
family, and my friends usually asked me to do the driving, but you wouldn’t
know that to ask them. I was caught in many a blizzard in that heavy Ford LTD after
that, and I never had a problem.
From the mid-1980s
to about five years ago, I jumped onto the front-wheel drive bandwagon, and that
is when I witnessed what had become of drivers now that most of us were driving
cars pulled by the front wheels or all wheels. They go too fast. I actually do
not like driving front wheel drive cars in the snow. I don’t know what it is,
but being behind the wheel of a light car that is low to the ground is not my
ideal, and I am not fond of an SUV either.
Recently,
someone asked, “What is the best car you ever drove in the snow?” Many of the younger
ones mentioned Pathfinders, Cherokees and Blazers, etc. No one mentioned a
front-wheel drive car, but I think I was the only one who said a 1973 Ford LTD
was the best car I ever drove in the snow. The second best is my GMC Canyon,
which only has rear-wheel drive.
If this
global warming keeps up, maybe I should buy another ‘70s Ford LTD?
For my column, “Detroit Underdogs,”
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for my books, visit www.miltonstern.com. You can also follow me by adding your email to my distribution list.