This is a love story about a car, my husband, and me. It started with my first car. When I was 17 (in 1997) my grandparents gave me a car they had been keeping- a beautiful ivory white 1966 Pontiac Bonneville 4-door sedan with black interior and the vestiges of fins from the 50s and fender skirts over her back tires. She had lap seatbelts and bench seats. She had a huge interior and was so long that she didn’t fit in the garage at our house after we got married. (She barely squeezed into my parents’ garage.) She was a gorgeous beast of a car and she had only a little over 10,000 miles on the speedometer. She had a 425 Detroit big block V-8 and a carburetor. She pegged out at 120 and was still going faster. That’s pretty awesome for a car made from solid Detroit steel. No computers or fuel injection here. She took high-octane leaded gasoline so I had to buy the highest octane I could (about $1.78 in 1997) and add fuel additive to it. (About another $1.50 to the total.) Her name was Bonny because she was beautiful and she had personality to go with her personalized plates: 66BONN
Bonny only had an AM radio with a dial, but it lit up at night along with the beautiful Indian chief head on the dash. On that radio? KOMA on 1000 AM. Koma only played oldies. My music professor in college said its cause they were too cheap to buy new records. 🙂 I didn’t care. The music that came from that station was pure magic. Music from a calmer, more romantic time. Music that I loved.
My husband and I started dating in college in 1998 after watching our first movie together, The Shining. I was so scared! Turns out being scared is a good way to get closer to someone! My dorm closed at 10:00 to all male visitors so often times we found ourselves cruising around in my car as his engine had no muffler and we couldn’t hear each other talk. He didn’t get off work till 10 so this was how we spent time together, after my homework was done 😉 My husband LOVES music, he doesn’t even care what kind and I was so happy that he didn’t mind the oldies (that’s all we could get anyhow).
We fell in love to the doo-wop tunes and the smooth ride of that beautiful car. To long talks and dreams of our future, to the hot nighttime wind coming in the wing windows, to the glow of the radio dial and to the yellow stripes of the highway disappearing under the car as it sped into the night. We fell in love under the big, starry night sky and the big screen of our local drive-in.
We got married in 2000 and oldies were a big part of our wedding, even though our church didn’t allow secular music or dancing. The Bonneville was with us year in and year out. Through it all.
Today we don’t have our Bonneville anymore. We finally sold it in 2010. It had to be waxed twice a year because it didn’t have a clear coat and it didn’t fit in the garage. Anytime a bird pooped on it, it would stain the paint requiring lots of work to put it right. We couldn’t really drive it because we had 2 little ones whose car seats did not work with only lap belts. I couldn’t take care of it anymore because I had those two littles to raise and I had to work full-time. My husband had a two-hour a day commute so he couldn’t do it either and the Bonneville sat lonely and unused.
This started to break my heart and we both decided to let her go to someone who could care for her, so we sold her. That was a sad day. However, one day we will buy an old car again and drive it and relive all those memories. Motorcycles have taken the place of our classic car and we regularly ride together and have tons of fun doing that. Plus motorcycles are just as cool. I still have the memories as they say and cherish those times.
In honor of my beautiful 1966 Pontiac Bonneville and the even more beautiful love that was nurtured within her here is one of my favorite and first playlists on spotify:
I know I haven’t posted in so long but I’m back! Have a great summer from Kansas Street to you,
Jaime
PS- All the pictures in this post were taken, developed and printed by me- back in the times when people still used darkrooms and real film!
One day you’re gonna get married and have kids. You’re gonna look in their faces and see the good in the world. You’re gonna need that. -Fargo, Season 1, Episode 2
Life on Kansas Street 