One of the best class of “tales to tell” are those that show how your father or mother taught life lessons that served you well, ones that informed your insights and reactions to whatever life might throw at you. Parental wisdom.
One such example springs to mind for me. I was getting ready to finish with my twenty years of formal education and take the leap into the other side of the desk - from teachee to teacher.
You’ll recall learning a bit about this journey in an earlier Letter, one that dealt with my adventures in grad school at Stanford. This last phase involved Princeton University, where after acquiring three degrees I decided that enough was enough and it was time to move on.
However, to fully understand the tale, I need to wind the clock even further back. Back to my high school days, when my only rides were my dad’s Chevy Caprice and my mother’s Chevy Nova. Fans of the Caprice will recall it as the cop cruiser of choice, with a 454 cubic inch V8 beneath the hood. And as a by the way, that’s also a GREAT mnemonic for remembering how many grams there are in a pound. 454. 453.6 to be more precise, which is super easy to remember as well, presuming you remember the 454. But even if you don’t, 454 gives you the answer to a 0.1% error, which is pretty good.
Regardless of that, a key fact is that it was a big V8 and thus had, for its time and class, pretty good acceleration. Something the Nova decidedly did not. Those from the era likely remember that “no va” is Spanish for “doesn’t go” and that certainly described my mother’s car.
I have one very distinct memory of driving with my best bud to the mall and we were in the Nova. I usually avoided the car like the plague but my dad had the Caprice that day and so, after a couple of weeks of ONLY driving the Caprice, I was stuck in that shoebox from Hell. Barreling toward a four way intersection and seeing the light turn from green to amber I applied the brakes, as any law-abiding chap would do.
For those who never drove the Nova, I can add that in addition to its first name meaning “doesn’t go” its middle name was Nofrena, which is Spanish for “doesn’t slow”. And man, was that also true. I absolutely stood on the brakes but could see that the car would not even come close to stopping before I’d entered the intersection.
What to do, what to do?!
Sadly, my brain wasn’t truly firing on all cylinders because in spite of this reminder that I was in the car that couldn’t, I somehow expected the go pedal to work just as it had in the last two weeks (in which the go pedal was attached to a Caprice).
Hence I floored it, expecting to zip through the intersection well before the light turned red.
Cue the sad trombone as instead of that rocket assisted takeoff, the car just kept moving at the same speed. Possibly slower, in fact.
The light turned red, and I had no option but to continue through.
And yes, there was a cop stopped directly in the lane to my right.
Lights on! Siren on!
I signaled and pulled over.
The cop came up to my window and was greeted by the strains of Beethoven’s 4th symphony, softly whispering through the antediluvian tape deck. I looked up at him and started to explain. Midway through the first sentence I realized there was just far too much to explain and I just quietly ended with a sigh and a sad “Never mind”.
He gazed upon my young self, and saw something that sparked a flicker of pity. Perhaps he even deduced what had occurred from his view of my travels.
“I’m going to let you go with a warning this time. Just be more alert in the future, okay?”
Wow! So close to being tossed in the slammer and yet I dodged the bullet. Time to celebrate with a big slice of pizza at the mall!
So that was my youthful intro to cars. It wasn’t until my Junior year that I acquired half a car. It belonged to my brother and me and he’d done the choosing. Because at that time I decidedly wasn’t a “car guy”. We went to the same university and so a single parking lot served us both. Orange on the outside, black on the inside - a classic Camaro with a 4 on the floor. Or was it only 2? Maybe 3. Whichever, it was a genuine stick shift.
And this touches on the first “dad instruction” story. When I teach someone how to drive a stick, I have an entirely thought out, incredibly effective approach. I’ve even shown my son’s wife, someone who was convinced it was a step too far, how to master the process.
But my dad did it differently. He just drove me down down down the hill/mountain we lived on and then up up up to the top of the next. Into an empty parking lot we ventured. And all he did was say “This is the clutch and you push it down. Then let it up while giving it gas. And there you go.”
An amazingly accurate yet completely insufficient in all reasonable ways approach to enlightening a young subject. Happily, my innate mechanical sense came to the rescue and I managed to putter around the lot for a couple of times. Which was apparently enough for my dad who clearly had an underdeveloped survival instinct because he then instructed me to drive it home. Down down down the mountain to the very red light at the bottom. And then into gear and up up up to home.
Amazingly, we made it. And that Camaro lit within me the burning flame of automotive interest. Cars were fun!
Until … graduation came and it was time to drive across the country to Stanford, new bride at my side. And along with my new bride came her car. A Pontiac Phoenix, long hailed as the worst car ever made (save for Russia’s Lada and even there I’m not sure the Pontiac didn’t still hold the crown).
My gosh was that car terrible. It was SO bad and sucked up so much of my life force that I completely forgot that “cars were fun”. Instead I operated in a “cars suck!” zone. No power, no handling, parts falling off with withering regularity. Is it any wonder I became a serious cyclist at that point? Anything to avoid having to drive that rapidly decomposing pile of soon to be rust and dust.
Flash forward to where we started this screed. Back across the country, much studying and now … graduation awaited. My wife was pregnant with our first son and my first job, as a professor at Georgia Tech, awaited. What we needed was a car to get us there. It was clearly time to part company with the Phoenix.
My wife sent me off to look. And the first dealership I chanced upon sold Saabs, a quirky brand now long gone from American shores. Upon entering the salesguy asked “Auto or manual?”
I paused. Dimly I started to recall. Yes … a manual. I used to drive one of those. It was … fun.
“The manual,” I said.
We entered the car and my absolute craptitude at shifting, my skills having atrophied away under the blows from the Phoenix, caused the saleguy to say “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather an auto?”
Of course not. I pushed on and in just a trice it all had come back. I drove and my eyes brightened. The sun appeared and the birds sang. YES! Cars can be fun! It’s just Pontiac Phoenixes that can’t be.
I rushed home and exclaimed to my VERY pregnant wife: “You have to come drive this car and with a manual transmission. It’s SO MUCH FUN! I’ll teach you!”
She looked at me and pointed toward her belly, which looked roughly like she’d just swallowed a small hippo.
“Do you think I can learn to drive a manual with this sticking out in front? I’m lucky if I can reach the steering wheel. Just buy whatever you like.”
Mission accepted! I’d been reading in Car and Driver (so I guess my carness wasn’t totally moribund) about the new to America VW GTI. They raved about it - called it a “pocket rocket”. Fast (kinda), fun and practical. A Golf (back then known as a Rabbit in the US for somewhat obscure reasons) but with running shoes. And 2024 is the 50th anniversary of the Golf, which took over from the Beetle way back in 1974. So yay, quite the right time to speak of my own (first) Golf, I think.
Over to the dealer I skipped. And there in the showroom was a brand new GTI. I fiddled in the interior and noted that the AC control was stiff. No problem, I’d just make sure MINE was fine. (And of course it ended up that THAT was the one I bought and the AC control remained stiff for its entire life.)
Some minutes later - the test drive. My new salesguy told me to bring it to 60 and then slam on the brakes. I braked. He admonished me - “No, SLAM them!” On the third try I finally got up the nerve and overrode my Phoenix-bred caution.
FRUMMMM. Stopped. No pulling left or right. Just a rapid transition from “you’re flying” to “you’re not”.
“OMG, these brakes are great!” I gushed.
Note - here’s the first inkling of how the “wisdom my dad taught” was coming up short. Never tell a salesguy you love the car. His pupils will be replaced by dollar signs and a faint “ka-ching” noise will issue from him. But did my dad ever hint at that to me? He did not. So the gushing continued to gush.
“Okay,” he said. “Bring it back to 60 and take that left hand curve.”
“But we’ll crash” I exclaimed.
“No, we won’t. Trust me.”
Heart in my Birkenstocks, I did as he bade and, rather than flipping and exploding into a raging ball of crap metal, as the Phoenix would have surely done, the brave GTI just shrugged and held the line.
I couldn’t believe it. What a car! More gushing. More ka-ching noises.
We went back to the dealership and started the negotiation just as my dad as taught. Oh, wait, my dad hadn’t taught me a THING about this - never even HINTED at how one buys a car. He certainly bought them but did he bring me along? No. Did he discuss tips and tricks? No. And so here was my “negotiation”.
“How much is it?!” I asked.
“The MSRP is $9,130” he answered.
“Great! I’ll buy it!” I replied.
You might have caught the tiny flaw in my approach to driving a hard bargain, a certain lack of give and take. All I can say is “Thanks, dad.”
That night I realized that simply saying “Here’s my money” wasn’t the absolute best approach and I called up the next morning to ask if they could mayyybe throw in some floor mats. And my salesguy, still goggling at the world-class haggle-free abilities I’d demonstrated the day before, generously included two floor mats as part of the purchase. Wow! What a deal!
I ended up driving that car for 13 years and had a blast with it, so no harm done. And for my second purchase you can believe me when I say the salesguy had to work for the sale. After that first experience I shifted from “drive/buy” to “research the vehicle and the financing to a degree that I knew more than the engineers who built it and the finance guys who sold it”.
Actually, I grew to enjoy the whole car buying process. Most people dread buying a car but it became a bit of a hobby to me. Not just for myself but for friends.
And I made sure that I passed on the knowledge. When I was helping my youngest get his first car I not only brought him with me to the dealership but explained ahead of time exactly how the deal would go down. First, we checked the prices at a competing dealer for a similar used car. Then we went to the dealer that had the one we wanted. We met the rather new salesguy and took a drive to determine that “it was good”. I’d already informed my son that the guy’s first move would be to tell us what a valuable and rare car it was. Which he did. Of course, the car had a price on it. A price I had no intention of paying.
I’d told my son that the second phase of Sell-A-Car 101 would be to produce a piece of paper and divide it into quarters, therein to put down his magic numbers representing his price, the trade-in, etc.
My son smiled as, true to form, the quadrated piece of paper materialized. I told the guy my price, which was far below his. He said he’d have to bring it to his manager. And once he was gone I told my son he was likely smoking a cigarette out back, letting the customer (us) get nervous.
He came back after the requisite five minutes to relate, sadly, that his manager couldn’t match my price but they could offer a bit off. (Also predicted to my son).
I thanked him and said that perhaps I should just get going to the other dealership, who had a car that really was better on several fronts, and that would therefore be a better buy.
No, no, said our guy. Let me go back once more!
I let him go and then told my son we were going to now get up and leave. And I predicted we wouldn’t get into our car without being intercepted first.
The guy must have had trouble finding us as we’d already reached my car and I had my hand on the driver’s door handle when he sprinted up, out of breath and exclaiming “I did it! I got my boss to agree!”
But I resisted. I told him I’d already walked to the car and it was only twenty minutes to the other dealer. If somehow the deal fell through I assured him I’d give him a call.
The poor guy looked ready to have a coronary. “No, no! Please! I can even get you a better price than you asked. It’s my first sale and I get a bonus and (lots of similar babble).
I let him pull us reluctantly back and assured him that if we didn’t have the papers signed within five minutes, for the price I wanted, it was all over.
And … I got the deal, we were done in five minutes and my son got both an education and a car. And THAT’S the way you lay the right kind of foundation for “what my dad taught me”.
Nickyitis
Some solo Nicky-centric cartoons this week. Have no fear, though. ELF will return.
So that’s a wrap. Who’s going to comment
and who’s going to share?!
Such a fun and funny read, Crowden! Now if only I could get a salesperson to quarter the price on one of those $45,000-plus hybrid plug-in Rav 4’s. Unlike you, I hate the bargaining process! That’s why I’m driving a deteriorating but low-mileage, 2006 Corolla.