Only in hindsight do we realize the futility of a situation. I probably had a better shot at dating a member of my high school cheerleader squad than I had with a 1972 Chevelle I found for sale one fall day back in 1982 on my way home from Nassau Community College. This one's quite similar to it except for the aftermarket rims (I don't care for), a chromed-out engine and who knows what else it wasn't born with.
She sat at that corner of the parking lot at what is now a real estate office at the intersection of Long Beach Road and Seaman Avenue in Rockville Centre back on Long Island with "FOR SALE 1200" painted on her windshield. I was fish hooked and had to have a closer look. Forty-years ago, $1,200 was not an insignificant amount of money but for a car even back then that had the rock star allure of Mick Jagger, it was the deal of a lifetime. Can you even imagine finding a rust-free, all-original '72 Chevelle these days for what amounts to $1,200 today? That would be approximately, give or take, $3,500. Non-running junkers are going for north of ten-grand. Way north.
I turned my squeaky, rusty Comet right around and was amazed, stunned actually, when the guy behind the counter didn't flinch when I asked for the keys. He either didn't care or he bought into the notion that someone with the map of Ireland on his face and the outward disposition of an altar boy meant that no bad could happen. Seeing how hard I got on the thing something bad certainly could have happened, but nothing did. Unless you count my not ending up with the car as a bad thing as I most certainly do.
The problem was that at even less than fifty-bucks a credit at NCC back then, working up to three minimum wage jobs meant I had little money for anything let alone another car. About the only capital I had was wrapped up in my wretched, 1974 Mercury Comet. To get cash I'd have to sell the Comet. Then how would I get to school?
The only option was to ask my mother for a loan. I still see the smoke from her Raleigh cigarette, plain, no filter, puffing out of her nose and mouth in a syncopated rhythm as she slam-dunked me; "You already have a car. Why do you need another one?"
On the face of it I couldn't argue with her less than sanguine logic. She wasn't a car person although I know she was aware of my displeasure with the Comet. Didn't matter. "No" meant "no" no matter how much I pleaded my case that I would sell the Comet, give her the money I got for it and pay the balance back in installments. No. The Comet wasn't worth anywhere near the lordly amount of $1,200.
Perhaps it's just as well I didn't get that Chevelle; I'd probably just have driven it into the ground like I do all of my "drivers". It's sweet to think about how much I would have loved that car to say nothing of how much it would have improved my "cool" quotient. Although it was just a base model, "307" car. That warm, pride of ownership feeling coming with the purchase of my beloved 1975 Chrysler Cordoba the following summer; just goes to show you how desperate I was. However, that Cordoba was more symbolic than actually a good car as it introduced me to a world I wasn't aware could exist before it. A world were anything was possible if you worked hard enough. I don't wax nostalgically if poetically for my long lost Cordoba per se, I remember fondly the feelings I had before it when nothing seemed possible. Imagine if I had a Chevelle.
No comments:
Post a Comment