It seems a lot of people have at least one photo sitting or standing by a car. I have several both from when mom took pictures of me and or my siblings by our car and from when I was an adult. The above photo is of my oldest son, Chris, and myself sitting on mom’s 1976 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. I am wearing my huarache leather sandals (which I loved!) that I got at the Leather Pouch in Lafayette. This photo was taken at my parents’ home on Government Lane in Opelousas.
Mom let me drive her Monte Carlo from time to time. The hood on this model was long! And surprised she bought a two-door car instead of a four-door one. According to Dad, Mom left the house, saying she was going to the pharmacy, and came home with the Monte Carlo. He would often laugh and say he didn’t know pharmacies sold cars!
The car I liked the most when growing up was Mom’s two-door, two-tone 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air. It was huge and roomy, probably because I was a little girl and it looked so big. It was also the first car I remember my parents having while I was a child. Afterward, they had a 1962 white Chevrolet station wagon, a 1967 Pontiac Bonneville, a 1972 Chevrolet yellowish station wagon, then the Monte Carlo. When my parents bought the Bonneville, Dad had the radio taken out! How dare he!
We traveled a lot due to Dad being in the Army so we spent a good bit of time riding in cars. And while living in Germany, we traveled often to see the different sites. What I most remember with the Bonneville was driving up a very narrow road around a mountain in Italy. The road went near the top of the mountain and back around it. Doing this in a large car was scary. Dad had to drive so slow that we drove twelve miles in an hour up and around that mountain.
The day I got my learner’s permit, we had the 1972 station wagon. That same day Dad took me driving on the shell road where my grandparents lived. A cattle guard was the entrance to my grandparents’ driveway, and Dad told me to turn into it, which meant turning right. I told him I couldn’t; he told me to do it; I again told him I couldn’t and he again told me to turn into the driveway. So I turned and crunched the back door on the passenger side on the cattle guard. Dad took responsibility since he told me to do it but said he wouldn’t fix the door until I learned how to drive. Good thing he didn’t get it fixed because I again crunched the same door, this time on a telephone pole. Something happened again to that same door, and he finally got the door fixed.
Anyway, this Monte Carlo reminds me of the song by The Hollies, “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” – this car was a “long cool car with a blue hood”!
My Car Photos
