ESTESBOG

My e-friend and frequent commenter Ralph Romero from southern Colorado had a comment on the flying Oldsmobile story: “Great story. I had a 1976 Oldsmobile Omega Brougham. . .great car. However, it did NOT have the ability to fly! I tried it a few times! Why, yes, there was beer involved!”

In the 46+ years I have been (legally) driving, I have owned just about one of everything and two or three of a few. In fact, my very first automobile after I got my license in the fall of 1963 was a 1956 Olds 88 that my grandfather surrendered to me when he decided to give up driving. Along with it came about ten well worn tires which I managed to rotate around and keep it propped up on inflated wheels most days. That car must have weighed as much as today’s average bus. It contained a substantial amount of steel (one of my aunts suggested the frame was probably cast iron).

It had a big (for the time) V-8 and might have been a fairly fast car if it weren’t for the self regulation of only one working motor mount. If I punched it, it shook like it was trying to break the sound barrier. (“Captain! I don’t know how much more those di-lithium crystals can take!”) It didn’t take me long to figure out I’d have to baby it if it was going to last. The old dinosaur never let me down in the two years I drove it.

When it finally coughed its last, it was right in my folks’ yard when I came home from school. In those days the local mechanic made house calls. I think my dad may have given him a do-not-resuscitate document. I was told that replacing the timing chain would cost more than the beast was worth. I sold it the following week for $35 to a stock car racing team that wanted the hulk for parts.

Thirty years later I bought a second hand Oldsmobile Omega that turned out to be the second worst lemon I ever owned. (Nothing but nothing could compare to the Ford Pinto. But that’s another story.) I knew I’d made a bad purchase when “Meg’s” oil plug was removed and nothing flowed out. DOH! Once the sawdust-oil mixture was dug out of the crankcase, Meg’s motor developed a loud tick from the bad engine bearings. Replacing her engine with a rebuilt one would have cost about as much as I paid for the car in the first place. Instead I sold the hulk while it still could move under its own power to West Side Auto Parts near Fort Morgan.

But there was one Oldsmobile that was a gem. When my son Corey was in college I bought him a used Subaru sedan to drive back and forth to school. This was about 1991 or 1992 as I recall. One summer night he went out with the guys and never showed up again until the next morning. The Subaru had a big fold across the roof with grass and flowers pinched in the crease. Corey’s attempts to put a good spin on what happened made less sense than when Teddy Kennedy tried to explain how he gave Mary Jo Kopechne a ride home from Chappaquiddick Island. At any rate I suddenly found myself in need of yet another used car.

The solution was an old creampuff in the form of a 1974 Oldsmobile Delta 88 4-door sedan complete with the famous 454 Rocket engine and a carburetor that could suck pigeons out of the sky. It had relatively low mileage and was in excellent shape for an 18-year-old vehicle. I got it for exactly half of what Corey’s Subaru Taco had cost me. She was 18 feet 10 inches from bow to stern light, white with red interior. Let’s see you roll that one over, Kid!

It wasn’t long before Corey loved that old car. He asked me for a distinguished name and I came up with the “U.S.S. Alice Briggs Mitchell” in honor of my 7^th grade teacher back in Maine. Alice literally became a family member. On the road she was rock steady. In traffic she was a brute and a bully.

But all good cars come to the end of their usefulness. After Corey graduated and he and Amy were married, he traded Alice off for something newer and more economical. I hope she’s still alive out there somewhere. Who knows? Maybe Alice is the 454 Rocket that Kathy Mattea sang about.