66?

"What's the significance of the number 66?", you may ask. Numbers, words, pictures - these and many other things can carry any amount of significance you choose to give them. There's a whole discipline (Symbology) devoted to it.

For me, 66 represents two things. A car and a trip. Both of those conjure grand ideas - freedom, big spaces, and Americana.

The trip is self-explanatory. A journey that many others have made before. A journey that my wife and I plan to take someday. That is not the purpose of this blog.

A CAR

Those who know me know that I've had cars with character. There was my first car - the Chaotic War Machine (also known as the Vova or the Dirty Snowball), my 77 Chevy Nova. A 4-dr straight-6 grocery getter with red-plaid bench seats was not my idea of a cool car when I was in high school, but my friends remember many hairy nights riding in (or on) that beast. It took all the abuse I could throw at it, and kept running.

There were less memorable vehicles - my 83 Ford F250 pickup, the 88 Olds Cutlass Supreme, the 83 Buick Skylark (totaled before I had it paid for), the 89 F150, the 2000 Ford Focus, and the Toyota Corolla.

The most notorious was my 1966 Ford Galaxie LTD 4-dr hardtop. 4 tons of Detroit steel with a 352 ci powerplant that woke every dog in 3 blocks when I'd fire her up in the morning. Scotty dubbed her my Hoopty, and it stuck. My then-wife was jealous of her (the Hoopty took better care of me) and finally convinced me to sell her. Years later the then-wife became my ex-wife and the Hoopty still haunted my dreams. She'd been sold in an auction and I bemoaned ever selling her. I could only assume she was at the bottom of a junk pile, victim of some demo derby.

My friends grew tired of me talking about it, and it became a dream best-forgotten.