Those Bitchin' (and not so bitchin") cars of the 60's and 70s

In my book, "Because You're the First" Lynn, the cool teacher (and if you read the book you will find out, actually pretty evil teacher) owns one of the most most coveted muscle cars of the 1960s, a 1968 Camaro.

I actually remember this car when it came out (I was eight, but I remember), it was the ultimate cool car. Everybody wanted to own it. Over the years, it has become a legend.  There have been numerous songs written about it.  The one I remember came out when the car did in 1968, but I couldn't find the song (I found some rap songs about it, but I hate rap so if you want to hear them, you'll have to check out youtube.) Anyway, when I wanted to put cool teacher Lynn Steinberg in a car, this is the one that immediately popped into my head.  Of course the Camaro is still made today, but I don't know; it was never like this one, the epitome of cool.

This got me thinking about the other cars in the story.  One of those cars is the station wagon Kassandra and Cameron first made out in.  It was one of the big, gas guzzling, boxy things every housewife in the 60s and 70s had, including my own mother.

 

1971 Ford LTD Wagon

 

 

This Ford LTD wagon was actually the first car I ever drove.  I still remember sitting behind the wheel, feeling the intoxicating sense of freedom driving a car gives you for the first time.  I also must add I ran into another car in a parking lot, and totally creamed the wood panelling, to my parent's chagrin. But it cost ten bucks to fill the tank, and it held all my friends when we went to Castaic Lake, and Zuma Beach and Westwood Village, blasting the eight track player.  Good times and memories.

 







But I think this wagon was more what I pictured Kassandra and Cameron making out in when I wrote that scene in the book.  Much more plain.  But like me, these big wagons were the first cars many of us growing up in the 60s and 70s first drove as teens. Hopefully most of us had a license to drive them; not like Cameron who didn't!!

A bug like my Dad's - The 1967 Volkswagon Beetle

 

Another car in the story is Kassandra's father's car, which I admit, I based on my father's 1967 VW Bug.  My dad bought the car when we moved to California from back east because his job entailed a lot of driving, and this was well before the dawn of the economy car.  The bug was really the only thing available like that.  I don't think my dad liked it all that much, but they were surely popular at the time.  A few years ago Volkswagon brought them back, but I think something is lost with the newer ones.  That sense of nostalgia just isn't there.

As for myself, my first car, at age 18 was a 1971 Ford Maverick, which I drove for about seven years.  It was in relatively good shape when I got it, but by the time my first husband and I traded it in, it was clearly a beater with nearly 200,000 miles.  The accelerator stuck, there was no gas gauge or speedometer or radio. The body has numerous dents and dings from my inattentive driving.

 

What the Maverick looke like in the end

 

 

Funny thing is; in spite of all these things, when you put the key in the ignition, it always started up, without fail.  The body was heavy; like a little tank, and took all the punishment I gave it. I think it would be accurate to say, with the cars made these days, you couldn't say that.

 

People teased me incessantly because the Maverick was not considered one of the cooler cars of the 1970s.  One friend called it my "big fish" because she said it looked like a fish. Of course the most bitchin car in the late 70s was the Pontiac Trans Am.  This car was to the late 70s what the Camaro was to the late 1960s.

 





 

The 1977 Pontiac Trans Am

 





I didn't know anyone who owned this car at the time.  It was way too expensive for most people in those days.  This car was eventually immortalized in the 1977 movie "Smoky and the Bandit" starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Field.

But anyway, one day when my son was in high school, he asked me about the first car I drove, and when I told him, he said "Wow, Mom, that was a really cool car."  Made me laugh, because at the time, it was considered the ultimately car for dorks.  Funny how things change!!!

A few years ago, I finally got my own "muscle car"



Me and my brand new 2006 Mustang convertible in 2008

 

 

My husband wanted to know what I wanted for a graduation gift when I completed my Master's Degree.  This was it, color and all.  We drove all the way to a dealer in Santa Barbara to get it.  I had never owned a convertible before, and I have loved it!! My family has enjoyed it more than I even expected. 

 

And it just kinda fun being "cool," even if you're not a teenager.!!

 

 

 



 

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The Greatest Lovers of all Time

Pyramus and Thisbe.  Romeo and Juliet. Darcy and Elizabeth. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Cathy and Healthcliff. Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara. Katie and Hubbell.

Pursuit of the perfect love has been a part of our culture since nearly time immortal.  We long to find that other person who completes us, who is the cream to our Oreo cookie, the macaroni to our cheese. (If I'm going to use that, I should mention Juno and Blecker, since it's from the movie about them).

From the 2007 award winning film

These images of love from movies, television, literature and art are sometimes the only examples of what a relationship looks like to some people, which most of the time is not such a good thing.  Many of these passionate lovers burn out on each other, or worse, came to tragic ends.  But we often want love so badly, we are indoctrinated that this is okay.  As the poet Alfred Tennyson said, "Better to have loved and lost, then to never have loved at all."

Thisbe falls on Pyramus' Sword

Romeo and Juliet Death Scene

Rhett cuts Scarlet loose with "I don't give a damn



I would say it certainly depends on how much you lose.  And the characters listed above, for the most part,  lost a lot.  

But there is always one writer whose characters make wonderful marriages and have triumphant happy endings.  The couples in Jane Austen's novels, regardless of the pitfalls they face, always end up together and happy, fulfilling the "happily ever after."

Jane Austen

I think this is one of the reasons novels such as Pride and Prejudice have endured over 200 years.  Elizabeth and Darcy endured much on the bumpy road to love, but once they got there, they stayed.  Her novels give us faith that once we find love, it will last, in spite of the obstacles.





 The happy ending in "Pride and Prejudice"

In my novel "Because You're the First," a young Cameron and Kassandra used a scene from Austen's "Emma" as the metaphor for their relationship.  When Kassandra has words with her friend Mindy, which results in Kassandra being cruel, Cameron lets her know she was out of line. This reminds Kassandra of this scene in Austen's Emma between Emma and her friend and future husband, John Knightley.

Knightley scolds Emma for her cruelty to a impoverished Miss Bates in

Jane Austen's "Emma"

It's funny; I never intentionally thought to bring anything Jane Austen into the story when writing it.  I just wrote the scene, and suddenly realized I had inadvertently written the scenario of Emma and Knightley. Both characters, while having their faults, are amazingly people; kind, generous, and caring of other people, like most of Austen's characters.  If the characters I create are even one quarter as good as Austen's are, I will have achieved something.  It's truly something to aspire to, that is for sure.  

Like all Austen's character, Emma and Knightley do have a happy ending.  Do my characters? Do they get the Jane Austen ending?

You'll just have to read it and see!!!

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An Ode to an Inspirational Grandmother

Nana and me, 1988

In "Because You're the First" my character Kassandra has an amazing relationship with her grandmother. 

I readily admit the inspiration for the character was my maternal grandmother, Tess Edgerton.

Nana was a first generation American.  Her mother and father came to the U.S. from Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) in 1906; my great-grandmother newly married and pregnant with my grandmother.  The young family settled in Mansfield, Connecticut.

Nana's childhood was atypical of those living in rural New England at the turn of the century. She turned out to be the oldest of the 13 children my great-grandparents had.  They were poor immigrants; but they all sang and played an instrument, and from what I hear from my mother, knew how to give great parties.  Lots of food and liquor flowed, and everyone had wonderful times.

At 13, Nana left formal schooling, and went to work in a button factory to help support the family.  Long before there were adequate child labor laws in America, it was not one her fondest experiences.  But that ended when she married my grandfather, Frederick T. Edgerton.  Ten years her senior, his descendents are traceable back Plymouth Plantation.  The Edgerton family came from Massachuetts to Coventry, Connecticut in the 1720s.  My grandfather was a World War I veteran, and quite the looker and the catch. They first settled in a small house for a few years before moving into the family farmhouse, which still stands in Coventry today.  My aunt was born there, and my mother grew up there.

My grandfather and me, when I was two years old

In the book, I create sort of what I call a "wishful thinking" scenario.  By that I mean Kassandra, the main character, goes and visits her grandmother at the family farm as a teenager; years after her own family moved to Los Angeles. She gets to experience farm life, spending an entire summer there, and getting through one of the toughest experiences of her life with her grandmother's support.

I was personally not as lucky.  My memories of my grandparent's farm are sketchy.  This picture above with my grandfather is one of the few I have of myself on the farm.  That is because he passed away in 1965.  I was four years old.  Since he died in the house, my grandmother, who was rather superstitious, would not return. My father and uncle took Nana's personal effects out of the house, and the rest of the contents of the farm; furniture, animals, you name it, was auctioned off.  The farm was sold, and Nana moved in with my aunt and uncle who lived down the street from the farm.

Two years later, my parents, my brother and I left Connecticut for Southern California.  I was seven years old. 

I did visit Nana at my aunt's Connecticut homes during my childhood, first in Coventry, and later in Vernon.  In 1990, my aunt and uncle retired, moving to northwestern Florida, where they still reside. She also came and visited us in California when I was growing up, which is where I truly got to know how wonderful she really was.   

She passed away in 2002 just one month shy of her 96th birthday.  To say I miss her would be an understatement.  But she is always with me.  Our relationship has evolved from physical to spiritual, and I feel her presence with me always.  There is a funny (and rather crude) story my grandmother used to tell (she loved bathroom humor, as I admit, does pretty much everyone in our family) that Kassandra's grandmother tells her and her brother Matthew during their farm visit.  That story was my grandmother's story.  She had a hearty laugh I can still hear; loved a good joke, a "highball" as they used to call it, and was filled with compassion and love for other people. 

Needless to say, I would have loved to have been that teenage Kassandra from "Because You're the First," getting to visit her grandmother on the family farm.  But luckily, through our trips back and forth over the years, my grandmother and I did develop a wonderful connection that I have found comforting and inspirational throughout my life.  One of the greatest things about writing is you can use the things that are wonderful about your life in your fiction.  My grandmother was only one of many people that inspired me to write.  But I admit, she is probably my favorite!!







Splendor in the Grass, Glory in the flower

 

In "Because You're the First," the teenage Kassandra and Cameron watch a movie called "Splendor in the Grass." Released in 1961, the film was based on a play by William Inge called "Glory in the Flower," which hit the stage in 1953.  Inge is also famous for "Bus Stop" which was made into a film that starred Marilyn Monroe, and "Picnic" with Kim Novak and William Holden.

 

The stars of the film were Hollywood veteran (at the tender age of 23) Natalie Wood, and a newcomer named Warren Beatty.  The film, set in a small midwestern town in the 1920s, is about the new sexuality as it emerged during that time, much like it emerged again in the 1960s and 1970s, when the characters in "Because You're the First" came of age.



 



The making of the film, and its stars, caused a sensation.  Wood and Beatty had a notorious affair. Gossips said it broke up Wood's first marriage to Robert Wagner, (Wagner says this is untrue; read his biography). It was directed by Elia Kazan, who was the only member of the Hollywood 10 during the McCarthy era that spilled the beans on members of the Hollywood community, thus tarnishing his reputation in Hollywood forever. 

Most people know the sad tragedy of Natalie's Wood drowning which took place 20 years after this film was made.  In the scene below, Wood was required to go underwater in a bathtub.  She was terrified of water, and didn't want to do the scene.  But under Kazan's encouragement and support, Wood did the scene brilliantly.  Her performance in this film is Wood at her best; she was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of this mixed up, love sick young girl.  Speaking of Oscars, Inge, who wrote the original screenplay based on his play, took home to award for best screenplay.

Natalie Wood as Deenie Loomis in the tub scene in "Splendor in the Grass"

 

 



Here is the original trailer for the film

 

The title of both Inge's play and the film comes from the Romantic era poet William Wordsworth's poem "Intimations of Immortality." Wood's character Deenie Loomis interprets the poem in her high school English class after the teacher recites it.

 

 

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Wordsworth wrote the poem in parts, the first in 1802, and the last in 1804.  Modern critics say this is his best poem, referring to it as his "great ode." It is considered one of his greatest works. 

 

 

William Wordsworth, painted by Benjamin Robert

 

 

Hollywood certainly was inspired by his words, and this poem especially.  In Robert Redford's 1992 film "A River Runs Through It," actors Tom Skerrit and Craig Sheffer, as father and son, recite the poem together in a beautiful scene. Ironically, this film is also set in the 1920s, and is about a Montana family grappling with changing times (and doing a lot of fly fishing). 

 

I unfortunately cannot find a video to show you this scene, so if you haven't seen this film, check it out.  Based on the memoirs of writer Norman Maclean, it is one of the most beautiful films ever made, winning an Oscar in 1993 for Best Cinematography.

 

 

Craig Sheffer, Brad Pitt, and Tom Skerrit in "A River Runs Through It"

 

"A River Runs Through It," like "Splendor in the Grass" and "Because You're the First" are about growing up in times of change, and coming to terms with becoming an adult.  I believe this is why the poem works so well as a metaphor in all three, since when we are young, we do feel a sense of immortality that is finite.  We learn we are indeed fallable as we grow up, but we never forget that delicious feeling when we felt invincible, and the world was a more perfect place. Luckily, in books and in film, we can revisit that place within ourselves any time we want.