Memories

I was chatting online the other day with my friend, Bridgett, who mentioned she was restoring an old Camaro she got from her mom. That reminded me of the Camaro that I owned when I was younger. It was a '77 model with a 4 on the floor, and I honestly can't remember the size of the engine except that it was quite powerful and got lousy gas mileage. Of course, gas was about 50 cents a gallon back then so it wasn't too bad.

It was my first new car and I bought it while I stationed in Nuclear Power School in Orlando, Florida. Wanda really liked the Camaro body style, so that was one of the reasons I decided to go with the model. Mine didn't have a lot of features, but as a young E-4 in the Navy, it was about as much as I could afford. It took me back and forth between Orlando and Atlanta almost every weekend for 6 months, and then took me from Orlando to Idaho Falls, Idaho for Nuclear Power Training Unit (NPTU) instruction. Wanda and I then drove the car from Idaho to Connecticut shortly after we got married and kept the car until our first child was born. I then sold it to one of my younger brothers who kept it for many years after that.

In the photo above, Wanda, all of 17 years old, is sitting on the car during a stop in the middle of Wyoming. She was a bit car sick and quite warm. We were traveling during the summer and the Camaro had no air conditioning - which didn't matter too much once we got to Connecticut.

One nice thing about being a prolific photographer is the images that you can pull out of your archives to help you remember so many different things. If Bridgett hadn't mentioned her Camaro, though, I probably wouldn't have remembered this image for quite a while. Thanks, Bridge.