Chevette memories, Part 1

My first car was a 1982 blue Chevette that I got in '93, I think. I was a late driver. I got my learner's permit at age fifteen, like everyone else, but I didn't get an actual car until I was 17. I didn't have any money as a kid, didn't have an evening job, worked a summer job once but blew all of the money on stupid stuff, and was one of three military brats in a single-income family. We weren't poor, really, but an E-8 pay grade isn't as much as you'd think it should be. My dad bought this car for me, but it was only $250.

It was my senior year at a Cincinnati high school and my dad had just retired from the military and bought a house out in rural Ripley, Ohio, which is basically the sticks. I didn't want to go. I really, really didn't want to go and got into so many fights with my folks about it, it was crazy. My dad (love the guy) thought it would cheer me up if I had a car, and found this ol' beat up Chevette a neighbor was selling. Out in the sticks, the rumors are true, everyone has three or four broke down cars in their yard for sell. We test drove it down 763, a hilly and curvy rode which is actually perfect for test driving cars. It made a lot of rattling that we thought we could fix, so we bought it.

I didn't give us a chance to fix it. A few days later I was missing my girlfriend and got the itch to get back to Cincinnati. I packed all my shit into the Chevette and "ran away". Downhill it was fine, but on every uphill the car would start ticking -- a tick, tick, tick, tick -- just like a bomb, I swear. It was something about some rods or something in the engine. I didn't and still don't know anything about cars.

The foothills of the Appalachians east of Cincinnati are all hills. So it was like, smooooth... tick, tick, tick, tick, smooooth... tick, tick, tick, tick, smooooth [smell of something burning]... tick, tick, tick, tick... tick... tick... TICK, TICK, TICK BOOM! Just like a bomb, big poof of smoke and everything.

I had made it to just outside of Mt. Orab and had to call my dad to come and pick me up, which was just demoralizing. It's hard to make your great escape when you end up having to call the prison guard to come and pick you up. We strapped some tow cables to the Chevette and dragged it back to my parent's farm, where it sat in the yard for a few more years before someone bought it for $25 as scrap metal. I think I may have put at most 50 miles on that thing total.

So ends my first car, my first Chevette, RIP.