26

From the prompt generator today comes: What was your first car.

Christine was a 1963 Plymouth Fury with push-button transmission. The car was an absolute riot. It leaked oil, water and brake fluid, and started best with a little gas poured into the carb. I carried little bottles of the various fluids in the various cavities of the engine compartment. Her body was mostly bondo, making her a mottled beige and brown sort of holstien. I had more fun in that pile of bolts than I care to recall during my senior year of high school. It was also a death trap. The brakes went out on a hill in Sioux Falls once, and I had to turn into a parking lot that was three feet above the street behind a retaining wall, and I wound up dropping the front end over the edge and dangling the wheels over the sidewalk. My brother was a spit-and-baling wire mechanic, and he had found her and given her to me. When I decided it was not worth the effort to take her to college, he tricked her out and ran her in figure eight races and enduros before flipping her end for end at the Sioux Empire Fair. It occurs to me for all the fun we had in that car, I never got pictures. Probably a good thing. Unnecessary evidence. Great fun, 'tho.