My Fathers Mistress, the 1965 Thunderbird

The Thunderbird, such a classy car. My father loved his T-Bird and to this day he still gets lusty-eyed when anyone mentions that car.

I remember it well. It was a deep teal metallic blue with a white Landau top. My sister who is 2 years older than I, used to ride in the back seat with me. The white upholstery curved around in the corners and I remember watching my dad prop his hand up on the tip of the steering wheel with a cigarette burning between his fingers and the left arm perched out the window. My dad was very handsome and I was too young to notice, but I'm sure he turned many heads as he drove that gorgeous car.

I'm not sure when he sold it but I imagine it had a lot to do with the fact that he had 4 kids and lived in suburbia Los Angeles with a mortgage. It must have been a sad day when he had to climb in behind the wheel of our new station wagon!

Dad never has heard how the mysterious dents and scrapes appeared on the lower left drivers side under the door, but I know how they got there! My oldest sister got to drive the T-Bird from time to time and one night when she had permission to go to the drive-in was when those now infamous dents and scratches came to be.

For those of you too young to know about drive-in theaters, well, you missed a pretty cool era. The theater was set up in a series of rows with gradual curves that faced the huge screen where the movie was projected onto. On each row there were concrete ovals that had a metal post where 2 speakers were mounted with a cord so you could pull up next to the post, grab your speaker and place it on your window, that's how you listened to the movie. The cord was only a few feet long so a person needed to get as close to the post as possible.

I'm sure by now you are starting to understand those scratches. My sister was being careful, as careful as any 17 year old is when she has a car filled with her girlfriends, at the drive-in, looking for cute guys. Well the T-Bird was low to the ground and the concrete oval that the speaker post is mounted to was a little more than curb height, she got too close and screeeeecccchhh, crrrruunch, grrrind....the beloved 1965 Thunderbird mistress was no longer pristine!

My sister's only saving grace is that my father used to have cocktail time and I think he might blame himself for the dents. Either that or my oldest sister was his favorite and she just got away with it! Whatever the case may be, the dents are never mentioned when the T-Bird is talked about.

To this day I have a little chuckle when I hear the song Fun, fun, fun by the Beachboys. Listen to it and you get a pretty good idea of what went on that night at the drive-in!


What a fun memory that is for me.
The Lady