Go Stand by the Car, I'll Take a Picture

I thought it would be fun to occasionally go through the family photos, and post on a theme such as, "Photos on the Plastic Covered Sofa, Grandmother Looking Startled, or maybe even a game where you have to guess, Family Photo, or David Lynch Movie?" Anyway, here's the first in what I hope will be a series called, "GO Stand by the Car for a Photo."

My mother didn't learn to drive until the late 60's, so I have no idea whose car that is. I like the blonde choppy hair.

All that peroxide is work though, so by 1956 when this photo is dated, she's back to black hair. Maybe this is an earlier photo, I can't imagine my mother wearing bobby socks much past her teenage years. Again, no idea whose car.

That car belonged to my dad. He took the photo when they were dating, which was all of two weeks before they ran off and got married. I wouldn't recommend that, by the way. This is from 1957.

We'll call this, "Go sit in the truck, and I'll take a photo." That's Dad in the mid-fifties when he worked for the State of Illinois on the brand-new Interstate system.

"Go smoke a cigarette by the Yellow Impala, I'll take a photo."  That was my mother's first car of her own.

Lest you think the car-posing was limited to my parents, here's my sister posing next to our car.

The Chicago Blizzard of 67 or, "Go stand next to the snow-buried car for a photo." That's my sister again. I looked, but couldn't find any photos of myself next to a car. I know there must be some, I'll keep looking.

Finally, a photo of my mother about a month before she died in 1992. I was just recently telling Danny how his grandmother would drive her convertible with the roof down, and the air conditioning blasting-he didn't believe me. She'd sit in that car to catch sun during her lunch hour-running the radio and the air conditioning. One day, the poor Chrysler had more than it could take, and the engine caught fire. As she was working for a company that made fire extinguishers, she turned the car off, calmly walked around to the warehouse, and asked to borrow a fire extinguisher, explaining that her car was at that moment, alight. I had to pick her up from work that day, and there was no shortage of employees pulling me aside to tell me how incredible my mother was.  The car was fixed, and she continued her lunchtime ritual of radio and air conditioned car sunbathing.

I hope you enjoyed this portrait of my family, and our automobiles.