My wife was pregnant in 1969 when I went to USAF Officer Training School, Refused to drive to Pilot training in our new VW bug. It made her sick. My mother was selling our Olds so I stopped by Hippodrome Olds in Nashville to ask an acquaintance from High School what the car was worth. He was selling new Oldsmobiles and had this 442 ready for delivery, It had been special ordered with the bench seat,but the buyer had not put down a deposit. We traded the VW. didn't even have financing until we drove to Texas and joined the AF credit Union there. My daughter Kelly was born that year.

I remember our trip when we moved from California to Ohio. My brother & I were young and everyone was worried about how well we would do on a cross-country road trip. Our neighbor was so nice that she made us each little bags to open every day of the trip. They contained snacks & toys & games to keep us entertained. It was so exciting in the beginning that I couldn't wait to open one each day. I would bug my mom all day until she finally let me open one. It worked, the nagging kept me entertained. Eventually, though, I figured out that the snack & toys & games in each bag couldn't really keep me occupied enough to never get bored, so the excitement wore off. Ha. I do remember that the back seat of that car was big enough that David & I could both sit comfortably & have plenty of room for whatever came in our bags. It was like we each had our own room back there!

When I was young my dad was a pilot, so he wasn't home much. When he was home, he was always out in the garage working on cars. I would always want to go out to see what he was doing. One day I was especially persistent & finally got to go out there to play around. Of course, at that age, I was very curious and this happened to be the day that the oil was being changed in the Oldsmobile. I was just tall enough to stand on my tippy toes, grab onto the side of the pan with the old in it that was sitting on top of a stool, and then try to pull myself up so I could see what was in it. Physics being what it is, though, the pan flipped off the stool before I was able to pull myself up & the oil ended up all over me. I think that little trick resulted in a trip to the hospital.

My favorite memory about the Olds isn't one particular event. It is a collection of similar memories. My dad, of course, would always drive very conservatively with us kids in the car. Every once in a while, though, when the timing was perfect, we would be the first car to turn left through an intersection when the light turned green. At these times my dad liked to hit the gas so that the car would really accelerate. You could really hear the engine rev & it was always very exciting. Once we were through the intersection & back on the straight-away he would, of course, slow back down. I think those are the memories that kept me hanging onto the car for so long. Like I said, I never got to experience the car being raced like it should have when I was young because my dad was careful with me, but from these little tastes I knew that the best thing about this car was the power. When I was older & the car was finally mine, I loved to just hit the gas & see how fast it could take me.

One of my funniest memories I think happened on our cross-country trip. I just remember turning around to look out the back window & seeing all of our clothes flying out of the suitcases that we had tied to the top of the car. Ha!

The dashboard is still in great shape. No cracks.