Tri-Five Chevrolet: My First Love, My Best Life, And My First "Job!"

During the summer of 1998, I was graduating from junior high, and my mom must've known, both of my parents really, that as early as age 13, I was on my way to Universal Tech.

On the day of my middle school graduation, there were only 3 three pronouns that I had in mind: Melissa D'Addio, Stacy Valentine...but wait a tic, why am I being driven-around in our family's Chevy van, when some other kid is being whisked-away in a glass-packed Lincoln?!

Skip ahead to that afternoon. My mom had given me a graduation card, and it read, "Here's 20 bucks for college, or the '57 Chevy." There's a backstory to this. In junior high, I was living at home in Northridge. The challenge that I issued to mom was this: I'll walk laps across our living room, if she would pay me per lap, so that I could save up for a shoebox, at least by the time I was in high school.

Well that never did pan-out, because kids, as it does turn out...$15-20 per session is just not enough for a '57 Chevy, and this is even under the context of a 1998 economy, and from what I remember about growing-up, it wasn't too bad!

Mom and dad are car people, and no matter how hard they may try to argue that, every single car that they ever purchased, literally from freaking 1980 to the present, was an extension of their personalities.

I can already read their minds: the kid's fanatical about cars that weren't expensive ones. A Monte Carlo, a '57 Chevy...when me and my sister were growing-up, those were extremely beautiful cars, and then they were also the kind that we drove to backyard BBQs.

In 2007, I found myself at Cal State Northridge, studying literature and creative writing. One night after class, I went to Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake, because that was the original. I told my mom about a Monte SS that had been at the cruise that night. It was one of the few times that mom and me had connected over automotive, because that was me and dad's thing.

But I was her first child, and as you learned from my previous blog, I have a muscular condition called arthrogryposis, so doing the car thing in front of mom was just as important as it was in front of the old man. Going back to the '57 shoebox that I was supposed to have had by high school, it never did happen, but during the times that mom was paying me to walk those laps, I felt the car coming together.

One of these days, I may have to call my mom at her work in Reno, just to let her know that I'll be walking those laps, largely due to Aaron Baker and CORE. With that kind of RND to back it, hell...why not even go for a raise?!