The Fabulous 80's 1.0
As I sit here hammering out essay grades, I've set up an 80's mix on napster. Many of these songs I haven't heard in years, and as I listen the memories come...some gentle, many sad, a few which feel like storms rising in the mind; what I feel most of all is the immutability of the past. What was, was, and it will never be anything else. I was at the center of it; what I have are my memories, perceptions, emotions from that time, and those events and feelings are burned into my soul like read-only memory. Etched into a glass pane.
But how they move still.
The first time I wrote about Estella, my first wife, I was fairly new to blog. It turned out to be the first post my wife read when she went to check my blog out from work. She said nothing, but how crappy is that? I will finish that story, but when I do, it will be with disclaimer.
Many of the same things are true about my other memories from that decade. I didn't date a lot, I didn't feel much of anything except terror or whatever I could stuff my head with that kept me from terror, including religion. Deep movements in my psyche...mostly unfelt. Still, I was young, and the old sounds bring back memories of the only youth I'll ever know.
Some are innocuous enough: my first car was a 73 Vega. Vega. One of the two worst cars of the last 40 years (it shares this honor with the Pinto). Vegas were the disposable bic shavers of the American highway. The engine block was made out of aluminum; the cylinder walls were aluminum! Every time I changed the oil I'd find a layer of shiny aluminium shavings in the bottom of the drip pan. My father bought it for me, from my oldest stepbrother, for 350 dollars I think. It didn't run. The plan was that I'd install another motor with help from said stepbrother; I didn't know how to remove an oil filter then. I was barely 17, utterly non-mechanical and deeply insecure about that fact. It felt the same as growing up and not playing sports, as being skinny, as having bad skin. My new stepbrothers were both fair enough with cars, not me.
I don't know why my dad bought it, and my guesses lean towards the cynical. Perhaps my new stepmother, who is obsessed with her children still, who was certainly obsessed with them then, knew stepbrother eldest needed the money. Whatever, my dad found another used Vega motor from a wreck (not rebuilt) for me. I remember going to a gas station garage and seeing the new motor hanging there from an engine hoist, covered in oil, the fan still attached. It was from a 74 which I found significant; hey, it was one year newer than the rest of my unrunning car!
It took a long time to get that motor in. And it took the help of lots of guys, including some I didn't really know. I think my dad bought beer or maybe paid one of them, but we eventually got it bolted to the mounts. I was covered with grease, standing there trying to help, afraid, nervous, feeling undeserving, as we tried to fit the driveshaft into the transmission in the parking alley behind our little apartment. Looking back, I am grateful for the anonymous help. The only other memory I have of trying to get the thing to run was working on it with stepbrother eldest and him going walking up to his apartment and telling me, 'go ahead and hook up the battery.' I didn't realize you had to hook up the positive and negative terminals correctly. I connected one cable, and then every time I tried to attach the other sparks blew everywhere. I'd drop it, stare at it, rally my courage and think...I have to try this again, I can do it, I will do it. Next try blue sparks were blowing everywhere again. I was so determined I actually melted through the connector cable. It was a while before he came back and saw what I had done. I had the positive on the negative pole; sure way to melt cables.
Even with all the work he and I put into it, and I don't remember him being all that helpful (but then it was a vega) we still couldn't get the thing to run. I had a car, had had a car for a while, but it wouldn't start. Both my stepbrothers had cars which ran (even if one was a pinto covered in gray primer). I had a girlfriend and was getting tired of going places in my dad's sixty something Peugeot wagon. Of having to borrow the car. Of driving my tenth-grade Schwinn Varsity when I couldn't borrow his car. To make things worse, everyone had garters hanging from their year view mirrors. I had one of those, though I can't remember if my girlfriend wore it or I bought it at Farrell's. It would have been much cooler if the car moved so I could show my garter off around town.
My dad had only been married about a year, and had only dated for about, oh, two months before the wedding, so I was still getting used to the step-crew. My stepsister, the oldest in the family, had a boyfriend/fiancee named John who worked in an auto parts shop; he apparently knew some real mechanics. Telling these guys I was his brother, he got them to agree to look at my Vega. That meant towing of course. All of us were young and working class (I don't know that I had a job yet), not far from poor, and that meant what it still means...towing a vehicle any way possible. We used a few lengths of rope tied, if I recall correctly, to my stepbrother younger's Pinto. I cruised in my Vega as we jerked it towards a house in Lakewood, brake on and off, in neutral. It was the first time the thing had rolled since I owned it, and I felt intoxicated. I'm moving down the street! I'm turning my own steering wheel! Using an actual vega pedal!
There were some beautiful moments in my teen years, even if they were brief. Driving by Signal Hill and smelling the grass that grew wild there on a summer night. Eating three chili cheese dogs plus fries with my girlfriend and her family on a Friday afternoon. Noticing my first four chest hairs. The vega tow was one of those times.
Because the radio worked also. And what came on as I was taking my first self-owned auto tour? The Waitresses...I Know What Boys Like. I knew what they liked too, they liked songs about sex playing in their own actual car as it moved down the street. I rolled down the window, cranked the volume, and felt better than I had in quite some time about my vega. True, I was being illegally towed with a rope, had no current reg. tags, was watching for cops the entire time, but I had a car with cool new wave music and plenty of attitude...not bad for 17. I still like that song incidentally...the almost apathetic deadpan vocal, bratty, sing-song...quite sexy still.
The mechanic brothers did get my car to run, though it came with many caveats....the rings are going and it'll burn oil, the headgasket is leaking, are you sure you actually want to drive this on the road? But drive it I did. Well, for a few months anyway. It might have lasted a year before it finally did blow the headgasket while I was driving with my girlfriend S to our English teacher's apartment.
A story for another time.
***
I'm leaving for Sedona Sunday, though this may be my last post for a week or so. Peace to all.
But how they move still.
The first time I wrote about Estella, my first wife, I was fairly new to blog. It turned out to be the first post my wife read when she went to check my blog out from work. She said nothing, but how crappy is that? I will finish that story, but when I do, it will be with disclaimer.
Many of the same things are true about my other memories from that decade. I didn't date a lot, I didn't feel much of anything except terror or whatever I could stuff my head with that kept me from terror, including religion. Deep movements in my psyche...mostly unfelt. Still, I was young, and the old sounds bring back memories of the only youth I'll ever know.
Some are innocuous enough: my first car was a 73 Vega. Vega. One of the two worst cars of the last 40 years (it shares this honor with the Pinto). Vegas were the disposable bic shavers of the American highway. The engine block was made out of aluminum; the cylinder walls were aluminum! Every time I changed the oil I'd find a layer of shiny aluminium shavings in the bottom of the drip pan. My father bought it for me, from my oldest stepbrother, for 350 dollars I think. It didn't run. The plan was that I'd install another motor with help from said stepbrother; I didn't know how to remove an oil filter then. I was barely 17, utterly non-mechanical and deeply insecure about that fact. It felt the same as growing up and not playing sports, as being skinny, as having bad skin. My new stepbrothers were both fair enough with cars, not me.
I don't know why my dad bought it, and my guesses lean towards the cynical. Perhaps my new stepmother, who is obsessed with her children still, who was certainly obsessed with them then, knew stepbrother eldest needed the money. Whatever, my dad found another used Vega motor from a wreck (not rebuilt) for me. I remember going to a gas station garage and seeing the new motor hanging there from an engine hoist, covered in oil, the fan still attached. It was from a 74 which I found significant; hey, it was one year newer than the rest of my unrunning car!
It took a long time to get that motor in. And it took the help of lots of guys, including some I didn't really know. I think my dad bought beer or maybe paid one of them, but we eventually got it bolted to the mounts. I was covered with grease, standing there trying to help, afraid, nervous, feeling undeserving, as we tried to fit the driveshaft into the transmission in the parking alley behind our little apartment. Looking back, I am grateful for the anonymous help. The only other memory I have of trying to get the thing to run was working on it with stepbrother eldest and him going walking up to his apartment and telling me, 'go ahead and hook up the battery.' I didn't realize you had to hook up the positive and negative terminals correctly. I connected one cable, and then every time I tried to attach the other sparks blew everywhere. I'd drop it, stare at it, rally my courage and think...I have to try this again, I can do it, I will do it. Next try blue sparks were blowing everywhere again. I was so determined I actually melted through the connector cable. It was a while before he came back and saw what I had done. I had the positive on the negative pole; sure way to melt cables.
Even with all the work he and I put into it, and I don't remember him being all that helpful (but then it was a vega) we still couldn't get the thing to run. I had a car, had had a car for a while, but it wouldn't start. Both my stepbrothers had cars which ran (even if one was a pinto covered in gray primer). I had a girlfriend and was getting tired of going places in my dad's sixty something Peugeot wagon. Of having to borrow the car. Of driving my tenth-grade Schwinn Varsity when I couldn't borrow his car. To make things worse, everyone had garters hanging from their year view mirrors. I had one of those, though I can't remember if my girlfriend wore it or I bought it at Farrell's. It would have been much cooler if the car moved so I could show my garter off around town.
My dad had only been married about a year, and had only dated for about, oh, two months before the wedding, so I was still getting used to the step-crew. My stepsister, the oldest in the family, had a boyfriend/fiancee named John who worked in an auto parts shop; he apparently knew some real mechanics. Telling these guys I was his brother, he got them to agree to look at my Vega. That meant towing of course. All of us were young and working class (I don't know that I had a job yet), not far from poor, and that meant what it still means...towing a vehicle any way possible. We used a few lengths of rope tied, if I recall correctly, to my stepbrother younger's Pinto. I cruised in my Vega as we jerked it towards a house in Lakewood, brake on and off, in neutral. It was the first time the thing had rolled since I owned it, and I felt intoxicated. I'm moving down the street! I'm turning my own steering wheel! Using an actual vega pedal!
There were some beautiful moments in my teen years, even if they were brief. Driving by Signal Hill and smelling the grass that grew wild there on a summer night. Eating three chili cheese dogs plus fries with my girlfriend and her family on a Friday afternoon. Noticing my first four chest hairs. The vega tow was one of those times.
Because the radio worked also. And what came on as I was taking my first self-owned auto tour? The Waitresses...I Know What Boys Like. I knew what they liked too, they liked songs about sex playing in their own actual car as it moved down the street. I rolled down the window, cranked the volume, and felt better than I had in quite some time about my vega. True, I was being illegally towed with a rope, had no current reg. tags, was watching for cops the entire time, but I had a car with cool new wave music and plenty of attitude...not bad for 17. I still like that song incidentally...the almost apathetic deadpan vocal, bratty, sing-song...quite sexy still.
The mechanic brothers did get my car to run, though it came with many caveats....the rings are going and it'll burn oil, the headgasket is leaking, are you sure you actually want to drive this on the road? But drive it I did. Well, for a few months anyway. It might have lasted a year before it finally did blow the headgasket while I was driving with my girlfriend S to our English teacher's apartment.
A story for another time.
***
I'm leaving for Sedona Sunday, though this may be my last post for a week or so. Peace to all.
Comments
I'll look forward to your descriptions of the sights, sounds and tastes of Sedona. :)
and me as a late teen...geez, not a cool college guy at all. this may ruin the vision, but I was very skinny, the same height as always but like 136 pounds (I'm 196 now) long hair which shouldn't have been long (wavy, curly, despite desperate attempts to blow dry the stuff straight and feather it) and as I said somewhere, pretty bad skin. plus real scared.
but I must have had some charm. my girlfriend was nice, I had a few friends. I bet I was awful intense then. I wish I could go back and talk to myself, take myself out to lunch...nurture that kid. maybe writing this was a start.
and the waitresses helped.
thanks again,
t
The Nova leaked oil and water, was primer gray and rusted everywhere. But the radio, yes the radio worked perfectly. Peace.
"He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay." - Matthew 28:6