I was thinking today about when I bought my first car about 1 month after my 16th birthday in 1964 in Glendale, California where I then went to Glendale High School. I had had one girlfriend likely by then that I started to date who was a blue eyed blonde haired girl who was in my English class and I had gotten the courage to date her because I didn't want to die a virgin (funny thinking of this now because I was still basically a virgin at 21 too) because President Kennedy had just been assassinated in 1963. So, I felt very vulnerable to death myself if the president could be assassinated so I decided I needed to date Gayle who was from Anchorage, Alaska in my English class. So this would have to have been my sophomore year in High School because that would be when I went from 15 to 16 and would be able to get a driver's license in California then. I had been working for my father summers since I was 12 learning to be an Electrician on construction jobs all over Los Angeles County so I had saved enough money for my first car, a 1956 Ford Station wagon that I affectionately called "My Surf wagon".
It looked something like the lower right one but the metal trim was like the one at the top that is light green. I put it up on a rake by reversing the rear shackles so the rear end was higher than the front. Doing this now would likely be illegal because when you go around a corner too fast your rear wheels might slide out from under you because of the higher center of gravity in the rear end of the car. But, people did stuff like this a lot then where the tail was higher or they jacked up the front or they jacked up the whole car sort of like you see some 4 wheel drive trucks still doing this really high.
My next car was a 1965 VW Bug that my parents wanted me to have for college that got better mileage than my 1956 Ford STation wagon, because the station wagon got likely around 12 to 16 miles per gallon which was normal for almost any station wagon then. But people afforded this because gas was only around 17 cents a gallon for regular gas in 1964. And I was making whenever I worked about 3 times the minimum wage as an electrician. So, minimum wage was about a dollar an hour then and I was making at least 3 dollars an hour working for my Dad or other part time jobs I worked at after school to make money to have a car and to be able to afford to drive it about 400 miles a weekend if I wanted to with my friends then.
I liked to body surf and Board surf on over 10 foot what they call Longboards now that hung out the back of my station wagon because they were too long to fit if they were only up against the drivers seat the skeg (or fin) they might be called now would hang out the back end of the station wagon then.
I remember my best friend had a 1951 Ford convertible and we drove to the beach with 10 foot longboards sticking straight up from under the driver's and passenger's seat driving along the freeways to Huntington Beach at least once or more. When you are young you sometimes do really crazy things. But, people were not arrested for stuff like this then for some reason.
My first date with Gale we went to the Alex Theater to see something like "Beach Blanket Bingo" with Annette Funicelo and paul Anka I think in my friend's 1951 Convertible because I couldn't drive yet because I was only 15 and so was Gayle.
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