Evidently 1966 must have been a prosperous year,because there were a lot of things going on that required a good income.Both of my parents were working,and we were staying with the neighbor lady up the street,but,on the days my father was not working,I guess they had decided that we should stay at home and save a bit of money on childcare. My family wasn't wealthy,but my father had a good civil service job,and there seemed to be a bit more disposable income than usual that year.
It was that year that we first went on a longer vacation to the beach,and also the year that my father undertook a lot of building.But the first thing that happened is that we got a new car.
Car manufacturers seemed to have given up on the idea of cars with wings,like they had been making the last time my father was in the market for a new car.I think that was all sort of connected to The Cold War,superiority in the air and the idea of a Military Industrial Complex,so cars reflected those ideals with their wings. But just because the wings were being mothballed in Detroit,didn't mean that Detroit was doing anything in a small way. Motors were getting bigger,with all of the manufacturers releasing bigger and bigger power plants,all trying to out do the other.The actual Cold War had settled back a bit since the earliest years of the decade,but there was still an arms race taking place,and it wasn't limited to just the makers of war machines.My fathers new car was called a Mercury Montcalm.It was red and roughly the size of an aircraft carrier,with an engine to match.390 cubic inches,my father said.You could take one of the pistons out and hide a small horse inside,or so he used to say.It would hit ninety miles per hour before you new it,and ride as smooth as sitting home on you couch.It had a lot of features inside that my father had never had in any of his other cars.In fact,there were things fastened to the dashboard that were going to get me into some trouble down the road.The electric windows were kind of a neat feature.In keeping with the war culture,I would often roll down the windows while my father and I were out driving.Just as quickly,he would hit a button on his side,and the window would go up again.It became a game of one-up-man-ship,that was much more amusing to me than to anyone else.My father had an aversion to driving with windows down,so it seemed.He also had a habit of smoking,and I guess he didn't want to waste any smoke at all,after paying fifty or sixty cents a pack foe cigarettes.I wasn't really thinking of smoke,or letting it out of the car,though I guess it really did bother me even way back then.But it was a kind of normal thing to do.Nobody thought about it the way they do now. I just liked having a war with my father over the windows,After all,what good was a machine of war if you never fought a battle with it.
The windows were not what caused me all of the trouble though.It was another gadget that did that,And even though I never got in as much trouble as I should have for it,what happened wouldn't leave me alone for years.I felt bad about it for a long time.In fact,I still cringe to think about it.I guess that's because I really was developing a conscience,a sense of moral rightness,and straying from that was something I was keenly aware of.
It was that year that we first went on a longer vacation to the beach,and also the year that my father undertook a lot of building.But the first thing that happened is that we got a new car.
Car manufacturers seemed to have given up on the idea of cars with wings,like they had been making the last time my father was in the market for a new car.I think that was all sort of connected to The Cold War,superiority in the air and the idea of a Military Industrial Complex,so cars reflected those ideals with their wings. But just because the wings were being mothballed in Detroit,didn't mean that Detroit was doing anything in a small way. Motors were getting bigger,with all of the manufacturers releasing bigger and bigger power plants,all trying to out do the other.The actual Cold War had settled back a bit since the earliest years of the decade,but there was still an arms race taking place,and it wasn't limited to just the makers of war machines.My fathers new car was called a Mercury Montcalm.It was red and roughly the size of an aircraft carrier,with an engine to match.390 cubic inches,my father said.You could take one of the pistons out and hide a small horse inside,or so he used to say.It would hit ninety miles per hour before you new it,and ride as smooth as sitting home on you couch.It had a lot of features inside that my father had never had in any of his other cars.In fact,there were things fastened to the dashboard that were going to get me into some trouble down the road.The electric windows were kind of a neat feature.In keeping with the war culture,I would often roll down the windows while my father and I were out driving.Just as quickly,he would hit a button on his side,and the window would go up again.It became a game of one-up-man-ship,that was much more amusing to me than to anyone else.My father had an aversion to driving with windows down,so it seemed.He also had a habit of smoking,and I guess he didn't want to waste any smoke at all,after paying fifty or sixty cents a pack foe cigarettes.I wasn't really thinking of smoke,or letting it out of the car,though I guess it really did bother me even way back then.But it was a kind of normal thing to do.Nobody thought about it the way they do now. I just liked having a war with my father over the windows,After all,what good was a machine of war if you never fought a battle with it.
The windows were not what caused me all of the trouble though.It was another gadget that did that,And even though I never got in as much trouble as I should have for it,what happened wouldn't leave me alone for years.I felt bad about it for a long time.In fact,I still cringe to think about it.I guess that's because I really was developing a conscience,a sense of moral rightness,and straying from that was something I was keenly aware of.
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