The Honeymoon Car!

Yesterday I posted a picture of our first car on FB and asked folks to tell me about their first car. This is a 1963 Oldsmobile F-85 and Mr. B and I bought it together just weeks before we got married. It was the first car for either of us and we were so proud of it.

That got me to thinking about the honeymoon we took in that car!

We hadn't had it but a couple of weeks and it had been a really good car right up until we said, "I do," and I promised to love, respect and honor Mr. B, to cook his meals, iron his shirts and make sure that house was clean when his mother came to visit. He promised to love, respect and honor me, to take out the trash, eat my food even when it was burned and never let his mother open the closet doors.

But the moment we said those vows that crazy little blue car started acting like it was possessed. Maybe it was the fact the neighbors saw me in that cute little white linen dress with a short veil on my head and came rushing over with their canister of rice to throw at us as we drove away. Or maybe it was the cans rattling along the alley as we left that embarrassed the poor little thing. The previous owner, a little old lady, who kept it in the garage and only drove it to the grocery store once a week and the beauty shop twice a week never tied cans to its tail pipe.

We made it to the first motel without too much trouble. It only died at a couple of traffic lights but hey, it had just had to climb two mountains so maybe it was a little bit tired. The next morning we got into Washington D. C. and the car went downright crazy. It had a full tank of gas. The oil had been changed when we bought it two weeks before. It only had twenty thousand miles on it and the tires would brand new.

But it stopped graveyard dead at every single stop light or stop sign that we rolled up to. Do you know how many traffic lights there are in D. C. Only three less than eight million. By noon I was ready to trade the thing in on Poppa's wagon and set of cantankerous mules back home. They might be slow but they were dependable.

We did some sight seeing, hit another motel that evening, and figured we'd bought a lemon. The car that was supposed to last at least until Mr. B got through college was on its way to that junkyard in the sky as soon as we got back to our apartment. I didn't care if it was a pretty shade of blue and the seats were comfortable.

We'd gotten used to the stop, try to start the engine, cuss and rant, kick the doors, try to start the engine, cuss some more and finally, right before we pulled it off to the side of the road and hitch hike home, try one more time. Give a sigh when the engine finally turned over, pat the dashboard, pray for green lights, slide through stop signs and promise to never buy another blue Oldsmobile in our entire lives.

When we got home, the family asked how the honeymoon went and we told them that we were going to shove the new car into the river as soon as we could get it there. And that's when we learned that Mr. B's brothers thought it would be a real cute trick to pull a wire of some kind under the hood. It was supposed to stop after about a block and refuse to start. Then we'd have to walk back to the in-law's house for help. Only they loosened the wire just enough to kill the engine any time we stopped.

Ten minutes later the wire was fixed and the car got Mr. B through college and his first years of teaching. We brought all three of our children home from the hospital in it and lived in three states before it finally went to that great junk yard in the sky.

I did not commit justifiable homicide the day we returned from our short honeymoon which was saying a lot for a short, loud mouthed Rebel. I don't hold grudges more than 40 years but I do not forget and I do get even so his two brothers still walk a wide swath around me!