Remember the Car Wars?

We’re not much of a Ford vs. Chevy family. We just buy and drive what works the best. For instance, I have never had a Ford vehicle that didn’t break down on me, almost immediately. So I drive a Chevrolet, which breaks down occasionally, but, after a trip to the truck doc, keeps on going. Darling Daughter likes a Ford. And we will admit, her Ford pickup has taken a lickin’ and not batted a head light.

Until this week. Darling Daughter called early one morning to report pickup seemed to be having a hiccupping bad time trying to get her to work. “It only does it when I go slower than 45 miles per hour,” Darling Daughter reported. “Then the service light comes one, and it sort of tries to quit. The problem is I’m hitting every stop light I come to.” That meaning Ford pickup was trying to quit on her at every corner.

How strange, I told her. “My pickup (the Chevy) service light only comes on if I go over 45 miles per hour, which accounts for, what my grandson likes to call, my grandma speed.” Well, old Chevy, that is nearly as old as me, has been doing that for years, and I’ve sort of grown into an ‘I don’t care’ state of mind. I should be careful. Those can come back and bite you!

I promised Darling Daughter backup, which she accepted even if it was in an old Chevrolet, and Ford was back on the road after a day with a pickup truck doc. Doesn’t matter if you are a Ford or a Chevy, everybody needs an alternator.

So, all this brought back my teenage years, for some strange reason. Back then there were Fords, Chevys, and an occasional Nash on American roads. I will admit, it was an embarrassment to me that, as a young child, we were a Nash family. I don’t know why. I think Dad had to switch to Chevy cause they quit making Nash. I may be wrong. Anyway, he evened it out. The family car was a Chevy. The farm truck was a Ford. Come to think of it, when Dad was trying to teach me how to drive way back when, I ran that Ford pickup truck into the fence around our 40-acre corn field three times.  That’s when Dad quit teaching me how to drive. Maybe Ford holds a grudge.

The Ford vs. Chevy feud was crazy back then, especially among teens. It was Car Wars! Only a few will remember those days, and I’m one of them. I remember September and October where vitally important to us, not because of all sorts of sports, but also because that was when next year’s Ford and Chevrolet models came out. And there was shouting, and yelling, and accusations made about each brand. I remember being on the Chevy side, probably because I wanted one badly, and that vengeful Ford farm truck, with its four-in-the-floor transmission, kept driving me into the fence! Consequently, I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was in my 20s, in Alaska of all places, where hubby was in the U.S. Air Force. And I do believe in was in a Ford, that later quit on us of course.

Ford vs. Chevy. No one seems to care any more about such Car Wars. But, Darling Daughter drives a Ford. Grandma drives a Chevy. I think we are an All-American family. Throw a hot dog and a piece of pie in there, and we’re fine, and still on the road.