Everyday Canvas

First Car

Prompt: Do you remember your first car? What kind of car was it? Did you give it a name?

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City life doesn’t ask or need driving skills, and I didn’t learn to drive until I was married and we moved to the suburbs. I was in the first half of my twenties, then.

My first car, at that time, was a huge 1966, two-door, red Chevy Impala sedan with a black top. We saw it first in the showroom in Smithtown, LI, and I was smitten. It had no air-conditioning, but in those days, very few cars did. What it had was an eight-cylinder, 395 horsepower engine, which some young guy had specially ordered and then couldn’t pay for it. The price on it was $3300 and it was hubby’s gift.

It somehow didn’t run well. When we took it back, since it had a warranty, they changed the carburetor, plugs, and possibly a few other things. Obviously, the nutty guy who had ordered it wanted the power but had skimped on the other parts that should fit its powerful engine.

I didn’t give my first car any specific name. We just called it the Red Car. Calling our cars with their colors became the norm after that. Even our kids, years later, referred to our cars as the gray car and the green car or Daddy’s car and Mommy’s car.

This prompt gave me the idea of undertones because my first car seems to be the midpoint (or the undertone) in the crossroads of my life as it reminded me of many other things that happened in connection with it. Undertones idea I can use in an essay or even maybe in a drama editorial. Undertones--such as the feelings of one character toward some people or some things--can be what the writer can layer underneath a scene.

Funny isn’t it, the way my mind works in many directions all at the same time!