Corvette dreaming as the years pass by

Corvette dreaming as the years pass by Published 1:11 pm Wednesday, September 25, 2024 By Editor By Les Ferguson Jr. Columnist The first manual-shift car I drove was a 1960s-model Chevrolet Corvette. I was thirteen years old and at the farm of family friends near Oak Grove, Louisiana.

The car was used for racing, and against all odds, I was given the keys to drive that old car on the dusty backroads in the middle of nowhere. That day, I taught myself to drive a standard, and in the process, I was hooked. Fast forward five years, and I was 18 years old, and the car of my wildest imagination was in reach.

She was stingray sleek. Metallic blue with chrome side pipes, she had a throaty rumble that more than suggested pure, unadulterated power. A 1975 Stingray Corvette has long been the dream car of a lifetime, and in 1980, I found her.

She was used but sweet and affordable until I considered insurance. That was my dad’s input and, ultimately, the killer of my dream. I couldn’t pay some five hundred plus dollars a month for insurance.

Not then. Probably not now, were that to be the case. That dream died on the vine like some of my summer squash and tomatoes.

Was I disappointed? Absolutely. In time, my dream morphed into the catchphrase “Vette by thirty.” But Navy life with a wife and small children caused a change in plans.

In time, the goal became “Vette by forty.” But again, life, family, and ministry made the dream unattainable and even less important than it had be.