EDITOR'S NOTES: A good car is a bonus in stormy weather

Originally Published In the Summerville Journal Scene

By David Kennard

dkennard@journalscene.com

Let’s talk about the weather for a minute. It’s hot. It’s rainy. It’s humid. It’s cool – well not really cool. And that’s all in one minute.

Since moving to South Carolina in December, I’ve noticed that people love to talk about the weather. I’ve also noticed that folks around here talk about the heat as sort of a badge of honor. What I really think is that it’s one of those “what-doesn’t-kill-you-makes-you-stronger” kind of things.

All I heard in December was, “Just wait until summer.” Or “You’ll love South Carolina except for three months during the summer.” Or, “You think it gets hot in Utah? You don’t even know.”

I can’t even imagine what it was like before the modern era of air conditioning.

I can still remember our first car with air conditioning. It was a 1974 gold Chevy Vega. I know what you’re thinking; I thought the same thing when I saw my father pull up in that pathetic little, uh, car.

Thankfully it died a horrible death, oddly enough during a thunderstorm when a giant tree limb fell on it. The insurance wouldn’t cover it because they said it was an “act of God.” I still chuckle at that. I mean, even God hated that car.

Although, that was the car that my father first let me drive, despite the fact that it would be several more years before I was actually old enough to get a driver’s license.

It was the car in which I learned to drive a standard transmission. Many years later, it proved its worth when I took a driving test to become a UPS driver and was told I was the best driver the supervisor had ever seen – mostly because I never popped the clutch on the big brown delivery truck.

After the limb incident, Dad bought an old Chevy Impala as an interim vehicle until he could afford to buy a new car. Dad hated buying used cars, but this was a red ’59 model year hardtop; that was the year the Impala had those really cool rear wings.

I loved it, even though it didn’t have air conditioning.

In the mid-’70s, small cars were all the rage because of the gas shortage. That Impala was not a small car. It had a huge engine compartment and a huge trunk and huge rear seat that you could jump around in. In the driveway, when I sat in the driver’s seat and pumped the brake pedal pretending I was driving, the windshield wipers started up. I have no idea why.

By the time I was finally old enough to drive Dad had bought a new car – a dark brown Ford Fairmont with gold trim. Are you beginning to see a trend? The Fairmont was to Ford what the Vega was to Chevy – a no-frills disposable vehicle meant to sip gas.

I’m pretty sure he bought the cheapest car on the lot because he knew he had a teenage son who was going to be driving it.

The jokes on him, though. I never crashed it – he drove that embarrassment for years until it finally died ... or rusted away. I can’t remember what ever happened to it, but I am sure it was something unremarkable.

My wife’s father had the opposite attitude toward car buying. She tells me that he never owned a new car. In fact I still hear stories about the jalopies that he hauled his family around in.

In fact nearly every time it rains, she thanks me for buying a car with windshield wipers, and repeats the story of how her father rigged up a string running out the car window so he could pull the wipers back and forth instead of fixing the wiper motor.

That was in Seattle. It rains in Seattle – almost as much as here.

Which brings me back to the weather; I’m a little worried that all this wet, steamy weather combined with the salt air from the coast will do damage to my current vehicle – which does have air conditioning and power windows and working windshield wipers – all of which I really like.

But if this keeps up, I may go back to looking for something a little more disposable. Can you even buy a Chevy Vega anymore?

David Kennard is the executive editor of Summerville Communications, which publishes the Berkeley Independent, Goose Creek Gazette and Summerville Journal Scene. Contact him at dkennard@journalscene.com or 843-873-9424. Follow him on Twitter @davidbkennard.