I was seven, so my sister was nine, and my brother was only three. As far as we knew, it was both brand new (it wasn’t) and as cool as Adam West’s Batmobile.
The other car
For starters, our other car—a 1966 Dodge Dart station wagon—was much smaller than the new one. Our parents had gotten the Dodge when I was a baby. I was prone to carsickness during my early years; the doctors informed my parents that this was likely due to my becoming overheated. Our family took some really long car trips back then—in the summer and then again at Christmas. So naturally, the folks went out and bought me my own car: one with built-in air conditioning, a ritzy add-on back then.
The new car
But back to our new-to-us 1972 Chrysler Town and Country wagon. That car had all kinds of nifty features. Sure, it had air conditioning (pretty much standard issue by that time), but it also had a thoroughly modern, cutting-edge, stereo system. Yep. We had, right there in our car’s rather gargantuan dashboard, a built-in 8-track tape player. (Go ahead; be jealous.) On trips, Mama always brought along a shoebox full of our favorites: soundtracks from Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, and the latest from Barry Manilow and The Carpenters. Oh yeah!
Plus, the Chrysler had these neat little compartments along the sides where you could stash all kinds of stuff: books to read, coloring books, more books to read, craft projects, and also books! We called these hidey-holes “cubbies.” That is little ‘c’ cubbies (a critical point as you’ll soon learn).
From the front to the wayback
That car was enormous. The front seat alone could handle three-fifths of our family when necessary and still leave room for our geriatric cocker spaniel. The back seat was so large that my two siblings could sit there together and never once make physical contact. The way-back was my seat; we’ll get to that. But first, The Cubby. The Cubby, a trench of sorts that filled the space between the back seat and the way-back was about a foot wide and 18 inches or so deep. Of course only one of us (at a time) could fit in there, but if you sat upright in The Cubby with your legs extended, leaning back on the upholstery, your head would be resting right against the car’s state-of-the-art stereo speaker. “O-o-o OHHHHHHH-kla-home-uh where the wind comes sweeping down the plain . . . .” Pure delight.
Usually, though, I climbed over The Cubby to get to the way-back—the seat at the rear of the vehicle that faced on-coming traffic. (Evidently, my car-sickness was on hiatus during those years.) Whenever we travelled, I took a pillow, my favorite doll (Redhead), and a paper sack full of books. I would snuggle down with a book in my hand and Redhead in the crook of my arm, and read and read and read. Oh my goodness: it was wonderful.
Modern day disillusionment
In the eighties, we traded that car for a much smaller Pontiac Phoenix; I haven’t thought much about the old Chrysler in a long time. Then, I posted a story that included that car. I wanted a picture to go along with the post, so I searched Google until I found one. Yikes. Some things just don’t age well. The faux wooden panels that I thought had added such character to our green wagon . . . well . . . they didn’t. The door that opened to the way-back appeared overly large, awkward, and gangly. Simply put, the thing was a pea-green land barge decorated with tacky—nay gaudy—board-like siding. Embarrassingly hideous.
But then I found a shot of the interior (different color, same model). There are the cubby holes along the sides. The way-back: roomy and ready for a reader. And look! The speakers right behind The Cubby. And suddenly it’s brand new, as beautiful as ever, and “It’s Yesterday Once More.”
