J.W. Burleson photo / Boquillas del Carmen, Coah.

PHB

My photo
Brooklin, Maine, United States
We own a 1975 GMC Sierra Grande 15 in Maine and a 1986 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe 10 in West Texas. Also a pair of 1997 Volvo 850 wagons. Average age in the fleet is 28 years--we're recycling. I've published 3 novels: THE LAW OF DREAMS (2006), THE O'BRIENS (2012), and CARRY ME (2016). Also 2 short story collections: NIGHT DRIVING(1987) and TRAVELLING LIGHT (2013). More of my literary life is at www.peterbehrens.org I was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-13. I'm an adjunct professor at Colorado College and in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. In 2015-16 I was a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Autoliterate office is in Car Talk Plaza in Harvard Square, 2 floors above Dewey Cheatem & Howe. SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUTOLITERATE DAILY EMAIL by hitting the button to the right.

Monday, March 18, 2024

1961 Colorado Comet

 Mercury Comet. Spotted in the Springs a while back. One of those that have stood the test of time. Maybe did a long spell as Grandma's car.



 

Sunday, March 17, 2024

The Subaru Outback (and Walt Whitman)


Al has always liked wagons; don't know why we have never given the Outback its due.  Maybe because they are so common, at least here in New England.  25 years ago the Subarau Outback was already the unofficial State Car of Maine, and they have only become more ubiquitous. Being common shouldn't be a drag on the market: some of the most beloved and prized vintage cars and trucks were the most common basic transportation--or job tool--of their day. The Chevy 3100 pickup, for example, or pretty much any station wagon from the 1960s. The Outback been around since 1995. All the cars in this post were less than a 2-minute walk from our apartment  in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When you walk around Cambridge, there is pretty much always at least one Outback in sight.

We have posted on a 1968 Subaru. We sounded disapproving when we posted on the Outback Wilderness edition--of the fantasy being sold, the dream of crashing through wilderness with your family packed aboard a muscular station wagon...what is that about, America? As the land is evermore tamed and built and paved,  those Super Bowl ads showing brawny beefcake trucks forging streams and smashing up and down trails seem...wait a minute, what did Walt Whitman say...    

    “I say we had better look our nation searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease.” -Democratic Vistas






 

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Drive-in theaters, and youth



Reid Cunningham on drive-in theaters, and youth:

When I was in high school, in Connecticut in the early 80's, the golden age of the drive-in movie theater had passed. But my blue-collar hometown still one.


The Portland Drive-In was the high school hang out spot. Long before cell phones, it was the place where there was a good chance you would find your friends on a Friday or Saturday night after a game, or after work. There were double features every weekend, running one of the movies first on Friday, the other first on Saturday, so you might go both nights to manage to see both movies in between talking with friends, and teenage comings-and-goings. As long as you were reasonably behaved, you could drink beer underage and hangout without risk of attention from the local police.


We all drove rusty hand-me-down cars, or old beaters we bought and kept running on shoestring budgets from minimum wage jobs. I drove a 1942 Ford pickup that was for sale on the side of the road for $450. It was patched together, and very slow, with a flathead 6 and low gearing, but reliable. Started in all but the coldest weather. A Jeep rear seat was bolted in the bed behind the cab facing backwards, perfect for watching movies. And there was the tailgate, for additional friends, and even the roof.


Admission was per person, so there was an incentive to occasionally stuff people in the trunk. The trick was to let people out when the owner wasn't patrolling. A few towns over, in Berlin, there was a bigger drive in. They ran triple features and charged per car. We would caravan over, ditching all but one car in the local department store parking lot and cram everyone into someone's mom's station wagon. In the summer with long days the last movie didn't end before 1:00 AM. We would head to the all-night diner for French fries before rolling home at 2 or 3 AM. No restrictions on teenage drivers...and our parents that were too busy, or tired, to worry much where we were.


Both drive-ins closed while I was in college.The Berlin drive-in became a strip mall. The Portland Drive-in survived longer than most because it sat in a flood plain of the Connecticut River, surrounded by tobacco fields that were enriched by the annual deluge. It was eventually sold, fill was brought in to raise the grade above average flooding, and it became a boat storage yard for a marina down the road, which it still is, 40 years later.

AL: John Brinckerhoff Jackson had interesting things to say about drive-ins and other neglected (and sometimes forgotten, or barely noticed) pieces of the American landscape. See out post on The Crapola Sublime.

Friday, March 15, 2024

1967 Ford COE

 


Now, who wouldn't want their own private firetruck? This one retired from the Cape to Cambridge. We posted a '55 Ford COE and thought it a beautiful kind of ugly.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

1947 Dodge COE


                                                        

I think this model as called the Gnarl.Spotted in Colorado Springs,a while back.












Monday, March 11, 2024

Work Truck: Chevrolet 2500

 

Note that Boston pin-striping thing. which we have seen plenty of, and admire. You can see it in New Hampshire as well. This was on Brattle Street in Cambridge, a couple blocks from the Square.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

1967 Ford F-100 SWB; 1956 Ford F-100, Malibu

 

Rene Balcer took the photos. Perhaps you have seen his "Seeing As"? And here's David Branch connecting this era of F-100s with the history of El Paso, Texas.