That's Me?

I have to admit, I had some bizarre hair styles when I was in my teens.

I guess that as a young kid, I was trying to figure myself out and get comfortable with a style that defined who I wanted to be. It probably wasn't until my late 30s or my early 40s that I was truly comfortable with the 'real' me. Now, in my late 50s, I figure that I am who I am: that's not to say that I don't have an open mind for ideas and opinions, but I really don't care to create any new version of myself.

I really don't care much about my appearance, these day: the inside me is more important. Sure, I want to be clean and well-groomed, but I essentially leave my hair alone until it gets long enough that it starts sticking in my ears, and then I get it cut short enough that I don't need to worry about brushing it.

That's how little I care about my hair.

So when I was looking through a photo folder with pictures of me over the decades, I was almost taken aback by a couple of high-school photos. In one, I barely recognized myself; in another, I didn't recognize myself at all.

And maybe, these photos have something to do with why I no longer like plaid.

The first photo (on the left) was taken in 1980. I was 15 and in Grade 9. The other photo was taken the next year. Wow, that hair.

The afro grew until it reached my shoulders. At the end of grade 10, when I was looking through my yearbook, I came across a photo of our high-school band. I was looking for myself, in the back row, among the other trumpet players.

I saw someone I didn't recognize. "Who's that?" I asked a friend who was looking through the yearbook with me. I was pointing to someone who's face was a bit obscured, who had a massive head of long, curly hair. "And why is she wearing my t-shirt?"

It was unmistakably my Led Zeppelin shirt with the artwork from the inside of their fourth album, with an old man, standing on a mountain, holding a lantern and a staff, looking down at a walled town, below.

"That's you," my friend said.

"That's me?"

That summer, I had my hair cut short. I haven't had long hair since.

Happy Thursday!

Throwback Thursday: Cars of Yore

Growing up in a family with a car salesman, I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that in my life, I've driven at least 100 different cars. Perhaps, even, as many as double that number.

Even before I had my driver's license, my father taught me how to drive. Most of the time, we used our own vehicle, but because he was known for buying trade-ins from the dealership, keeping them for a short time, and then re-selling them at either a profit or for what he paid, we often rotated our family car several times in one year.

When I had my learner's permit, my father would often let me use one of the demonstrators that he would use as his day-to-day commuter car. In the early 80s, car sales were good, and it wouldn't be unusual to swap this demo for another one because it sold. One time, I remember my father heading to work with one demo, coming home for lunch in a different demo because he sold the first one, and then coming home for dinner in a third demo because he sold the second one.

Though I wouldn't drive his new demos every day, it would be fair to say that in the course of a month, I would drive 10 to 15 of them.

So, maybe I'm underestimating when I say I've driven at least 100 cars.

Not too long ago, I was reflecting on some of the memorable cars that I had driven—a 1985 6000STE, a 1986 Fiero GT, a 1987 Sunbird GT, and a 1989 Firebird Trans Am convertable, among others—but particularly, the cars that I've actually owned over the years.

(Side note: in creating this post, I realized that I didn't take many photos of my vehicles: only a couple of the following images are my own; the rest were plucked from Google searches and may not exactly match my vehicles.)

I didn't own my first car until 1987, when I got my job as a reporter at The Low Down to Hull and Back News, in Wakefield. Before then, I held jobs where I could either walk to work or could borrow our family car. Having to drive from Parkwood Hills to Wakefield, and also to drive to stories, I needed my own set of wheels.

I turned to my father for help, and I only had a couple of days to find myself a set of wheels—actually, as soon as I was hired, I was asked to start the next day: I had to borrow the family car until one for me was found.

On the day that I started my job in Wakefield, my father found a trade-in at his dealership that he thought could do, for now. It wasn't the optimum vehicle: it was a gas-guzzler, but it was safe. And it was in mint condition with low mileage. The car he found me was a 1981 Chevy Malibu: a four-door, V8-engine vehicle in two-tone brown.

Source: Google

It lasted only a couple of weeks. Right from the get-go, it was obvious that this was not the car for me. First off, it was too big. With its massive engine, it went through a lot of fuel. I filled the tank every couple of days. With some of the stories that I covered happening all over the area from Low, Quebec, down to Hull (as the paper was named), I could sometimes find myself filling my tank every day.

This new job was going to cost me a fortune.

Even though my father found the Malibu so quickly, he never expected me to keep it and he continued to search for something better. Two weeks after taking the Malibu, he found another car that was better.

A 1979 Pontiac LeMans: two-door, V6, in a light blue. For being two years older than my Malibu, the LeMans came to me with even lower mileage from its previous owner, and again was in like-new condition. With the smaller engine, I found myself going to the fuel pumps less often, but I was still spending a large portion of my pay on gas (even though, to some extent, the paper was compensating me for fuel).

Source: Google

My father, forever on the search for good used cars, found a third car for me, a few months later, after I left The Low Down. This car was much better suited to a 22-year-old: a 1984 Pontiac Sunbird. This four-cylinder, five-speed manual hatchback was a two-tone of dark blue and grey, and even had a sunroof.

© The Brown Knowser

I loved this car. I drove it everywhere: several trips to Mississauga, to visit a girlfriend. To Montreal, to New York City, and all the way to Fort Lauderdale, in Florida.

To date, it's still in my top-three cars that I've owned. I had it for three years, finally giving it up when I went back to school and couldn't afford to keep it while paying tuition and rent. With great regret, I sold it and went for a couple of years without a car.

Eventually, I got tired of renting cars for getaways, and my father was looking to sell one of his trade-ins that he bought at work. It was a 1980 Datsun 200SX hatchback. White, with a red interior, it was a fun car and reminded me, in some ways of my Sunbird, but this had an automatic transmission and was somewhat gutless. It also had a recurring problem with the brake pads seizing, and we did have the muffler disintegrate on a road trip to Cape Breton Island.

Source: Google

It was the first car that DW and I owned, buying it just after we got married, in 1994. (Oops, I'm not supposed to say how long we've been married.) We kept the car until we moved to South Korea, when we sold it for the same price that we originally paid for it.

When DW and I returned to Canada, in 1999, we needed a car so that we could get around without having to rely on parents for a vehicle (DW's folks didn't have a car to spare and it was a big ask for my folks, who only had one family car and a demo). Again, I turned to my father to find a good car in short order.

He found a 1994 Chevy Cavalier: red, four-door, automatic, base model. It was one of the most basic cars we owned. We kept it, until spring of 2001, but when our first-born daughter came along, we wanted something bigger and safer.

Source: Google

At the time, my father was looking to sell his 1994 Toyota Camry LE, and the decision to take it off his hands was an easy one. It had low mileage, was in nearly new condition, and I had already driven it a few times.

Source: Google

It was the best car that I've ever owned. Smooth, responsive, comfortable. It was a classic deep green, with lights across the entire back end and a spoiler on the trunk. We drove that car everywhere, including to PEI for a summer vacation. We would have driven that car into the ground, which probably would have been until 2010, or longer. It was a well-built car.

Sadly, a heavy downpour in heavy traffic brought that car to an untimely end in a collision. No one was hurt but I cried at the loss of that car, in 2006.

For a replacement vehicle, DW and I decided to up-size and get a minivan. We had two young kids and we often found ourselves schlepping a lot of over-sized things that taxed a sedan. We also liked to travel with our parents, and a seven-seater vehicle seemed the best choice. My father pointed us to a friend who managed a Honda dealership, and we got a great deal on a 2003 Odyssey.

© The Brown Knowser

We drove that vehicle into the ground and went everywhere in it (it was, after all, our only vehicle). While we owned the Odyssey, though, we did make the decision to get a second vehicle, one that I could use to commute safely to and from work. In 2012, we bought our first new car, my Ford Focus Titanium hatchback.

© The Brown Knowser

Enough has been said about this car.

In 2014, when our Odyssey grew long in the tooth and was costing us more to maintain than it was worth, we returned to the manager of the Honda dealership to get another deal: this time, on a 2012 CR-V. This car has been great, and we continue to drive it. We expect it to last us at least another four or five years.

Source: Honda des Sources

This year, when I finally got tired of the problems that wracked the Focus, we traded it in for a 2019 Kia Niro hybrid. So far, both DW and I love this car. It can go about 800 kms on a tank of gas, drives extremely smoothly, and has more toys on it than any other vehicle we've owned. Because it came equipped with roof rails (as did our Odyssey), we bought crossbars and have added racks for our kayaks. Even heavily laden with two kayaks, the fuel economy is better than any of our past vehicles.

© The Brown Knowser

While I've only owned 10 cars in my lifetime, I have driven (much) more than a hundred. And I didn't even touch on the dozens of cars and trucks that I've rented.

What about you? What are some of your memorable cars? Leave a comment.

Throwback Thursday: Oh, That Hair!

Christmas: 1981.

I was 16, had my driver's license, was in my prime of teenhood. My younger sister, Jen, and I had our Operation: Christmas routine mastered. Looking at the portable stereo in my hands, I was going through the motions—not faking my happiness at having the device but feigning surprise in receiving it.

By Christmas morning, I already knew that my parents had bought it for me. They had purchased it in the fall, long before any snow had fallen. Not only had I found it in their bedroom, I had opened the box and played some cassettes in it, had bought the required D-cell batteries to power it, and had taken it to the General Burns Park, where I played Genesis' Duke while my friends and I hung out on the swings.

I always had it perfectly packed up and returned to its "hiding spot" when I was done with it.

Earlier in the morning, while Jen and I snuck downstairs to pre-unwrap our gifts, I practiced my surprise in unwrapping my mini ghetto blaster. She didn't know that I had already discovered this gift.

The only true surprise I would have had would have been to find out, after months of playing with it, that the portable stereo wasn't, in fact, for me; that I had been breaking in one of my sisters' gifts. But I was fairly certain it was mine: I had asked for one for my birthday, that March, had made it clear that, having not received it on my special day, that "Santa" (my brother was just two at the time, so we weren't spoiling the magic of the holiday) had better deliver.

My faked surprise wasn't captured in the photograph that my father took, but my genuine satisfaction was.

However, looking at the photo now, it's hard to narrow on the expression on my face. It's hard to get beyond the mass of bushy curls on the top of my head.

While my hair gets unmanageably wavy when it grows long, it doesn't curl. A year earlier, I had my thick head of hair changed to a tight 'fro, and let it continue to grow over the next year. If I were to grab the rings in the front and pull them straight down, they would extend to my lips.

It wasn't until later in the school year, in 1982, after receiving my yearbook, that my hair would change again.

My class photo, which I had already seen, wasn't the most flattering, but I expected that as my hairdo grew, it would flow over my shoulders and down my back. Looking through my yearbook, seeing our high school concert band, my eyes scanned the group photo, seeking out my friends and myself.

As I sat in the Red Room with my friends at J.S. Woodsworth S.S., I puzzled as I came across someone I didn't recognize. "Who is that girl?" I asked, pointing to a stranger at the back of the group, on the risers, with the other trumpeters. As I studied her further, I added, "And what is she doing, wearing my shirt?"

It was a black Led Zeppelin t-shirt with the artwork from their fourth album, with the robed man at the top of a summit, holding a lantern, the light illuminating a woman who was climbing the mountain to join him. It's the symbolic image for their song, "Stairway to Heaven."

The lighting of the group shot was such that my hair cast a shadow over my face. As a woman, I wasn't very attractive.

Seeing myself like that, I realized that I wasn't looking good as a guy, either. Less than a week after seeing myself in that yearbook photo, the mass of hair was gone.

Sadly, the rolled-up jeans remained in style for a little while longer.

Focusing on a New Car

Yeah, big deal. So what. People buy cars all the time.

But I'm almost 48 and this is the first new car that I've ever bought.

I was 21 when I bought my first car. It was a 1981 Chevy Malibu. It was a five-litre, six-cylinder, gas-guzzling sedan. But it was cheap, and it was used.

I didn't really care for it, and so my father, who sells cars and found me my first set of wheels, found me a replacement a couple of months later. It was a 1979 Pontiac LeMans: the same size as the Malibu but it had a four-cylinder engine. It was also in really good shape and had incredibly low mileage for its age. It almost drove like new.

But it was ugly. And for a 21-year-old guy, it was too big and looked like a family car. Hardly a chick magnet.

My '85 Sunbird

And so, a few months later, my father found me a 1985 Pontiac Sunbird. It was a five-speed, manual transmission, two-door hatchback with two-tone paint and a sunroof.

I loved it.

I drove it everywhere, throwing my camera in the back and heading off for the day, taking photos of whatever moved me that particular day. I would get behind the wheel and just go. Sometimes, crossing the border at Ogdensburg, NY, following the south side of the St. Lawrence, eastbound, and crossing back into Canada at Cornwall.

Gas, back then, was between 45 and 50 cents per litre.

I've had a handful or so more cars since that Sunbird, but all of them have been used. It was high time that I picked a new car that was the make, model, style, and colour that I wanted.

Last week, we made that happen.

I told you that Lori and I narrowed the choice down to one model, and there were two such models on the dealership premises. One, which was the style and colour that I wanted, but it didn't have a manual transmission (something I would have liked but wasn't a deal-breaker) or a sunroof (something that Lori really wanted); the other, a model that had a sunroof but wasn't the colour that I wanted and had simpler interior styling.

Ultimately, we went with the car that met my wants. Finally, I have a car that is brand new and has the features that I wanted.

Lori loves it too.

Friends and loved ones: I present our new car.