He said: "I can remember very clearly our first car. I say "our" because it was meant to benefit everyone in the family: Mom, who didn't know had to drive yet, but would soon learn, and Dad, of course, whose machine it really was since he picked it out and paid for it. But it would eventually be for my older brother, Hank, since he was just coming home from the war and a car quickly became essential if you wanted to impress women. I was only 11 when the car came into our family, but I remember the excitement when Dad pulled into the drive with his Ford. It was all black and had 2 doors. The seats in the front folded back to let Hank and I get it. Mom and Dad sat up front, of course. The car had this great feature, which I think Dad paid extra for: it was an metal "stick" that stuck out of the sides of the car up front, near where the wheels were, and they made a scratching noise on the curb if you got too close. I suppose this
meant to guide you when you were parking on the street so that you didn't mess up the paint on the side of the car. Other than that, the car had no extras; no radio, no ash tray, nothing, really, but that didn't matter. It was our first car ever and America was on the move and soon everyone had a car, but we were among the first on our street and that counted for something back then. Who would have ever guessed that it would all lead to where we are now with the warming of the earth and the oil getting hard to get and the fact that many families have a car for everyone in the family; sometimes extras that no one really drives. It's so crazy now. Used to be that you used the car to get someplace far, like to the beach or a trip to Baltimore to visit Grandma. Now you need a car to do anything. People drive a mile to buy a pack of cigarettes and then drive home. It used to be that the car was a kind a freedom. Now it's a kind of jail."

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