When I was a three year old boy I knew the name of every car that went by my house. I really liked the ones that were foreign cars. Those were the exotic ones. Bolksbagens and Mercedes Benzes.Dad was pretty crazy when I was four. I guess he thought Mom was out with other men and he didn't like it when she went to tutor the kids down the road. Our house was on top of the hill and there were woods in back and small caves in the sides of the hills. Dad would stand out in the yard and watch the road until Mom drove home. One day he left in the brown Ford and came back with a little black car with fins and a back window that was slanted backward.
Ray Riggs was the landlord and he was a Mercury dealer and drove out every month to check the horses and collect the rent. He always drove a new demonstrator and must have sold Dad the Anglia. "It's an English Ford," Dad said, "a poor-man's sports car!" The Anglia was black had red bucket seats that came forward on hinges in front to allow passengers access to the back seat. The seats had no latches, so the seats also came forward during sudden stops. Mom got very good at reaching over and interrupting my progress toward the dashboard.
I always liked the American cars best. In the coming years we didn't own one. We drove the Anglia to the hospital to visit Dad and to enroll me in school and I always had to explain what it was, why my Mom worked, why my Dad staye
d home and wrote. "What kind of job is that?" and I'd say "It's hard work." I always thought that regular families drove Chevrolets, Fords, and Mercuries. Buicks! They drove those Oldsmobiles with the chrome holes in those long hoods and all their rear windows slanted down the normal way, and on each rear deck, a baseball cap.I drove a Buick for a while when I was a young man. It didn't help that much, really.
