As so often happens, one blog needs to another. My recent soliloquy about the Plymouth Sport Fury the crossing guard drove who helped me and thousands of other kids get to school back in Oceanside, New York, jogged my engine block about the 1966 Chevrolet Impala SS convertible that my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Katzenberger, "Mrs. K" for short, drove. It was a darker shade of red than our illustrative stand-in here and had a black top with black interior.
I did not have the same affection for her that I had for my crossing guard but I held her Impala in similar regard. Both cars a welcome respite from my father's dreary, rental grade '68 Ford Ranch Wagon.
If you are what you drive then I found her Impala SS even more vexing than my crossing guard's Fury; the flashy cars out of step, in my opinion, with the persona of both people but in particular the dour Mrs. K. Then again, outside of the gross manly-man stereotype, much like being able to judge which side of the political spectrum someone may stand on based purely on their physical appearance, it's impossible to say one car is appropriate for one person and not another. However, as I later found out the Fury was my crossing guard's husband's car, I never found out if the Impala was Mrs. K's or not. She was so terrifying and intimidating the less I had to deal with her the better; I restrained from such mundane chit-chat about her car with her.
For 1966, Chevrolet had four different full-size models based off General Motors new-for-1965 "B-body" chassis. At the bottom of the range was the Biscayne and moving up the pricing ladder was the Bel Air, Impala and Caprice; Caprice had been a Impala trim in model-year 1965 and was as luxurious as a Cadillac. Well, almost.
If you want to split hairs, the Chevrolet Impala SS was technically a separate model from Impala although it was, at least in base model trim, an appearance package first and foremost. The image of Chevrolet's vaunted SS badge was in its infancy at the time and they had yet to fully flesh out what it was all to mean. For example, the standard engine on an Impala SS was Chevrolet's 235-cubic inch, 155-horsepower in-line six cylinder. By the grace of the car gods only 900 six-cylinder Impala SS' were built in '66; a mere .007 percent of Chevrolet's total 1966 production of a staggering if not mind-boggling 1.6 million full-size automobiles. Throw in Chevelle and Nova sales and we appreciate the scope of Chevrolet's dominance in the mid-'60's.
The largest, most powerful engine available on a 1966 Impala SS was Chevrolet's 427-cubic inch V-8 making 425-horsepower. Mrs. K's Impala SS had what most '66 Impala SS' left the factory with - a 327 and an automatic transmission; that transmission being GM's "Powerglide", two-speeder. Hey, who said all muscle cars where actually muscle cars?
I don't blame you for perhaps scoffing at how I can recall such mundane details; especially seeing that these memories are pushing fifty-years old. However, when you're enamored of something as much as I was of that car, you remember such minute details. I couldn't help but study every square inch of her car seeing that she always parked it on a street that was on my way home. The big, low slung Chevy was also a stark reminder, an educational beacon of hope and despair, that she was always there.
Although I did quite well in her class, Mrs. K scared the daylights out of me much in the same way my mother did. Tall, severe looking, strict, exacting and humorless, her booming, theatrical voice kept most of us in line for fear of being reamed out. Several kids would put their heads down on their desks and covered their ears when she would go into one of her tirades regardless if it was directed at them or not. One time she laid into me for chewing gum in glass; I swear I didn't sleep for a week afterwards.
Ironically, my mother found her to be a bully and said as much to her face during one of several parent-teacher conferences. My mother also took exception to Mrs. K's chain-smoking and coffee guzzling during the meetings. Hello, pot. Kettle over here. Mrs. K did, though, consider me one of her brighter students with a penchant for history and writing; she recommended after school tutoring for my less than adequate math skills. That never happened lest I spend more time with a woman who made my stomach do backflips. Or worse.
Through it all, though, I believe I came through the fourth-grade less scathed than most of my fellow classroom-cellmates. I attribute that to my mother who I found, sadly most of the time, equally as difficult to deal with; consider me me battle field trained. However, there were upsides. Mrs. K's grading of papers of mine that she found exceptional with her signature "Most Excellent" still etched in my mind giving me a boost of "intellectual confidence" to this day. "Most Excellent" a term I still use to describe things I determine to be exceptional.
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