'68 Ford

 Last night I dreamt of my first car: a 1968 Ford Fairlane Torino. It was the ugliest color you ever saw; a friend of mine called it “ocher.” It was the color of dried-up mustard. Sort of . Maybe a littlel greener than that. It had a black vinyl top in the style that was popular in the 60s, to make it look like a convertible, I guess (though that ploy didn't work).

That car and I had a lot of fun in the years that I owned it, which was from 1982 to about 1987 or so. It had this massive V-8 engine which allowed me to overpower and pass just about anything else on the road at the time. The black top was beginning to crack and peel, so the car didn’t look like much. Frankely it was kind of a junker. But I kept it in great running order by taking it to my mechanic, Dave. Dave loved working on old Fords, and he kept that car running well beyond the normal mileage that a Ford of that age would normaly have gotten. I have so many stories and memories about that car and about Dave, who became kind of a father figure to me, and how he cared about me and the car and he kept us both on the road.

Anyway, In the dream last night, I was surprised to learn that I still had the car. I was keeping it in a barn or something, but I’d forgoteen that I had it. I was so thrilled to see it again. I think that it had actually become a convertible in the dream. I won’t go into the hazy details of the dream because it was, like most dreams, pretty ethereal. The thing is, that dream brought back lots of pleasant memories of that great old Ford.

Of course, I hadn’t appreciated it fully at the time I had it. To me, fresh out of college and setting out on my own, it was just a 14-year-old car that was kind of a clunker and a really ugly color. But over time, I came to really appreciate that car. The trunk was so big that you could just about step into it and walk around. I really did have to go into the trunk to get the spare tire out. 

I did a lot of work on the car myself because I didn’t have the money to take it to Dave every time the car had a problem. But also, it was so easy to work on that even an idiot coul do simple tasks. I changed the oil myself on a regular schedule. I replaced hoses and belts that had worn out and stuff like that. One time, I had diagnosed a problem (with my brother M’s help) as a bad fuel filter. I decided to take the fuel filter off the carburetor myself and replace it. (The car was made before the days of fuel injection, or at least before fuel injection became common in passenger cars.) The thing is, I have always been confused about which way to turn things to loosen them. I have trouble telling right from left and so forth, so I get confused about a lot of directional things. So I often end up tightening tthings that I had set out to loosen.

I was trying to take this fuel filter out of the carburetor, and it had to be screwed out. I had a pair of pliers, and I kept turning and turning that fuel filter. By the way, the fuel filter was inside this gold- colored metal cylinder, which is what I was actully trying to unscrew. Finally, I decided that maybe I was turning it the wrong way, so I began turning it the opposite way. After about 30 minutes of trying turning it this way and that, and almost surely making more preogress at tightening the darned thing reather than loosening it, I lost my temper, as I am wont to do when I become frustrated with mechanical things. I had already had a few choice words for the filter casing. I had questioned its heritage and had possibly insulted its mother. But it had gotten to where mere curse words, no matter how creatively used, did not quite express my true level of frustration. At that point, I wanted to pound on something. I had pliers in my hand, so I already had the tool I needed, and the fule filter was the most immediate thing in front of me, plus it had the benefit of being the actual object of my wrath. So, I began whanging away at it with the pliers. This felt really good for a few momnets, until the @##$&$% filter suddenly broke off from the side of the carburetor. It had sheered off right at the place where it was attached to the carburetor, leaving not even a small fragment of itself sticking out.

Now I was really in a bind. The part of the fuel filter casing that screwed into the carburetor was still there, but there was now no fuel filter attached. I did as I always do in such situations: call one of my brothers. In this case, the most useful of whom was M. Also known for his volatile temper, in addition to his excellent mechanical skills, I knew that he would not only know how to solve this new dilemma but he would also be understanding of theh temper tantrum that had caused it.

The end of the story was that, when he had time, M came over with the correct tools and drilled out the part of the fuel filter that was stuck in the carburetor. We then went and got the replacement part, installed it in the carburetor, and the car was good to go.

That car got me wherever I needed to go during the early days of my independent adulthood, and I remember it very fondly now. At the time, I worked nights, alone, at a small neighborhood liquor store so that I could spend my days flying as I was working toward getting my pilot's license. Many of the men who came into the store asked about my car. They would then stand around and reminisce about similar cars that they had owned in high school or college. “Those were the days,” they'd sigh wistfully. Often, they'd ask me if it was for sale. At the time, I'd have loved to sell it to get something smaller, newer, and more economical, but I knew that I couldn't find as good a deal on another car as the 800 bucks that my dad had sold it to me for, so I always told them no. They would then tell me that that was a good decision, as I should really enjoy that car while I had it. I would scoff at the very idea. The thing seemed as big as a houseboat, it was ugly, and it got about 16 miles to the gallon.

But last night's dream reminded me of that great old Ford Torino and how much fun I had in it. My liquor store customers were right, I should've enjoyed the car more when I had it, and now I'm as nostalgic about my '68 Ford as those guys were about their first cars.