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Lemon Yellow Chevelle Malibu
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So we were off to the Philippines. But how to get there?
It was early fall of 1966, and my Dad, the civil service worker—he was a management analyst, a statistician, for the U.S. Navy, which placed him pretty high up on the food chain, usually working directly for the base commander. It probably also got him early notification of job postings, so he got to pick some duty stations that interested him. After our time in Cuba, he was looking for the next adventure, and had chosen the Philippines.
With some vacation time earned, he timed his arrival in the Philippines to allow another adventure along the way, to drive across the country and see some of the sights. At the time, the two vehicles we had were a 1955 Buick Special and a 1963 Corvair, neither one suitable for a six-member family to travel cross country. He needed another car.
Dad grew up during the Great Depression, born in 1924, making him a teenager during some of the worst of the Depression. If you’re too young to know, it was a time when nobody had anything—food was expensive, staples were hard to come by, no one had employment—it was a hard scrabble time, a time we in this country have not known since. Everything one managed to possess, one held onto, and absolutely nothing was thrown away. If you had a nickel, you had a lot of money. A penny was a treasure.
From this experience, people of my Dad’s generation learned the value of thrift, the value of money; mostly the value of NOT having money. Every car my Dad ever owned—ever owned—was used. It was unimaginable that one could afford such luxury as a new car, let alone actually spend money so foolishly, especially on a vehicle that cost $2,500! He told me his first car cost him $50. In Cuba, after the brakes failed on a 1949 Buick, and the car caromed through an intersection, my Dad, witnessing the incident, bought it on the spot for $25 from the owner, irked that the vehicle let him down once again, nearly costing him his life. He proceeded to replace the brake master cylinder, and that was the car we drove while living in Cuba.
For me to tell you that Dad bought a brand new car for our cross-country trip would seem unthinkable. It was anathema to his sensibilities. However, the timing of the trip coincided with the timing of the new model releases from the auto manufacturers. The car dealers, faced with new models coming in and the current year’s models still on the lot, had a major incentive to deal, which fit in very nicely with my Dad’s thriftiness. He settled on a station wagon (for the younger readers, that’s a sedan with an extended cabin that today we refer to as an SUV or CUV). The particular unit he chose was a bare-bones model, but it did come with factory air conditioning, a radio and, better yet, it had power steering! It was yellow, what the manufacturer called “Lemon Yellow.” It was a 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu station wagon. And it smelled wonderful! Vinyl bench seats, crank windows and four doors, it was built for cross-country!
Next installment: California bound!
