American Iron

Lots of things trigger memories. When I smell shrimp I am thrust back to my childhood home on New Year’s Eve because that’s when my mother cooked the little critters. Whenever I watch “Field of Dreams,” which happens to be my favorite movie, I am taken back to a very pivotal year in my life, 1989. I bought my first house and met my wife that year. And when I see a 1966 Ford Fairlane I am reminded of my very first car.

This past weekend I went to the Syracuse Nationals at the NYS Fairgrounds. The “Nationals” is one of the largest gatherings of classic automobiles in the Northeast. There were about 6,700 cars there and almost all of them were made in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s and most were American, or as my brother affectionately calls them, “American Iron.”

I got my Fairlane in the summer between my junior and senior year in high school. My father worked as a service writer at a local car dealer and he saw my car come in on a trade. He bought it for $300 in 1972. The car you see pictured is a convertible but mine was not. Mine was a green, low mileage (driven by a little old lady, honest!) two-door sedan, and automatic with a 289 V-8. I put in an 8-track player and water and oil pressure gauges. It was a TOB: “Thing o’ Beauty.”

I drove that car for two years before rust started to take its toll. I was very sad to see it disintegrate. I remember taking my first real road trip in that car going to West Point to visit a high school buddy. On that trip the solenoid crapped out in Albany, my first test with car problems away from home.

But mostly the car reminds me of my father. “Pop” was pretty good with cars and could fix almost anything. He was a child of the Depression and a veteran of World War II having been stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was a man of few words but had a gift for dialects. He could imitate almost any accent. Pop assigned everyone a nickname that made sense only to him. He had a good laugh and liked his hamburgers with a slice of onion and a beer. He really loved my Mom and credits her with straightening out his life. I never really knew what he meant by that but as I got older I kind of got the feeling that Pop had some “adventures” growing up.

Neither my wife nor my two girls share my passion for old cars and I can understand that, it’s a “guy thing.” So when I see an old Fairlane the memories are personal and private. It’s a chance for me to conjure up my father’s laugh, his smell and his voice. This summer it’s been 25 years since Pop died and the memories are still there, thanks to a ’66 Ford Fairlane.