My Dad’s Shit Datsun

1980 (15 YEARS OLD)1 month ago

By the time I was a teen, my dad had given up on the nonsense of trying to impress people. And while I embrace that philosophy now, it was hard to comprehend back then. When my sisters were growing up, he wore cashmere overcoats, was an excellent jiver, and had lots of photos of him in ski outfits, his hair pompadoured, wearing sunglasses, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

But by the time I became a teen, he spend the evening in his chair, smoking his pipe, watching television. He’d always have the peel of an orange or the core of an efficiently-eaten apple on the arm of his chair. Until my mum shouted at him to throw it away.

But perhaps the best example of this (d)evolution is demonstrated by his attitude to cars.

In the 1950s, when my sisters were young, and long before I was born, my dad was sent by the US Airforce for a one-year stint in Saudi Arabia. And, ever the bastion of progressivism, the Saudi government did not let Western women in.

So my dad went alone.

No women, no alcohol, no pubs, clubs, or restaurants. The only thing available when not on duty was gambling.

And my dad was an incredibly good gambler.

So he came home with enough winnings to buy a new car:

But the first car I ever remember us having was a ridiculously large blue American Chevrolet Nova. It wouldn’t even fit in the garage. When my dad retired from the US Air Force, he could no longer keep it without paying a crazy tax.

So he sold it.

We had a brief succession of crap cars: a VW beetle that my sister Bev wrecked, and a Hillman Hunter, a car that was thrown together in the three or so weeks in all of the 70s that British factory workers weren’t on strike. A series of electrical fires convinced him to move on.

So he settled on a Datsun Estate, at the time Japanese cars were starting to make their mark.

The only problem was that because the UK is a small rainy island, everything with even a trace of iron rusts. And because the Japanese were primarily aiming at the US market, it was designed for dryer conditions. Which made it worse.

After my kids, my dad is the best person I have ever met. But he was absolute shit at even the most basic handyman skills.

And so a Mexican stereotype is challenged.

At some point, the paint was bubbling all over the car. Except for the drivers side front fender. There, it was a large hole surrounded by an aggressive-looking rusty edge. You could fit a small suitcase in it.

So my dad took it the Hobby Shop, a place on the American base that provided free space and tools for people to do everything from wood working to auto repair.

But somehow, it came home looking worse.

Where the hole used to be, there was an enormous, protruding lump of green-coloured fibreglass patching.

It looked like how a goitre on the green woman from Star Trek would have looked (but I’m sure Kirk would have shagged her nonetheless).

To make matters worse, once, while my parents were on holiday, showing off to Singhy and Ellis, I reversed the Datsun out of the garage. And I tore off the driver’s side mirror.

Funnily enough, I can’t remember the clumsy excuse I probably gave. Nor any punishment.

Then one weekend, in a rare moment of doing something as a family, we went to Blessed George Napier’s annual fete.

We pulled up in our bubbly Datsun with the green carbuncle and (maybe, maybe not – I can’t remember – but probably) the side mirror held on with duct tape.

These fetes were staffed primarily by teachers and parents (for the good jobs), yobbos working off their D-merits for the shit jobs (such as picking up the rubbish), and usually a host of 1^st and 2^nd year arse-kissers and goody-two-shoes for jobs such as greeting at the front gate. It’d been a long time since I’d cared about the opinions of the 1^st and 2^nd years, so I wasn’t worried.

But, of course, Cathy Hughes, the most beautiful girl in our year, met us at the gate.

Thanks, God! (it would be several years until it was relegated to a small “g,” but it was pushing its luck).

Cathy half stuck her head into the car and said, “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Morales, you can park over there.”

She’d obviously seen me (to know may parents’ names), despite the fact that I tried to bury myself in the sticky vinyl of the imitation-leather back seat.

To prove it, she added a “Hello, Tim.”

She got a muffled “alright?” without eye contact.

Once out of the car, I disappeared into the crowds, only to resurface to ask for some money and, later, to tell my parents I’d find my own way home.

So, in protest, I walked home, most of the way with someone I barely even knew.

It would be what seemed like an eternity before my dad bought a cool car.