My first car was a brand new brown Chevy Nova that my parents gave me as a college graduation gift in 1975. They let me pick out the car I wanted (within reason). The color brown disappeared for awhile in the automobile world, but I've noticed it seems to be making a comeback lately. I sporadically referred to my Nova as "Nellie," although most of the time I didn't call her by any particular name.
Nellie's first big trip was from Michigan to Colorado, where I was spending my second summer working in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was an uneventful trip and she still had that new car smell at the time. My mom didn't want me to drive that distance alone, so she rode with me and then flew back home to Michigan.
The first time Nellie experienced being pulled over by the police was in Denver, Colorado. I had a car full of female co-workers from the park, and we were on our way to see James Taylor in concert at Red Rocks Ampitheatre. We were unfamiliar with the area and I made a sudden left turn from the righthand lane when I thought the coast was clear. Well, it wasn't. The officer listened to our explanation of being lost and from out of state, and let us go with only a warning. Whew! Ah, the benefits of being young and female!
I ended up staying in Boulder that winter, and that's when Nellie was in her first accident. We'd had a snowstorm and I was on my way to work at the pizza parlor, traveling down the hill on University Ave. Nellie hit a patch of ice and did a couple of 180 turns down the slippery slope, finally coming to an abrupt stop when she hit a light pole at the bottom. In fact, she hit the pole so hard that the light at the top came crashing down beside the car. Not realizing that, and being really dumb about cars, I surveyed the damage and called my brother back at the apartment, telling him, "The front end is smashed and I think a big part came off my engine." He has never let me live that down!
The summer of 1976 was a big one for Nellie--she transported me from Michigan to California. My friend Sue and I followed each other across the country; she in her yellow Nova. Twins!
My dad made me a list of the typical routine car maintenance, like how many pounds of air should be in the tires and how often to change the oil. But my first lesson in replacing the spark plugs came from Sue's dad, Howell Burke, when we were living in their Rancho Palos Verdes, CA condo. I was having trouble starting Nellie, and found a note from another condo owner complaining that I was waking them up early every morning when I went to work. Howell said that I needed to change the spark plugs, and he taught me how to set the gap, take the old plugs out and put the new ones in. I've never had to do it myself since then, but I appreciated the lesson!
Eventually, Nellie started balking whenever she had to go out in the rain. I remember being stranded once on Pacific Coast Highway in rush hour traffic, and another time on one of the on-ramps to the 405 freeway during a downpour. Nobody could seem to diagnose the problem and I was starting to dread rainstorms! In 1979 I decided it was time to upgrade and traded in Nellie for a new $7200. Mustang. Thus started a virtual lifetime of car payments. Nellie was only 4 years old when I sold her, but she served me well in that brief time and brought me safely on my journey across the country from Michigan to Colorado to California. Hopefully, there are no rainstorms wherever she may be resting in peace.
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