donbosco
Inconceivable Member
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I turned 15 in 1973 and immediately got my “Learner’s Permit” for driving. Around that same time Deddy had his cataract operations. That kind of procedure, still a serious one, had, in the late 1960s taken great leaps through the application of ultrasound. Still, Deddy’s recovery period was along the lines of 6-weeks.
Never one to halt for long his busy work schedule with the hardware store and his cows, and always looking to make lemonade from lemons, Deddy made a deal with me. He would buy me a car if I, in turn became his chauffeur! So I got a Mustang II and he got to keep up his “going.”
That summer and early Fall I drove him to Greensboro, Raleigh, and Durham to pick up store supplies in the truck. I took him to the farm to feed and count cows. When the journey was a little fancier and didn’t require cargo I drove my new car. I even drove to the beach and to the mountains on family trips. We figured that I’d clocked over 20,000 miles behind the wheel before I’d even gotten my full-blown Drivers’ License.
The car was king in rural North Carolina and young boys tooling around in souped up sedans with what fellow Chathamite Charlie Daniels described as having a “peace sign, mag wheels and four on the floor” (Check it out: “Uneasy Rider” - the pre-Right Wing Charlie, https://youtu.be/Y1-xi2Jkk7g?si=SOmD0b8hX5yvHevP) were everywhere. That Mustang II unfortunately did not fit that bill but was, rather, the kind of forward-looking purchase Deddy was more prone to make.
You see, in October of 1973 Egypt and Syria initiated what came to be known as The Yom Kippur War by attacking Israel. When the United States backed Israel the response was an OPEC staged oil embargo. And that caused gas to double, or more, in price. There were also shortages, forms of rationing, and often lines at the gas station.
I remember thinking “what a bummer - I finally get my license and now there’s no gas!” The price, as I recall went from .33 cents to .70 (a modern equivalent of $2.25 to $5.00 approximately). And thus the wily purchase of a 4-cylinder Mustang II in 1974 rather than the gas-guzzling show cars otherwise so prevalent - even nigh onto necessary - with mine and previous generations.
Cheap gas became, as it remains, but a distant dream of times long past, though conservation was/is wise and the “Arab Oil Embargo” did cause people to think through a good number of profligate policies and habits. At least for a time.
To be sure, our vehicles are more efficient now. Some folks even take pride in using less petroleum and raising the Miles Per Gallon of their transport. At times we’ve even had national policies that encouraged and rewarded that kind of thinking. My Deddy, born in 1916 and deeply influenced in his life path by both the deprivations of The Great Depression but also the practical actions taken by an activist government during The New Deal - the same government that also enacted programs that pulled us together in sacrifice to crush Fascism - was already taking positive steps on a personal basis back in 1973 when he made that chauffeur deal with this clueless 15-year-old down in #DeepChatham.
The days of endless cruising in muscle cars were in the past - sort of - they were for my high school years anyway. The Big, Loud, rural brand of race cars slowly began to take on the visage of dinosaurs even there in the mid-70s. They could still be a ‘project’ and might even draw some ooos and aahhs but the impracticality loomed for the thoughtful just the same.
It was a transition time - fitful but smart. I fear that the “Great Again” nostalgia is far too ignorant of history. Lessons were there and it seems even briefly learned - even taught - but far, far too seldom remembered.
Oh, that Mustang II? I totaled it. But that’s another story altogether.
