#4: 1958 Corvette
August 1978. What kind of parents would allow their 16- and 15-year-old boys to drive a '58 Corvette convertible on an overnight trip through the mountains of Colorado?
Well, technically, my 16-year-old brother Brad is the driver. We are driving from Durango to Colorado Springs. It's from my dad's car lot. I'm going to run in the Pikes Peak Marathon. Brad is my trainer, chauffer, and chaperone.
It is a very cool old car. Everyone looks at us when we pass by. When I turn 16 I will drive it a few times too, and it will be too big for me: I'll have to sit on a pillow to reach the pedals, and the steering wheel is huge--like a ship's wheel. Despite its power, it's also fragile: you have to slow down when you cross railroad tracks, you can't slam the doors, and the top takes 10 minutes to take down or put up. But it is definitely a cool car.
Brad is in charge of the music: Steely Dan, Dan Fogelberg, and, currently in the cassette deck, Cat Stevens for the tenth time. If I never hear "Peace Train" again I will not miss it.
Now I've been happy lately,
thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be,
something good has begun
About a year from now he'll be off at college, and we'll drift apart to live our own lives. But for now we're cruising together in our '58 Corvette convertible, wind in our permed hair, as if we have all the time in the world to be teenaged brothers.
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