Wednesday, November 08, 2006

My Boat

I had a few things happen today to remind me of some fun times years back.
We watched Cars and laughed and really just enjoyed the movie. Seeing those older cars reminded me of my old car, a.k.a. "the boat."
When I was going to Ricks College (back when it WAS Ricks) my parents bought me a car. Earlier that year I had a friend die in a bad car accident. (Her birthday would have been today...) And my parents were paranoid about me commuting back and forth all week in a small car. As a way of easing their minds they bought me a 1971 Pontiac Bonneville. It was a bluish color, and HUGE. The car seemed like it was about 16 feet long. Whenever I drove it anywhere I felt like I was floating on the road...hence, the boat.
I LOVED this car. It may seem weird that someone could feel that way about a car, but if you had seen me driving it, you would have seen a happy kid. I loved just the feeling I had of being free. There are MANY good memories I have of this car.
One such memory involves my cousins. I was the oldest in the group, and therefore, the designated driver (since the rest of them were 12...) Anyway, the boat had a fun feature that I loved to try out on unsuspecting riders, it had a tendency to do "howdy" stops. If I pressed on the brakes just a bit too fast, the car would lurch to a halt, giving anyone inside a major case of whiplash...and I LOVED it!
To get back to my rambling...we were driving down the road and a dog ran in front of us. I slammed on the brakes and gave all of us a major "howdy!" My cousins all laughed so hard, that they begged me to do it again. We spent a fun half hour driving down back roads doing "howdy" stops. We laughed so hard and had so much fun! To this day I've heard stories about my cousins being reminded of that afternoon. Ah, good times!
I know there are many stories I could tell, but the highlights are: getting stuck off the side of the road my first night driving it, living in it while driving to college, sleeping in the back seat in between classes, getting the window stuck half-way unrolled...making for a miserable winter, taking my former crush on a drive in the foothills: getting stuck in a HUGE snowbank (I still feel bad about that one...), driving it over a HUGE boulder...getting stuck...and MANY MANY more good memories.
The day that the car died was a sad time for me. I was very nostalgic, and almost cried...Steve on the other hand was more than happy to get rid of it. We gave it to a wrecking yard, not getting any money out of it because they said it was so old that they'd just take it directly to the crushing machine anyway. And what a surprise we had when we went to Walmart one night to see that VERY car parked in the parking lot. Someone had fixed it up...even putting tiger printed seatcovers in it. I knew it was the same car thanks to the boulder incident...and a precisely placed paintball mark.
Long story short, the people DID pay back the money for it...making us happier about the whole situation.
I just loved that car, and was thinking about it tonight as I was "racing" cars going down the main street in town. The other cars didn't know I was racing...but thanks to that small fact, I won nearly EVERY race! :)

7 comments:

CareBearMommy said...

I have another memory of that car. When I moved to the house on 17th Street, I needed a ride to the city utility place. I called on you for the honors, and you accepted. You came to get me (and Jasmine), and you had Cameron with you. So, it was you, me, and the babies... who were only like 4 or 5 moths old at the time. ANYway, of COURSE the car had to stall on the side of the road. We had to call your family, and your brother Daren came to get us. We then went to Kmart and puttered around for a bit. Daren was nice enough to haul both car seats into the store for us. That big blue boat stayed on the side of the road for a while. Oh, happy memories!

Mama D said...

My first car was a mustang. Not a boat I know but I have some memories.

Melzie said...

I have a car I feel love for too! It was a 1979 Ford Grenada- though my fellow yearbook nerds dubbed it the booger mobile (shiny, glittery gemerald green, lol) Awww.. now i miss it-- but gosh, I loved my car too-- which was also so huge. :)

Anonymous said...

good memories in that car! I am not too sure that you love my favorite memory of that car..but it brought my hubby and I together when we bailed out of it together and ran. We ended up talking and working out our problems that night...we never really broke up again after that!

Kim said...

The boat? I think I remember it best as the "Pimp-mobile" as it was Christened by Taylor. I will always remember that it was in that car the you first got pulled over by a cop and it happened when you were driving me home late one night. I also remember driving to Ricks to pick up Carrie at the end of finals week and the weather was terrible, lots of slushy snow on the freeway. Anyway, as you were passing a pick-up truck you let out this HUGE sneeze and almost jerked us into the side of the truck!!! Yeah, good times! :)

Amanda said...

What a fun memory!!! Thanks for sharing. It reminded me of a car that my grandpa had. I don't even know what it was, but it was most definitely huge. I remember one summer my sister and I stayed with my grandpa for a couple of weeks to help take care of my grandma. I remember riding around in that car, my sister driving, thinking we were so cool, listening to Sledghammer by Peter Gabriel. Oh, those were the days!

Suzanne said...

What a fun post! I think everyone has fond memories of their first car.

My grandma had a large blue "boat" too. I loved to go riding in that when I was a kid! :)