My Luxury Car: a 1969 Pontiac Parisienne
“Sometimes I still miss that car”
by Hans Wienhold
Bought it for $350. It was a 1969 Pontiac Parisienne. I put 6,000 miles on it in the summer of 1979. In retrospect, that was a bit of a miracle.
By the time I got to Calgary, the gas tank was full of holes due to the weight of shit that was in the trunk, causing it to scrape the ground whenever I went up or down a ramp. I could only put one gallon in the tank at a time. Of course, as a strong believer in being prepared, I also carried a 1-gallon plastic jerry can in the trunk.
During the winter of 79/80, the heater conked out. Again, with preparation in mind, I made sure I always had an ice scraper on hand to scrape the ice from the inside of the windshield while driving. But I also had a battery blanket.
Working on the rigs at the time, I was alone in my Calgary townhouse during my week off (long change). I had no friends in Calgary so on Christmas Eve I got lonesome for home and pondered driving back to Hamilton (about 3,300 km.) The thought occurred to me that if, by bad luck, some odd coincidence, or hitting a polar bear while plowing through two feet of snow, the car might experience a mechanical problem on the Trans Canada somewhere in Saskatchewan, it might be a problem. So I canceled the trip.
When I finally did make the trip in the spring, I hit a deer in Manitoba, the rubber from the retread came off the tire in Minnesota (no spare), and my drive shaft fell off in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Memorial Day. Other than that, and the fact that the engine had to cool down to ambient temperature every time I tried to start it, the trip was a smooth one, especially after replacing the U-joint for the drive shaft.
Sometimes I still miss that car.
*****
Hans Wienhold is the author of “Confessions of a Hamilton Cab Driver,” available on Amazon in hardcover or paperback.
Wienhold identifies as a Welfare Recipient at Senior’s Welfare; Self-Employed; and also, a Climate Scientist at BS Detective Services.
