In highschool I drove a red Ford Tempo GL. It had already passed through my two older sisters and had a couple of accidents on the way. I am not a believer in brand new nice cars for teenagers. Maybe because I didn't have anything that slightly resembled new or nice or maybe because I know it created character in me. The following picture does not do justice to what my Ford Tempo actually looked like.
So let me explain. My Tempo was shiny on the front half and had a dull matte finish on the back. The front bumper was half way broken off in the front due to a run in with the mailbox. The trunk had to be propped up with a large stick, and nothing on the inside was up with technology. Imagine manual rolling windows and absence of anything that could play a CD or be adapted to play a CD. It didn't even have a tape player!
But, despite the Tempo's flaws my friends loved to ride in it. We even played games with the Tempo- seeing how long we could ride on neutral down hills. You know- the usual.
The Tempo eventually died after I had been driving it for about an hour at 10 mph because it would not shift out of 1st gear, and it died one mile from my house at 11 p.m. Awesome. I like to think that the Tempo built some sort of character in me. It taught me how to deal with car troubles (I had to jump it every other week). It taught me not to expect anything too nice, and it gave me some laughs.
I hope everyone has a character building car at some point!
This has nothing to do with this post but here's a pic from one of my highschool musicals...
I loved the two toned Tempo!!
ReplyDeleteJust recently I was thinking about how my children will never experience manual car windows! I think even the most basic cars now have automatic windows. I, too, am a big proponent of character building cars! I definitely had my fair share of them.
ReplyDeleteYou two were so cute, I didn't realize (or remember) that you were high school sweethearts, so cute!
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