My Parents' Vehicles

One of the earliest cars that I remember my parents having was an AMC Javelin that was so dark green that people thought it black. I don’t know what year and I was too young (maybe 10 or 11 years old) to appreciate it but I do remember having conversations about the pronunciation between the Javelin (car) and the javelina (animal) and the “j” is sometimes an “h” sound. It’s strange what you remember some times.

For a while, probably when I was about 13 or 14, my dad drove a pickup truck that had a flat backend with side railings that could be removed. My dad put a bench seat from some other car on the back end but didn’t fasten it on and that is what my sister and I sat on the way to church. 

Then came the ’71 VW van. We had this for years and it was known for blowing engines and breaking clutch cables. As a teenager, it was not uncommon for me to push the van so that my dad could jump-start it. If it was my dad driving, it didn’t take much but my had more trouble with it and I’d end up pushing it quite a ways down the road before she could jump-start it. The other interesting part of this van was my dad took the middle seat and turned it around so that it set up against the back of the front seats and we as kids had to face each other when going anywhere. This seat was not latched down and had a tendency to rock occasionally.

I don’t remember us having two cars until we were teenagers and had finally moved out of our mobile home into a rental home. My mom drove a very, very old Rambler. The windshield wipers had a small motor right above the windows but it didn’t work and I remember a couple of times trying to move the wipers manually as we went down the road. Fortunately, it does not rain a lot in Az. 

It was not until we moved out of the house that my dad bought himself a new car.