My parents had a 1964 Chrysler New Yorker, and that thing was huge.
White, with red leather interior (Coulda been Naugahyde...) and rows of buttons on the dashboard instead of a column selector. Push a button to go in reverse!
I recall it had a large engine, 400+ cubic inches too, and my mother used all of it. She drove with a depleted uranium foot, and if we were acting up, she would floor it and speed up until we were crying for her to slow down, and she only agreed to do that if we would behave! That would be child abuse today, but back then, well...not so much.
In that Big Chrysler, only my mom and dad were in the front seat...usually. there would be three or four in the back seat. two in the rear facing sear out the back window, and one in between the back seat and the rear seat.
On those long, cross country drives we took in May of 1967, the rear facing seat for two was highly coveted.
The space for one of us between the seats was uncomfortable but some of us (including me) liked it because it was all yours.
The back seat was The Pit. It was the worst, especially in the middle, because my two physically bigger older brothers had to ride there, and they always had the window seats. There was no arguing there. So I was in the middle if I drew that seat. There was a lot of fighting and arguing, and my brothers would give me “frogs” alternating from side to side. A “frog” was inflicted by a sharp rap on an exposed forearm muscle with a sharp pointed knuckle. The muscle spasms and goes into a hard knot, and it hurts. I never liked riding there.
And nobody wanted to ride up front with Mom and Dad. It was hard to see out, and you didn’t sit there unless you were hurt or in trouble.
Anyway, we took that Big Chrysler from Fairfax, VA to San Franciso, where our family of eight was heading to my Dad’s new duty station in Yokosuka, Japan.
They loaded that car on a ship and it met us in Japan, and we also took it to Subic Bay later on where it stayed forever. I wonder if it ended up somewhere completely covered with ash from Mount Pinatubo.
The people who dig up that car 500 years from now will have no idea. They won’t know anything about that 1964 Chrysler New Yorker station wagon, and how it took a 20th Century Cold War family on a 30 day cross country journey on our way to Japan.
Along the way, we went to Mammoth Caves, took Route 66, went to places like the Petrified Forest and ended up on Cable Cars in San Francisco for our flight the next day.
I broke my foot the night before we left, playing dodgeball in a twilight backyard where I put my foot in a hole. My parents their friends, our friends, Navy people, and a bunch of Nuns and Priests from a local parochial school where we went. They thought it was a sprain, and I couldn’t walk on it, so they put me to bed early. I lay there, but my foot was killing me and I was all by myself in there, everyone else was still partying. At some point, one of my parent’s friends coming upstairs to use the bathroom walked by and heard me crying in the room. My mom came up, looked at my swollen foot, and on the night of the going away party, hustled off to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where they casted my broken foot. It was broken where I couldn’t walk on it, so I had to be pushed around in a wheelchair. They did check it when were were staying at the base camping ground at Fort Leavenworth, and determined it had healed enough in three weeks that they could remove the cast!
In that Big Chrysler, we were on our way up to Expo 67, and we got lost on back roads at night in the pouring rain where my dad got stuck in the mud trying to turn the car around on a narrow dirt road with the rear wheels hanging in the air over a short muddy hill. We slept in the back with the car hanging out like that, all six of us under blankets while my parents celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary.
In that Big Chrysler, the brakes failed on it coming down Pat’s Peak!
What a trip. We had a large ten person canvas tent, sleeping bags and air mattresses, a camp stove...all strapped to the top with my wheelchair tied on top of it all like a cherry!
Those archeologists or construction people will have no idea of where that rusty frame of a car had went.
How I loved that Big Chrysler!
That is an awesome story! I come from a family of four and before my Dad was deployed to Europe, he went out to purchase a car. My Mom thought he’d come back with a small sedan but he arrived in a blue and white 1975 Plymouth Voyager window van. Enormous compared to many cars on Europe’s roads. We spent 6 years in Europe and drove that thing all over the place. I have some great memories of our adventures and a few visa stamps from countries that no longer exist.
It’s amazing how a car, truck, or van can be an anchor for so many memories.
I feel bad for many kids today as they don’t seem to have the same enthusiasm for driving that I remember having. Some are opting to not get their license and just Uber around.
I still can’t get over the senseless murder of Naugas
Great post.