Her name was Helen Davis and she was my first real serious crush. Problem was she was my third-grade teacher and although she was very young, she was still a good twelve-to-thirteen years older than me; there was no way she'd "wait" for me. Adding to her mystique and cool elan, she allowed us kids to call her "Helen"; I was too shy around her to call her anything but "Miss Davis" but talk about early '70's progressive. Anyway, I adored her and her light green Ford Maverick that looked just like this well worn 1969 1/2.
Ford introduced the Maverick on April 17, 1969, five years to the day after it's kissin' cousin the Mustang debuted. While actually out-selling the original Mustang in its first six-months of sales, contemporary road test reviewers tactfully eviscerated the new small Ford for it's soft suspension, slow steering, poor visibility and springy seats that sat the driver too low. While they were impressed with the around town performance of the six-cylinder engines, they weren't impressed with its 20-miles-per-gallon or so fuel economy.
Frankly, I've always thought "Maverick" was an odd name for a bone-stripper economy car; ads like this played to the name of the car as opposed to what the car actually portended to be. Love the paint colors choices. Anti-Establish Mint? That's funny to see especially today.
In a way Miss Davis' Maverick was the quintessential young school teacher's car. Somewhat practical and nimble, it had a bigger trunk than that on a Datsun, was way more maneuverable than an LTD or Torino, had a dollop of style that even an eight or nine year old could appreciate and they were very affordable.
Halfway through the third grade, my beloved Miss Davis suddenly became, "Mrs. Blohm"; pronounced "blome". As you can imagine I was semi-heart broken and what's more, the school's principal insisted us kids refer to her as "Mrs. Blohm" and not "Helen". Damn establish-mint. She had no problem with kids still referring to her as "Helen", though.
I still called her "Miss Davis".
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