Successor to Blue Heaven

Memories.

About 4pm on my 16th birthday, 1958, I’m in the middle of a chess match at the high school.  I was King of the Chess Club.

 My little sister, 12 years old, comes in, interrupts my game and says I have to come home.  While she doesn’t satisfactorily answer my questions, after a bit of grousing and no doubt some sighing, I leave leave my chess game..  There, parked in front of school, was a brand new 1958 Chevrolet Impala.

 What a car!  1958--the first year Chevrolet brought out the Impala.  Two-door sports coupe, rounded tail fins, three taillights on each side, 348 cu in (5.7L) W-series Turbo.  So very powerful and hot!  Nothing on the market like it.

 I was breathless.  A new car?  I hadn’t even dreamed of getting a new car and here was an Impala—the first year they were ever released.  Was it ever hot!  Just by looking, you could tell it was one powerful car.  Beyond stupefaction, I don’t recall how else I felt at the time.

 I do remember how cool it was to have a new car.   In my school, having a car was cool.  But, a new car—way cool.

 That summer, as most summers during those years, we went to the ranch.  It kept us busy, out of trouble and, after all, we were a ranch family.  We sheared and marked sheep and goats in the summer and I would help round up.

 Upon returning from a round up late one morning, my sister, the messenger who delivered the car on my birthday, trailed a safe distance by her friend, Sara, met me with tears, remorse and apologies.  It seems that she and Sara and Mother’s French toy poodle, Poupée, had taken a drive in my car to Uncle Bobby’s house, about three miles away by country road. 

 Somehow Candace felt the need to suddenly apply the brakes and instead hit the gas peddle.  As an adult, Candace said she watched in horror as the car plowed over young cedar trees.  When the car finally came to a stop, or should I say when it finally died, Candace and Sara and the shell-shocked poodle emerged from the car.   Candace says she can’t remember what was worse, carrying Poupée, a very heavy toy poodle who had rarely put her dainty paws on dirt, much less ranch dirt, all the way home or dreading to see me.