The Little Red Toyota

I was a car dealer's daughter. That means that I had an endless variety of vehicles to drive in high school. They weren't really given to me, it is just that my dad would sell what I was driving and give me something else to drive until he sold that car too. The exception was the little red toyota corolla.

My friends and I would carpool everywhere together in that car. Sometimes there would be so many of us that they would be piggyback on each others lap just to fit. We looked like the opening to "The 70's Show" most of the time. Everyday on the way home from school we would pool our money for gas (gas was 78 cents a gallon back then) and I would drop everybody off while doing whatever "necessary" errands we had on the way. We went to the movies and skating and shopping and all the places that teenage girls need to go.

When I graduated my dad gave me the car officially. This surprised me because I thought the car was already mine. I was still happy. I used the car to go back and forth to Ohio State, burning up the highways everywhere I went. (the thing handled like a racecar!) When I came home for the summer my intention was to transfer to Marshall University in the fall. That didn't happen.

My dad kicked me out during a huge family blowout and took the car back. He returned it a few days later. A couple of months later, I got in trouble for driving the getaway car in a robbery. My parents took the car back again. Then I was married a year later. They gave me the same little red toyota back for a wedding present. That car actually saved them a fortune in money for presents for me.

I loved that car. Bobby and I drove it until it rusted apart. The engine was still good, so I sold it to somebody that actually used it to race on a dirt track. Back then the body of a toyota would disintegrate long before the engine went out. I remember one day I was driving along and my hood flew up and hit my windshield. Fortunately I managed to stop the car without wrecking. I went to the front of the car to see what had happened. The hood latch was actually still latched. All around it though the metal had corroded so the hood had separated from the latch.

I saw a car just like it in the early 90's on a trip to Florida one time. My car was worth much more than it was, but I was so tempted to get that driver to pull over and trade me even on the spot. I think it would have been worth it.