My First Car

Growing up on a farm, I began driving at a very early age out of necessity.  We helped out at the farm and that involved driving.  We got an opportunity to do that as soon as we could see over the dashboard.  Out in the middle of a field, there wasn't much you could damage.  Running into a ditch was about the most trouble you could get into - and I did that a time or three.

When I got my driver's license at 15 that just formalized the driving arrangement.  I shared Dad's pickup truck with him and would clean all of the farm dirt out of it prior to nights out on the town with friends.  Later, when I graduated from high school, my parents gave me the biggest blessing and got me a car.  I remember going to the showroom and looking at brochures.  This one below caught my eye.  Sporty yet classic design.  The Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham. 

I was so doggone proud of that car!  I promptly put a sound system in it and would open the sunroof and listen to Van Halen's (appropriately named) "1984" cassette as loud as it would go.  It had upholstered seats that were comfortable and it drove so smoothly.  Off to college I went.  I parked my car in the Kirby Smith Dormitory parking lot and wouldn't you know somebody vandalized it.  They took a key and marked a big X on the hood and across the driver's side door panel.  I remember being VERY upset.  I remember wishing very bad things on the vandal.  He was never caught.  The insurance company repainted it and all was right in the world again -for a while.

After college graduation, I accepted a position with Exxon in Houston and drove it to the city.  I wanted to familiarize myself with the route to work the day before I was to start, so I drove down the Southwest Freeway into downtown.  Right prior to getting into the heart of downtown, you pass under the Pierce Elevated (I-45).  Being from a small town, all red lights hung from a line in the CENTER of the intersection.  Not so, I quickly learned, in Houston.  They were on small poles on the side of the road.

I blew threw a candy apple-colored red light and T-boned a Houston Police cruiser.  I was wearing some Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses whose wire frames dug into my eyebrows when my head met the rear view mirror with considerable force.  I went to the hospital and got stitched up and went to work the next morning on my first day looking pretty rough.  Although I looked bad, I was okay.  My Olds Cutlass Supreme was not so fortunate.  It was totaled.  I still think about that car.  If only I had paid more attention...  I bought a replacement.  A Toyota Cressida with 252,000 miles on it.  In an understatement, it wasn't near as nice as the Cutlass.  It did get me to and from work though.  In fact, Tricia and I had our first date in that car.  We were driving down Chimney Rock Road in Houston to go to a restaurant and a spark plug blew out of the aluminum head of the engine.  I had to push it into a service station and have it towed.  (Despite that, she still married me!)

Back to the Oldsmobile, they haven't been manufactured in fifteen years!  I read up on it and found according to this Oldsmobile link, after the Cutlass Supreme was the best selling automobile, a mere 20 years later, the last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line.  Here's what that link says about it:

In 1897, Ransom E. Olds (1864-1950), an Ohio-born engine maker, founded the Olds Motor Vehicle Company in Lansing. In 1901, the company, then known as Olds Motor Works, debuted the Curved Dash Oldsmobile, a gas-powered, open-carriage vehicle named for its curved front footboard. More than 400 of these vehicles were sold during the first year, at a price of $650 each (around $17,000 in today’s dollars).
In 1908, Oldsmobile was the second brand, after Buick, to become part of the newly established General Motors (GM). Oldsmobile became a top brand for GM and pioneered such features as chrome-plating in 1926 and, in 1940, the first fully automatic transmission for a mass-market vehicle. Oldsmobile concentrated on cars for middle-income consumers and from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, the Oldsmobile Cutlass was America’s best-selling auto. However, in the decades that followed, sales began to decline, prompting GM to announce in 2000 that it would discontinue the Oldsmobile line with the 2004 models. When the last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line in April 2004, more than 35 million Oldsmobiles had been built during the brand’s lifetime. Along with Daimler and Peugeot, Oldsmobile was among the world’s oldest auto brands.

There are several morals to this story, I suppose.  First and foremost, keep your eyes on the road and pay attention to traffic signals - wherever they may be placed.  Not doing so could cost you your life, or at least a hospital visit, embarrassment, and the loss of a beautiful car.  Next, don't rest on your laurels.  In twenty short years you could go from being the very best and on top of the world to defunct.