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First cars, last cars
When I think of last cars I remember my mother. She had a 1989 Cadillac that was about the longest car I had ever seen. She managed to hit a metal pole in the middle of her carport and put a nasty dent in it. Even in failing health she would walk out and run her hand around the car making sure no one has taken it away. My grandfather Atkinson had as his last car a red and white 1957 Dodge with big fins. A neighbor of mine, when I lived in Oxford, Georgia drove a 1956 four door Chevy with two tone green paint. It had been her sister's and she got it and drove it until she was well past 85. My favorite last car was named Maggie. It had belonged to my wife's great aunt. She had bought it to drive to church each Sunday and that was her only use for it. My mother-in-law got it next and used it to drive back and forth to teach school. It was the car my wife utilized to learn to drive: 1952 blue Chevrolet. In the end it was driven from Tennessee to Georgia where it sat by my house for years. Once a year it was put in good running order and driven in the local 4th of July parade. When the gas went it there was a whistle sound, just one of several interesting features. One day a man (in a long line of those wanting to buy the car) asked about Maggie. I explained she was part of the family. He told me that those hubcaps and fender skirts were valuable. They disappeared within a week. My sister's first car was a foreign sports car. Well, it was a Simca made in France but it hardly made the mark as a sports car. When my father took a short business trip in it he traded it before he got back home. She had better days though and for graduation from the University of Georgia she got a new 1961 Ford convertible. Cousin Charles Atkinson had a matching one. He is the family member most intrigued by automobiles. At the time of his death he had a 12 car garage and it was filled with prized items including a number of 1958 Chevrolets (one purple and one just like his blue/green turquoise one, his first). Of more interest were his Lamborghinis, Rolls, and a Neiman Marcus pair of matching Mustangs. There is some debate about my first car, but it was an early 1960's Buick that belonged to one of my grandfather's business friends, Mr. Atwell from Wrens. It was big, blue and definitely an old man's car. It ran just fine. Once in Atlanta I took it to a dealership to be serviced and the bill was enormous. I was instructed to have the car towed back to Emanuel County the next time anything went wrong. On a trip home from college I had to have something fixed and my father said for me to take his car back to school. In 1964 he was 45 and was having his mid-life crisis. He came in one day with a toupee and a yellow Buick convertible. The toupee lasted exactly one day but the car was harder to get rid of. A mid-life crisis can cost much more I can say from experience. The 1964 Canary Yellow Buick La Sabre convertible began to define me. The black interior, the white top and the beautiful yellow made a splash even though I was not splashy. I made many trips in that car, top down heater on in the winter and top down air conditioner on in the summer. The most incongruous trip I made was Christmas of 1966 to Camp Atkins in Tuskegee, Alabama where I had a mid-year Peace Corps training session. Here we were living in huts in the middle of an Alabama winter and I arrived to meet my 50 co-trainees in this vehicle! While I was away in Africa in 1967 my brother had a wreck and was pulled out of this burning convertible. He was fine but the car was gone.--Jack Atkinson is a guest columnist and a resident of Garfield.
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