Continued from previous post…
Dear Boo and Bubble,
My…it’s been a while since I wrote last. Captain and I have been moving around, but
we’re finally home now. Let’s see where
were we? Ah, yes, the 1958 Chevrolet
Impala convertible.
To your great uncle Bryant’s and my surprise, Granddaddy
Schaefer ended up buying the car even after the fiasco of the test drive. It was beautiful and he had always harbored a
desire to own a convertible. We came
barreling into the driveway at 3 Lakecrest, top down, honking the horn and
yelling our heads off. Mamaw and great
uncle Gene ran out of the house to see about the ruckus. Nothing would do but we drive back up to
Paris Mountain (with a full tank of gas this time) and traverse its entirety
from the intersection at State Park Road to the other end at Highway 25 above
Travelers Rest.
The Impala became our signature “rite of passage” car. We drove it to Friday night football
games. Uncle Bryant was the only one
with a driver’s license, but that didn’t stop me and our gang of close friends
from clandestinely tooling around the back roads of Paris and Piney
Mountains. I remember driving the
convertible with my best buddy, Anna Dunson, in the passenger seat down a road
on Piney Mountain that soon became a dirt road that soon became a gravel
pit. The farther we went, the worse it
got, the shock absorbers crunching and grinding with every boulder we
crossed. Luckily for us, the road picked
back up again at the bottom of the mountain.
This was WAY before cell phones and I have no idea what we would have
done if we actually had become stuck!
(By the way, you are the first ones I’ve ever told about this!)
Putting the top up and down was truly a cumbersome
process. The cover seemed to have
hundreds of snaps to do an undo every time.
Finally, we just left the top down and parked it in the garage in the
basement, only taking it out on sunny days.
The shine started wearing off the apple for Granddaddy Schaefer as he
began to realize that the car was totally impractical.
The final straw came one weekend when my ballet troupe had
been invited to perform in Hartsville, SC.
I begged Mamaw to drive some of the dancers in the convertible and she
agreed. We met at the dance studio and
put three girls in the back seat. I sat
up front with her. The weather was
gorgeous, bright sunshine and a warm breeze.
With great glee, we started out of Greenville, top down and the radio
blaring.
Just east of Columbia, rain clouds formed and Mamaw thought
it prudent to pull into a gas station and put up the top. Her inclination proved true as within minutes
of closing the latches and resuming our trip, a torrential downpour descended
upon us.
I would love to tell you that having the top up on the
Impala made a difference, but I can’t.
Water came through it like a sieve – to the extent that we had to put up
umbrellas inside the car. On top of
that, the windshield wipers decided to stop working. I had to roll down my window and manually
drag them back and forth so Mamaw could see where she was going. By the time we arrived in Hartsville, all of
us were so wet we looked like we had been hosed down.
The car couldn’t dry out and we had to ride home in a soggy,
mildewed mess. Talk about literally
raining on someone’s parade!
Granddaddy took the Impala back to Sitton Buick the next
week and traded it for something more mundane.
I can only imagine his emotions as he drove off the lot leaving the car of
his dreams behind…..sort of like breaking up with your first love because no
matter how beautiful, they just aren’t good for you!
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