That sweet baby-blue Corvair
I love getting feedback from readers, and I’ve received a ton of it since my debut novel “The Garbage Brothers” was published. Many readers wanted to tell me how much they enjoyed the book's characters, particularly the Willard Sanitation crew—Pickles, Grits, Zeus, Billy Bart—and the company’s chronically inebriated owner, Benjamin Willard III. One woman confided that her favorite character was Delores, the sharp-tongued waitress at the Greasy Spoon who kept a watchful eye over the book’s main character, Jesse, during his eventful time at Willard Sanitation. And one wanted me to know that Jesse’s girlfriend, Iris, was a dead ringer for his high school girlfriend.
But one “character" I didn’t expect would draw attention from readers was Jesse’s car, his beloved baby-blue Chevy Corvair. I was wrong. I received emails from nearly a dozen readers recalling their first cars, and a surprising number of them were, yes, Corvairs—the vehicles that consumer activist Ralph Nader famously declared “unsafe at any speed” and that most former Corvair owners remember with an inordinate fondness.
“Corvairs were way cool until Nader spoiled the fun,” one reader wrote. He added that his first car—in 1968—was a 1953 Buick junker that got him through his last two years of college in a rough part of Philadelphia. “No risk that anyone would steal that car,” he added.
Another reader recalled how he and his girlfriend made their post-high school escape from a small town (similar, he noted, to the fictional town of Freedom in my book) in a “getaway car (that) was a white and blue Corvair, no less.”
Several inquisitive and observant souls asked if I, like my main character Jesse, ever owned a Corvair, citing the author’s many fond references to the car. The answer is yes, I was the proud owner of a baby-blue 1960 Corvair, and I still dream about that crazy little car with the “Powerglide” transmission.
The car originally belonged to my grandfather, who passed it on to my older brother, who, in turn, passed it on to me when he left for college. Before the Corvair got to me, someone backed into it, causing the right front headlight to tilt upward. And the first day after I got the car, I skipped high school and drove with a girlfriend to a beach on Lake Michigan, where, of course, someone backed into my car, causing the left headlight also to point upward. For all the years I drove that car, I never fixed the headlights, partly because I couldn’t afford the expense and partly because I enjoyed driving at night in the snow and watching the illuminated snowflakes drifting down from the sky.
I also didn’t know (and still don’t) the first thing about working on cars, as evidenced by my first—and last—venture into car repair. A friend told me that the Corvair’s engine was running rough and that I should change the spark plugs. When I endeavored to do so, I discovered that the car’s innovative engine block was made of aluminum, which was softer and more forgiving than steel, and enabled me to force the spark plugs into place even though I failed to align the threads. All I had to do was put some muscle into the wrench, and I could force the plugs more or less into place.
As I was bombing down the highway the next day, every last one of the new spark plugs blew out of the engine block like missiles, leaving spark-plug-shaped dents in the rear engine cover. That put my Corvair out of action until a friend’s father, who owned a local garage, fixed it for free on the condition that I promise never to work on a car again.
Eventually, I sold the Corvair for the paltry sum of $150. I used the money as a downpayment for a used Karman Ghia, a pseudo-sports car that I hoped would enhance my dating life. since most young women seemed unimpressed by the beat-up baby-blue Corvair with upwardly tilted headlights
The Karman Ghia had its charms, but the car that I now remember most fondly, the one that still makes cameo appearances in my highway dreams, is the 1960 baby-blue Corvair—the same car that Jesse drove through the pages of “The Garbage Brothers.”
p.s. Are you in a book group, or do you know someone who is? “The Garbage Brothers” is an enjoyable read and provides plenty of material for lively discussions. And, if your group meets in Oregon’s mid-Willamette Valley, I will, if I’m in town and available, stop by and join your discussion if you’d like.
