MY EMBARRASSING CAR!

’64 Ford Falcon

You never forget your first car.

The ’64 Ford Falcon was Sky Mist Blue. I didn’t know that was the name of the color when I was a seventeen-year-old girl.

I knew to check the oil, and I knew to pack gas money, cigarettes and strawberry-flavored lip-gloss in my fringed leather purse.

Back in the 70s, I thought I drove the junkiest car in the high school parking lot. Boys drove huge cars that dominated the best parking spaces — Impalas, El Caminos, and even an orange ‘Cuda.

Some girls had hot cars. Brenda had a Gold Nugget special ’68 Mustang. Michelle drove a Camaro. My Ford Falcon, relatively small, was blue like faded Levi’s. The hinge broke on the driver’s side, and the door had to be swapped out for a dark blue one, so my ‘old faded jeans’ had a big dark patch.

I kept a couple changes of clothes in the back seat, jeans and halter-tops squished into the corners, maybe even a bra back there, but strictly for costume changes.

No one was having sex in my car. To be honest, it wasn’t cool enough. I didn’t have any guy friends who didn’t have their own car.

Anyway, it had a family car vibe.

I didn’t have to ride in the big yellow school bus, and for that I was grateful. I changed clothes in the Falcon, ate in it, slept in it, drove friends home, and sank it in the sand on senior skip day.

Fifteen boys lifted it out and moved it onto the road. That car and I had a lot of adventures, and lately I’m nostalgic for it, even checking out Ford Falcons online.

I don’t remember how the Falcon arrived to our family farm. My parents didn’t drive it. Mom had a nice new car in the ‘70s, and looked fancy in ruffled shirts like Shirley on “The Partridge Family.” Dad was a salesman and drove a chocolate-brown Chevy Malibu.

I think they bought the Falcon for us kids to bomb around in, but I ended up with it. I was the middle child, and you know what they say about us. My sister, the eldest, got the sporty red Mazda RX 4, which I ended up with later, when my parents suggested I take over the payments and acquire it.