Mopar Gods forgiveness

coast2coastkidd85 said
WARNING: this is the long and short of “The fish that got away” If you haven’t followed my previous posts, ill try and catch you up. I’m a babbler, but ill try to keep it stimulating and brief, but respectable. I’m apologizing ahead of time if this is too lengthy… you may need some coffee or another form of stimulant to get through it… you may even need to nap a while… enjoy!

PART 1 “The smell of chrome”

My dad, Vince, 6-7 years old, is sitting on the front steps on his house when he hears a roar. The roaring is “distinguishable” and gets louder as a car approaches. His neighbors drive into their driveway across the street in the 1965 Barracuda. My dad is in awe and stares at the cars lines and in his words, he could “smell the chrome”

The neighbors are, as my dad describes, pretty rough on their equipment and are locally famous for “going through vehicles like bicycles” the lawn is a graveyard of dead and or dying cars they’ve condemned.

The neighbors abuse the poor little barracuda for a few years and finally destroy the transmission after pulling and launching various fishing boats with it. The senior neighbor is heard cussing and barking at the car as he slams the hood on it and places a for sale sign up. My grandpa, Jack, inquires about the car and buys it for $600.

The transmission is repaired and the car is the family go-getter for the next several years. My dad recalls being excited when his mom would drive because she would take corners too fast and he would slide from one side of the bench to the other. On short family outings, they would visit the coast and he would lean back and enjoy the night drive back home staring at the stars through the giant window. (Pittsburgh Plate Glass, right?)

My dad is 10. His parents are getting divorced but keeping it civil. My dads sisters, 3 of them, fight over who gets the barracuda, they are of age and driving. My grandpa Jack steps in and gives the car to my dads mom, Eileen, in that she needs and deserves the car. My dad goes with his mom, but still sees his dad from to time.

My dad and his mom are living is “very violent and dangerous” trailer parks throughout California as his mom works any and all jobs that she can to keep them fed and warm. They spend HOURS driving in the barracuda and talking with one another. My described this time as something that he wished he could forget. They were both sad, scared and hungry.

But he also says that this is when he learned how to man-up and be pro-active for his mom. He says the drives in the barracuda were therapeutic and healthy for them both.

My dad is in high school now and working as well. He is an aspiring pilot, paying for his own flying lessons and hopeful to one day join Search and Rescue. He relies on bus routes and friends for rides to and from and when all else fails, his bicycle.

On the day of his drivers license test, his mom calls him to wish him well and says “Vin, if you do well today, your father and I have a surprise for you, but if you don’t, that’s ok too. Call me when youre done.”

*THIS is a BIG moment* my dad passes his test and calls his mom. He waits for her in the DMV parking lot. Shortly after she arrives in the barracuda (keep in mind the history and significance of the car at this point, at that the car is a sacred, mythical fish that he believes he would NEVER have an opportunity in owning.) his mom congratulates him and says “since you did well on your test and youre doing so well with school, your father and I would like to sell you my car, the barracuda, would that be ok?”

My dad is now the proud owner of his moms 1965 Barracuda, and in his words to his dad “its not the car, its who I am through the car”

Lets all be fair and fill in the blanks here… your 18ish, you have some income, youre in southern California and you have a 1965 Barracuda… I encourage everyone here reading this to enjoy letting your imagination run wild at this point and time in life…

**side note, WARNING: to our more sensitive community members… truth be told, years later after I found the car and was cleaning it out for the FIRST time, I did find a pack of condoms and with my mom and dad sitting in lawn chairs 10ft away, I laughed and shouted “what the &*$% is this?!” and showed them the condoms. My mom looked dead at my dad and said “huh! You and I never did anything in that car!” the guilt maybe is what buckled my dad or maybe just lack of self control as he shouted back “I never had sex with Becky in that car! I don’t know WHAT you think happened!” (my moms name is NOT Becky, haha)**

Theres no way I could possibly paint a picture of the “adventures” that my dad had with the barracuda in those pivotal years. So lets move on. Although, he did get a phone call from his dad once asking “how’s the old barracuda doin?” my dad, not knowing that this was a loaded question said “fine.” His dad then laid into him and that my dad had blown right through a stoplight earlier that morning at “break neck, red-line” speeds and cut his dad off at the light… not knowing any of this, he took a pretty good lashing about “responsible driving manners”

**This is not the best of moments** my grandpa Jack remarries and inherits two other boys along with his new bride.

My dad, again young and maybe still hurt by the affects of the divorce, does NOT mesh well with his new stepmom or her sons. The sons are older than my dad and after the niceties wear off… its 1970s construction site testosterone and no one holds back…

Now, to be fair. After getting to know my dad as a young man through his recollection and other sources, he was a very difficult and angry person. His stepbrothers, in the same formula, found that amusing to see jus what it takes to make him go and in his stepmothers eyes, her children could do no wrong.

This formula goes on for many years. My dad would get “beat downs” regularly for whatever the other deemed fit. And when I say things were ugly, I mean ugly, think jerry Springer mid 90s material, but ill leave that to you discretion as I’m trying to stay on topic of the barracuda. (these stepbrothers even tricked my dad into eating brownies loaded with “the devils lettuce” in an attempt to get him so messed up that he wouldn’t be able to pass his finals that week… which almost worked, he had to call the school and explain what happened and reschedule… my dad is pretty straight edge has NEVER got into any kind of drugs. He was pissed and caught them both later on, one-on-one and let them have it. 6’4” and 200+lbs, I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the other end of that)

My dad would get kicked out of the house regularly by his stepmother, and sleep in the back of the barracuda with the seat folded down… ya know, how they advertised is for surfboards or lumber haha… as his dad was constantly away for work, leaving my dad to fend for himself in pretty dire living conditions, but he still had to barracuda to tinker with and find himself happiness in working and driving the car. Being the black engine bay, the Polyglas tires, the cheapy paint job and the tractions bars for example.

My dads a working man and the barracuda is getting tired, naturally. Were in the 80s now and shes been swimming the depths for quite a while. Sadly, one day, while driving he loses power and she comes to a stop. She had blown a rod through the block and was down and out. My dad calls for a tow and gets to a local Mopar shop in Pleasanton, Ca.

The engine is toasted and replaced with a rebuilt block .040 over and .020 on the rods and mains… this puts us roughly somewhere in the mid 1980s… he drives it for a few years more and finally one day, the transmission catches up again… but this time, she just cant take anymore…

My dad gets the Barrucuda towed to his dads property and deems that the transmission is just too great of a challenge to take on at the time… he needs transportation NOW.

He buys a 1969 Camaro, I know yuk, from a coworker, gets a new job at Friedman Bros in Santa Rosa and meets my mom there… he’s driving the Camaro. He’s banned from the property by the evil stepmother and her two disciples … the barracuda disappears into the depths of the unknown, lost? Sold? Crushed? We don’t know… and my dad never returns for the fish that had swam all she could swim… *que intro to Guns N Roses “November Rain”

PART 2: more to come after work, if anyone’s interested….

Great story and writing. Thanks again for sharing a lot of you and your families life. I look forward to page 2~~!!