As I mentioned in RST 52, the area around the Red River Gorge reminds me a lot of home, especially all the backroads. A younger C.L. driving his blue 1979 Chevy Monte Carlo would have loved to tackle the highways and byways of this region. This is despite of the fact that his father disconnected the four-barrel carburetor to keep him from killing himself. He also would have loved driving the white 1984 Ford Escort – a base model with manual transmission and no air conditioning and funky paint job – because its rack-and-pinion steering loved the curves. He even would have enjoyed driving the gunmetal gray 1982 VW Rabbit Diesel – a four-speed manual transmission whose German-engineered steering made up for a lack of power. He instead, this week, must drive through the twisty-turny mountain roads with a 2019 VW Atlas. He is quite, quite sure that his much more sedate navigation of the local terrain has to do with the fact that the Atlas is top heavy and leans and has absolutely nothing to with the fact that he’s older and more aware of the potential consequences of crashing and may have lost a step or two.
At one point in our lives, the Bosses were pretty damn poor – I’m talking feeding the family for the week on a budget that is half of what we paid for dinner last night. The low point of this time in our lives occurred when the transmission let go in our 2002 Chevy Suburban. Only the even numbered gears would work with absolutely no reverse. This vehicle was crucial to our existence because it was the only vehicle that would haul all six of us and navigate our driveway (see RST 47 for that story). A tow truck in this situation was simply out of the question. Fortunately, Ms. Boss had parked the vehicle in such a way that we could drive through our (fortunately) dirt yard and around the house. Once we got out on the road, I’d give it plenty gas so it didn’t stall out in second to get it going, then run the RPM up enough so that I could drop it into fourth. I drove backroads like this for fifteen miles to get us to the transmission shop. We defaulted on our mortgage that month to get it fixed. It was a low point in our lives together. Hard work by the two of us means these kind of things don’t happen to us anymore.
The ‘79 Monte Carlo was loaned to me by my parents… and taken away by my parents and given to my step-brother… who promptly wrecked it. When it came to be my turn to get a ‘college car’, the ‘84 Ford Escort became my transportation for the last two years of college and for a year beyond. I was okay with driving the car known as the ‘clown car’, but that otherwise ‘jolly’ vehicle was decidedly unhappy with the road salt laid down in Northern Illinois and began rusting with great abandon. That lead me to purchase my first new car: a white 1994 Chevy S10 manual five-speed with a single cab and a 1.9 liter engine. As much as my father and my step-brother wanted me to ‘upgrade’, I bought the truck that met my needs with air conditioning and an AM/FM radio and nothing else. Confident in my purchase and after a week of visiting family and friends, I started back home towards Northern Illinois. I was driving down the road with 800 miles on the odometer when all of the sudden, the car made a terrible noise and began slowing down. I pulled over, unable to get any further and stood by the side of the road. A guy in a Ford dually pickup stopped and gave me a lift to the gas station where I called AAA and had it towed to the closest Chevy dealership. Eventually, the truck got back to the Chevy dealership who discovered they failed to dealer prep the crankcase which caused it to drop into all five gears at once. Me and Chevy transmissions, right? The biggest of the situation is that the transmission failed right in front of the Ford transmission factory.
Despite inauspicious beginnings with the S10, it treated me well until we parted ways 2003. I have fond memories of that truck. It transported the soon-to-be Ms. Boss and I to Canada on our very first trip together, Not long after, it carried the two us through Colorado and Utah in search of adventure. Most notably, however, it was the reason why she knew where I lived when she placed a note about whether I would be interested in getting to know her better, but that’s a different tale for another time.