Cars - The 1960's

As we went into the Air Force in 1967, we bought a 1964 Chrysler Newport 4-door sedan. It was beige. It was big. The trunk was big enough to fit a large wood playpen (folded) and most of our other luggage. We made up a level area in the back seat so Heidi could roll or crawl around without any restrictions. No car seat. No seat belts. It was a different world. But we survived.

The car was shaped like an airplane fuselage. No wings, but it could fly. Once, while driving alone, I decided to see how fast it could go. On a lonely straight highway, I opened it up and got it up to 110 mph. I then realized that I had no steering. The front end had lifted so high, that the tires were no longer in contact with the ground. Fortunately I was still going straight. I quickly slowed, and never tried that again.

There were a couple of serious blind spots to the rear, and once as I was backing up in a parking lot, I hit a concrete post that I could not see. It buckled a rear fender.

Soon after that we found a 1966 Chrysler station wagon. It made a great family car. We used that car from 1968 until 1973. It was somewhat sensitive to the cold. During the icy Omaha, Nebraska winters we had to keep a large light bulb burning atop the engine at night. Even then, there were a couple of times when I had to take the spark plugs out and clean them, and prime the engine externally to get it running. We used a lot of engine starting fluid, sprayed into the carburetor, to get it going.

One time we got some bad gas. Our Elders Quorum President, Earl Kay Cook, owned some gas stations. One was near our home, so we bought all our gas there. His stations were all self serve, which was a new concept at the time. He sold his gas at the lowest price in town. His competitor across the street broke open his tanks one time and put a water hose in them. We were unaware of the problem and happened to get some of the water in a tank of gas I bought. The timing was particularly bad, as we headed out the next day on a trip to visit Georgia's Aunt Pat and Uncle David Cobia in Fargo, North Dakota. It was Thanksgiving Day. As we neared Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the engine started bucking and coughing. We were soon limited to traveling at around 25 to 30 mph, and the engine completely stopped if we tried to go any faster. The water had gotten into the carburetor and gummed it up. We turned around and barely made it back home. I think it took about 5 hours to get home.

When we got out of the Air Force, I used the '66 Chrysler as a business car while working for J.A.Hippen Company. It was running better than ever, but Dad decided I needed a newer car, and traded it in for a '68 Chrysler station wagon. What a joke! That car never did run right. It got horrible gas mileage. It coughed and sputtered all the time. Dad kept having me take it to one of his church friend's repair shop. They never could find the problem.

Finally Dad bought himself a big Lincoln and passed down his 1972 Oldsmobile 98.

A few years later, when we were moving to California, Georgia's dad gave us their old '64 Ford Galaxy, so Georgia would have a car to drive. I had a company car for my work, but we had sold all our cars while I was out of work before I went to work for Fisher Scientific.

Some of Heidi's friends referred to that car as a "tuna boat". The trend was to much smaller cars, and the old '60s gas guzzlers were in disfavor.