About thirty years ago as a teenager just able to drive, my mom got me a car for Christmas.
We had opened our presents and were on to our stockings when I found a pair of car keys in one of mine. Mom told me to go outside to see the rest of the present, and lo and behold in the middle of the driveway was the car I had always dreamed of — a red Mustang convertible.
A Hot Wheels red Mustang convertible.
Most people to whom I tell this story think it was cruel to have tricked me like that, but I thought it was funny then and funny now. For one thing we had always been told that we’d have to buy our first car. For another even as the clear favorite of the four kids, I knew there was no way my folks would buy me a car before my older brother, even if we could have afforded it. Then there was the small matter that the keys were from a GM car while my dream car was a Ford.
It was a way for mom to tell me that even if she couldn’t afford to get me a real car, we could have a little fun with it, that she loved me and had listened to all those times I had rambled on about a red convertible Mustang, and remains to this day one of my favorite memories from my youth.
The funny thing is, in the intervening three decades I’ve never once been tempted to buy the real car for myself. But I still have the little car, it’s shown up top sitting on our real Christmas car, our new Subaru XV Crosstrek (the “road” in the picture is one of the roof rails on top of the car). For a size comparison, below it’s shown on the rear bumper of the Crosstrek (dirt courtesy of Ridgefield). The final picture below I took before taking it up to the refuge for the first time on Christmas morning, while the car was nice and clean.
