As the December holidays approach, I’m reminded of my grandparents’ farm in northwestern Ohio, which is where my mother had spent most of her childhood. The Dennis family would travel there by car from Flint, Michigan several times a year when I was a kid, including for Christmas. Making that trip was one of my favorite things in the world. Long before I had known of any complicated family history between my grandparents and my interracially-married parents which had included a boatload of unpleasantness from years before I was born, a trip to the family farm ranked in my mind above everything but perhaps a hypothetical trip to Disney World. The Dennises would never go to Disney, but that was fine, as we traveled through Europe and lived in Liberia for a year, which was where my father’s family had originated.
My maternal grandmother, whom I have referenced before, set a template in my mind for qualities I have always admired and sought out in others. She was highly empathic, intelligent, resourceful, hardworking, put together without being vain or prissy, and of high moral character. She loved and would talk to all kinds of people at random, proud of all of her multi-hued grandchildren in tow that also included my two blond-haired cousins. I get the sense that Grandma had only been a passive participant in the earlier racial drama only just to go along with my grandpa, regardless of how she actually felt. Women simply weren’t as empowered back then, and “stand by your man” was just what many wives and mothers did. Knowing her, it probably deeply hurt her heart at the time to do so.
Empathy, by itself, means less without conviction and action. On some level, I do sympathize with my mom about how her poor treatment affected her, with its damaging effects having filtered through her to the rest of my family of origin in sustained, complicated, and very toxic ways. Therapy saves lives. I honestly had no idea until adulthood that there had ever been any bad blood between my parents and grandparents and had erroneously assumed for a very long time that everything had always been copacetic. I was the product of the most unlikely couple from backgrounds that couldn’t have been more different (they met at college). By the time I was born in the mid-’70s, everything seemed to have been smoothed over, if my impressions of old family photographs are even somewhat accurate.
The “yellow bedroom” at my grandparents’ farm. Northwestern Ohio, early 1990s.
With all of that said, I absolutely loved my grandparents’ farm and spending time with them, having grown up never to have been made to feel unwanted, unwelcome, or unclaimed by them. I remember dreamily waking up even into my teenage years in the “yellow bedroom”. There was also a “blue bedroom”, which is where my parents stayed, and grandma’s and grandpa’s room, which I think I had seen only once or twice (access was strictly forbidden). The wind would rustle through the surrounding corn and grain fields, which would undulate like giant, unending waves. The wheels of a passing semi tractor-trailer on Ohio State Route 281 would slowly build to a crescendo from nothing, and then back to nothing as the truck would disappear into the distance. The room smelled pleasantly of old books, dried floral arrangements, and potpourri, and its walls were decorated with pictures of extended family and the Lord.
The view out of the back door, beyond the living room and utility room.
Sunlight would dapple the walls in random patterns through the crabapple trees outside the bedroom window, and it was such a feeling of tranquil bliss, one I wish I could have bottled then and re-experienced today. The farm was literally miles away from any mall, video arcade, or type of place the average American kid would love, but when I was there, I honestly didn’t miss any of those things. I was with my beloved grandma, who took pride and a genuine interest in me and let me into her world. At some point in the morning, the smell of bacon would permeate the house, which would get me to put on yesterday’s clothes and walk to the kitchen. Grandma always seemed so happy to see us “boys”, as she would continue to prepare a big breakfast that also included eggs, cereal, juice, instant coffee for her and Grandpa, and toast with lots of butter and jam available to spread.
My grandma with the butter. She used it on or with everything, and copious amounts of it. Her Christmas cookies have never been equaled in my mind for taste, to this day. Why? So much butter. The thought of her fried chicken still makes my mouth water (like at this writing), and I preferred her recipe to even “store-bought” KFC. My mom let the cat out of the bag years later when she told us Grandma’s secret: she fried it all in butter.
With all of that butter in the foods she prepared, what I can’t figure out is why she or my grandpa didn’t each weigh three hundred pounds or have heart trouble. Maybe it was all of that hard farm work, though they certainly weren’t doing much of that by the time I was around, as Grandpa had officially retired around 1980, about when I had started elementary school. What’s more likely is that they didn’t eat like that all the time, and that visitors or family got the red carpet treatment (and extra butter content).
My grandma, with her seahorse birdbath and bird feeder in view.
It may seem a stretch to draw even a dotted line between this butter-yellow Galaxie 500 seen in Las Vegas a couple of months ago and my grandma’s farm breakfasts. My thought, though, is that the general size and bloat of this car seem consistent with how an average human body might look after a steady diet of butter-rich foods like those my grandma used to prepare. A Las Vegas vacation is not the time or place to decide to go on a diet. I’m pretty sure the breakfast at the Peppermill Restaurant on the northern end of The Strip that I had eaten the day after I had photographed this Ford contained the entire recommended daily intake of calories, but it was absolutely worth it.
Compare the look, dimensions, and weight of this ’73 Galaxie to that of the ’68 Galaxie I had spotted and written about earlier this year. Just five model years had bought significant increases in most exterior measurements, and weight. Comparing Galaxie 500s two-door hardtops from ’68 and ’73, the newer car was 6.2 inches longer (at 219.5″), an inch and a half wider (at 79.5″), and 500 pounds and 14% heavier to start, at just over two tons. The factory color of the paint appears to have been simply “Yellow” with no modifiers, which seems unusual given Ford’s bent toward creative nomenclature in those years.
The Galaxie subseries of big Ford was still a solid seller by ’73, with non-wagon sales of about 182,300; This two door hardtop was one of around 70,800 produced that year. By this time, the LTD was the more popular choice, with 272,300 sold and an additional 140,700 LTD Broughams that found buyers. Only about 42,500 entry-level Customs were sold in ’73. Back in ’68, however, the LTD badge was going into only its fourth model year, so the Galaxie’s 395,400 units represented the bulk of that year’s numbers, supplemented by 122,800 Customs and 138,800 LTDs. Two-door Galaxie 500 notchback hardtops sold 84,300 units in ’68, about 16% better than the number from their ’73 counterpart.
The neighboring farm had belonged to my grandfather’s brother.
This generation of standard-size Ford would represent the high-point of Ford’s “road hugging weight” approach before being downsized for ’79 with the introduction of the Panther platform. I honestly don’t think my grandma was purposely preparing unhealthy food, nor do I remember her or my grandpa having a bunch of health problems. That was apparently just how a lot of people ate. I exercise regularly and eat healthily in order to be, look, and feel fit, but I’m also not riding tractors, harvesting grain, and / or working with heavy machinery all day. I’m sure both of my grandparents burned mega-calories during just an average day when my mother, aunts, and uncle were growing up. Maybe all that manual labor washed with all the butter and extra calories, back in the days when it was presumed that big meals gave one extra strength.
I’m sure the ride in this not-LTD is butter-smooth. That is and was the appeal of full-sized cars like this. This Galaxie 500 is a solid, well-fed, zaftig cruiser that’s full of all of the creature comfort calories. As the year-end holidays have already commenced, how I miss Grandma and her baked goods. A great lady she was, one who proudly and unhesitantly claimed her mixed-race grandson as her own, allowing me to claim her, as well.
18b Arts District, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sunday, October 1, 2023.
Pictures of my grandparents’ farm are from the early 1990s, taken when I was a teenager.
Thank you Joseph, for another great story.
Your writings means so much for the site. It is not alone about cars. This time you managed to put perfect words to a bygone era of yours. May you long continue to write articles like this, I love them and am sure I am not alone.
Hear hear!
Thank you (both) so much. It’s interesting how and when writing inspiration will strike me. I had been sitting on pictures of this car for over a month, and then the angle came to me. I glad you enjoyed it.
An LTD would almost certainly have had a vinyl roof and rusted through decades ago. Sometimes less is more.
Except for her 4 year decline at age 90, I have only good memories of the only grandparent I remember (and I was the favorite grandchild), but at her house, my dad’s USNA diploma hung next to my bed, and it has a dragon and other weird images. The opposite wall was dark bookshelves with knick-knacks that in low light also gave me serious creeps and nightmares when I was small.
She was always trying to fatten us up, too, partly because she’d grown up in her mother’s small hotel & dining room. She was short and squat like Dad, but all of us had Mom’s rail-thin (and eventually tall) build.
I agree with your assessment about this car’s survival. It’s often the lower-optioned or tiered models that seem to survive by their relative lack of desirability against other stablemates when new. That said, I think this yellow Galaxie looks just fine with no vinyl top.
Your mention of your dad’s intense-looking diploma also makes me recall what has to be one of the most scary / intense painting portrayals of the Lord that was hung on a wall of the yellow bedroom. I’m sure it used to scare me. Not at all how I think of Him.
I recall so many full-size Ford station wagons in exactly this color back in the day that I have a hard time seeing this non-wagon without also imagining its sides slathered in Dinock. “Butter” is the perfect name for this color.
There’s much about your story that resonates with me and my own childhood back story. My grandparents didn’t have a farm in Ohio, but 100 acres of forest with a creaky old Victorian house in Maryland stood in just fine. The smell of bacon (and cigarettes) in the morning brings all of that right back to me to this day.
Yeah, in my case, said unpleasantness involved the enlisting of state and federal law enforcement and attempted deportation; but that had apparently vanished by the time I was born as these same people were always nothing but gracious and loving to me for the rest of their lives (my dad though had a different perspective for the rest of his life). This was all about a dozen/15 years before your parents and I would imagine their similar travails.
The thing that I always figured is that children (grandchildren) seemed to change everything. As crazy as it seems – and I do put this into the “crazy” camp – it’s almost as if once there are grandchildren around the whole “you can’t marry that person” thing was simply put aside and life moved on. That seems insane given the amount of hate and vitriol (and attempted violence in my extended family’s case) involved. But people are weird and terrible…and loving grandparents…all in the same package. In my opinion.
Jeff, now that you mention it, I think that this color was disproportionately high among the big Ford wagons. Even watching TV shows of the seventies, this is what I’m picturing in my mind’s eye
And yes – there were attempts on the deportation of my dad by my grandfather, or at least talk of it. My dad was the most diplomatic man on the planet and while he later just sort of went along with whatever Grandpa wanted in order to keep the peace and for my mom’s sake, Dad and Grandpa were never close. Grandma, on the other hand, loved her son-in-law very much and you could see it in my dad’s and my grandma’s interactions. There was security in that for me.
I agree with your idea that grandchildren change everything. I was the first grandchild my grandparents held as an infant, and I am not the oldest. That has stuck with me.
My Dad was car shopping in 1973, I went with him (probably the first time ever)…we’d moved from Vermont to Virginia, and our ’69 Country Squire didn’t have air conditioning (which was part of the reason he was trading it).
Anyway, his first stop was at “Texas Ted Britt” and they had probably a Ranch Wagon in exactly this color. Came close to buying it, but they finally “discovered” that his ’69 Country Squire lacked A/C, and the trade in value went way down. Yes, I know A/C is a much bigger deal in Virginia, but still this was 1973…this car was to be Dad’s first with that feature, it wasn’t assumed to be on full sized (but not quite luxury) cars yet at that time. Also….I’m sure they go over the options early on when looking over your trade, and we’d already been there quite a bit of the day. My Dad wasn’t a browser either, he’d wake up, decide he needed (or wanted) a different car, and have the deal done before he went to bed. He didn’t want to spend time negotiating especially something they could have inspected and known about early on (Dad told them about the trade up front). So he walked after spending much of the day with them, very angry. He ended up with a much better color (in my opinion), a metallic brown Country Sedan he found at Eustace Merchant Ford in Manassas (where we lived) with A/C of course, but also his first car with AM/FM stereo, power locks (but manual windows) and trailer towing package (the other reason he wanted another car). Dad did things a bit out of order in that he’d previously bought a new pop-top camper and had a hitch installed on the Country Squire, the mechanic that had put it on commented to him that he shouldn’t have the job repeated so soon after buying the trailer but on the car replacing the Squire (Dad didn’t like hearing that either).
Anyway, we had a 4 year reprieve on that color until Dad bought a new ’76 Subaru DL (FWD not AWD or 4WD) most of which seemed to have that color back in the day. Fortunately that color became less common even on Subarus; Dad was never to buy another Subaru nor another car in this color (I hated the color…but at least his wagon was a nice color).
The ’73 was his last Ford wagon. In ’78 he looked at the new downsized Ford wagon but bought a ’78 Chevy Caprice Classic wagon. GM finally had gotten rid of the clamshell tail gate; for some reason I can’t recall Dad was less than impressed with the new ’79 Ford Wagon but since the Chevy had much the same tailgate, it was now an option that he went with.
You’re a wonderful writer, Mr Dennis.
Thank you so much.
Maybe it’s the butter you are remembering, but perhaps it could be the fat from all that juicy bacon you mentioned that is ringing your memories in relation to this car.
Mind you, just about everything full size in 1973 was size XXXL. Big Plymouths, big Chev’s big Oldsmobiles, big Fords, all had spent too much time at the buffet.
Friction in one’s family does happen, sounds like it was managed – to some degree – in yours. Your philosophies and views on life seem to be quite healthy.
” Friction in one’s family does happen … “
Indeed. Just about every branch of my family has disintegrated over the years, sometimes for trivial reasons. I do not think we’re unique. Family frictions might be caused by:
* money (and not even a lot of money).
* religion (a serious issue, usually permanent to the offended one’s death),
* politics (what a waste of a family’s happiness, sometimes I think it’s an issue of pride more more than true commitment to specific politics).
* drugs and alcohol (no more need to be said about that).
Surely I missed a few other reasons.
Family friction is strongly felt by everyone involved and seems to defy internal or external remedial interventions. Despite feel-good movies, true forgiveness and re-awakened love after long years of angry disconnection seem to be rare occasions.
The power of unconditional love that Joseph Dennis clearly recalls on the farm by his grandparents might be the only effective balm to family fiction.
Unconditional love is never forgotten; once given it is treasured forever.
Before family issues disconnected my siblings and me from our paternal grandmother, her early efforts to celebrate family unity was to serve Alabama style southern fried chicken and fluffy corn fritters soaked in maple syrup. It was a valiant effort showing love and care, but an effort doomed by extended family squabbles over religion and money.
All the people involved and invested in these squabbles are long dead.
What a waste.
Robert, unconditional love is such a powerful thing. That’s it. I don’t think my grandparents had to know every single thing about me in order to just love me. I think grandparents have more freedom to do so, versus parents who may feel somewhat responsible for you and your “output” since they brought you into this world.
Just only today I learned of a friend who reconnected with his sister after some twenty years of silence.
I could cite so many examples of who won’t talk to who in my and my wife’s families. Many times the rifts have been carried to the grave.
I think social isolation is a terrible thing, especially in advancing years, but familial isolation is unimaginable to me, yet so real. You gave the word “invested”. Long held beliefs, energized by events real or imagined, reinforced over time with reflection, puts so much energy into negativity. As you said, they defy logic or remediation.
Mmmmm… bacon… And now I want some bacon for dinner, which I will deny myself. The friction in my extended family was managed to some extent. Tensions only accelerated when all of the major empaths in my family (Dad, Grandma) were no longer on his earth. Years after my dad passed, it eventually devolved into open season on this truth-teller by the wounded narcissists in my family. I’m a praying man, but all the church services in the world are no substitute for much-needed therapy, and I’m the only one who sought it, took it seriously, and did the necessary work. I guess that made for a major victory, after all.
So true. Narcissism may sometimes mask real psychological problems or diseases, so some of those you mention may have had deeper issues.
I hope you weathered those open seasons in a healthy way, maybe feeling the want or need for retribution but resisting the urge, as much as it may have been deserved.
Good going on getting the support and doing the work. I join in that path from time to time.
Absolute perfect analogy Joseph, associating a slab of your grandmother’s butter, to this Galaxie 500.Thank you very much for sharing this.
Thank you, Daniel.
The house I had in Kansas and the house I had in rural Illinois both had sidewalks like that. Where did they go? To the outhouse. The one I had in Illinois lead to a giant sycamore tree that obviously enjoyed the former pit it was planted in!
This used to confuse me, too! LOL Like, why is there like three feet of sidewalk in my grandparents’ backyard?
As a kid, you have really no idea how these 1973 two door Galaxies didn’t appeal to me. I failed to see a simple, well-built, solid family coupe that was as honest as could be. Instead, I liked flashy brougham rides. Lots of fake luxury. Vinyl roofs that were padded. Opera windows. Coach lights. Hood ornaments. Thick pile shag carpeting, even on the lower third of doors. I couldn’t care less about a car designed without a shred of hype.
Glad that’s over. I would love to have this car. It wasn’t even until recently that I had read here at Curbside how well these cars were built. I thought they were all typical Detroit garbage. Not these. These looked like typical Detroit rides, but they weren’t built like them.
Ever try to sleep in a yellow bedroom? Not a restful experience.
Yellow cars have rarely appealed to me. That popular buttery yellow color from the 1970-1980 era on cars – looks really weak. One of the first things I would do with this particular Galaxie is make it another color.
When I see one of these Galaxies nowadays, it’s usually while watching one of my favorite TV shows of the ’70s, where these were treated as throwaways. Like the bad guy’s getaway car or the police cruiser that meets its fate against a dumpster within the first fifteen minutes. I appreciate them much more now, and this was a nice looking machine.
As far as yellow, this shade of buttercup isn’t necessarily my first choice, but I do like it. I would prefer, I think, a more citrusy, richer yellow like the lemon color of my dad’s ’71 Duster.
As always Joe, your essays paint a vivid picture, and it is nice that you have fond memories of your grandma, and even grandpa, even if you were shielded for the most part from his ‘stuck-in-one’s-ways’ views. Sadly, many of his generation just didn’t get it in that regard. My own great uncle was similarly afflicted, being from that “greatest generation”. Interestingly, his own wife, my great aunt, was from Czechoslovakia. That said, I always enjoyed going over there as a kid. Fond memories (mostly).
As to the Galaxie, all I have to say is that these plain janes never really appealed to me. They looked like they were so de-contented from my own first car, the ’73 (not-Brougham) LTD I’ve talked about here numerous times. Apparently, according to the sales numbers that you cite, many Ford customers agreed, as the LTD outsold it in ’73 by a whole lot… nearly 4:1 by my quick math. Truth be told, my “Regular” LTD was probably not that much different on the inside from a Galaxie, with its vinyl bench seats and such. But the view from the exterior was MUCH different.
I feel the same way about the base ’72 Torino… Any one remember THAT car? Didn’t think so. When pictured in one’s mind, a ’72 Torino looks like it came from a Clint Eastwood movie, or like CC’s personal Torino favorite: Vince’s Gran Torino.
The Great Brougham Epoch was in full swing, and many of us were caught up in it back then. Myself included, even as a teen.
When I think of the ’72 Torino, I think of visiting my grandparents. This set had a brown coupe with brownish plaid seats. I was in elementary school, and definitely never thought that car was remotely cool, even though I loved visiting them. My other grandmother on the other hand… I remember her driving a BMW 1602 followed by a 2002 Tii.
Eric, I can’t think of a more stunning contrast between the Ford and that pair of successive BMWs!
Thank you, Rick. A funny thing about my grandpa – despite the not-good way he always treated my mom (a sad story, but not what I’m about to say), he and I ended up spending time together just hanging out after my grandma had passed. I grew to really like him. I’d go over to the house and I’d sit in what was her La-Z-Boy next to his and he’d talk about whatever and I’d listen, and we’d just hang out. Sometimes, I thought I should bring a tape recorder, but I never did.
It’s an interesting thing about the grandparent-grandchild relationship. It can often almost completely sidestep truly awful stuff that has / had transpired directly between just the two generations of parent / child. It’s really hard for me sometimes to reconcile how much I enjoyed spending time with my grandparents, knowing just what a price all of the Dennises ultimately had to pay through my mom’s resulting trauma and traumatization of the rest of us. What if she had elected to go no-contact with my grandparents for the sake of her own well-being? It might have saved her soul, but then I would never have known my grandparents, or at least as well.
That poor base ’72 Torino. So utterly unappealing, made ugly on purpose. I like the base ’73 and its Aston Martin-like grille (no, I don’t need glasses), but the front of the ’72 reminds me a little of Beaker from the Muppet Show.
It’s not the butter that makes people fat; it’s the excess carbs and sugar, especially highly processed carbs and corn syrup.
The role of fats was badly misunderstood for ages; now we’ve come to see that they are very important and belong much higher up on the food pyramid.
The only diet that essentially guarantees high weight loss is the keto diet, which means no carbs at all; just fats and vegetables.
Traditional diets with substantial amounts of fats were obviously good for the most part, certainly better than the highly-processed junk food diets that are all too common nowadays, and are the proven cause of obesity and diabetes.
So slather on that butter; it’ll keep you from craving too many carbs.
It was Germany that taught me that. I went through the whole cholesterol-no fat, no-fun diet craze because my sports physician discovered my high cholesterol. So, as a 25 year old – I was obsessed over fat, but there was no fat free high sugar garbage for me to eat living in Germany. Just healthy food in the correct amounts. And no car. I walked. I rode my very favorite bike all over creation. I ended up losing 25 pounds without trying. I got schooled to a humiliating degree.
My German room mates told me that it is fat that satiates hunger and fat free food doesn’t satisfy, and you end up eating more than one should. They also pointed out correctly that fat free food is high in sugar – which DOES make one fat and unhealthy. I’m embarrassed to have actually argued a bit over this, and was taken to the cleaners by reality.
For the past twenty five years after school there, I no longer shun fats – but I do shun carbs and sugars. Portion control! No more eating what is served at restaurants or “combo meals”! Garbage – all of it, sheesh. Now white bread – yeah, it increases colon cancer, along with alcohol.
Wow – I’m overeducated beyond my intelligence in two languages.
Wow. This is a paradigm shift in my understanding. My grandma had it right the whole time.
A friend of mine bought a 72 Torino sedan with 302 V8 and a minimum of options new off the lot. The car was the same colour as the Inspectors Torino with the Edmonton City Police. Even as a basic sedan, it was a nice riding car. It turned heads and slowed many a motorist too. Well maintained, it was on the road for many years and had a few owners.
The 1973 full-size Fords were a disappointment to me at a Ford event in the fall of 1972. I could not believe how the blue oval had ballooned these cars from the nice trim, square models from 1968 to 72. I had a 71 Custom for a couple of years as a used car and enjoyed its many good qualities.
slowed many a motorist too… I imagine this is how many civilian drivers of late-model Dodge Chargers feel.
Your last thoughts have me wanting to look at side-by-side pictures of the ’72 and ’73 Fords. I had compared the one in this essay with the ’68 I had written up, but didn’t look at any pictures of the immediately preceding ’72 when I was putting this together.
I see this particular car as margarine as opposed to butter. Its a kind of a sickly yellow; full of Trans-fats and no good for you. On the other hand Jospeph Dennis’ writings are.a nutritious treat. If Jospeph Dennis wrote a memior about his experiences growing up I for one would read it.
+1
Thank you so much! I feel like I’ve put a dent in my “memoirs” during my tenure of writing here at CC.
And yes – margarine works here! Par-kay.
Wonderful story & remembrance! Grandma also made some incredible fried chicken, and of course all our ethnic Ukrainian food was centered around butter and fat ingredients. Ah to spend one last meal at Grandma’s….
Thank you so much, Dave.
Nice, though I preferred butterscotch with matching interior.
That butterscotch is a very seventies color that also appeals to me. I’m thinking about the ’73 Ford ads I remember seeing in old National Geographic magazines, and I think at least some of those cars were that butterscotch color.
I will only comment on family dynamics because it was raised in this post. I find the famous Oscar Wilde quote to be too pessimistic. “Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.”
I think that most parents try to do the best that they can raising a family, but we are all products of our upbringing and environment, and our beliefs and attitudes are usually deeply held, if not consciously expressed.
Add to that, the power dynamics of the old time, traditional nuclear family, and you have the recipe for anything from a loving nurturing home, to a miserable hell hole of a childhood experience, or any combination along that continuum. It’s no wonder that families can drift apart once their members gain their independence, and are no longer forced to be a part of that unit.
My own family experience was pretty good, so I am biased to look for the positive. Okay, enough on all that.
Full size Fords, big, quiet, and smooth riding, qualities that defined the marque from the 70’s onward. Light colors like light yellow or blue make these cars look lighter in my eyes. One of the dream cars of my lifetime was yellow, but I’ll save that for an upcoming COAL.
Jose, thank you for this sympathetic, objective take on family dynamics in general, which is welcome and astute. I think my main takeaway is that there’s a lot of gray area and that not all families are 100% good or 100% bad in the way its members treat each other. Can’t wait for the COAL.
So much to think about in this remarkable essay. I’ll start with the easy part: I too liked the light yellow (at least those that were “butter” rather than “margarine”) that was popular in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s and thought it looked especially nice on station wagons with the fake wood trim.
I also have positive associations with the smell of butter cooking, as Mom never used margarine and was late to adopt olive oil as a substitute. Bacon frying was also a great way to wake up, but I am so glad that the cigarette smoke cleared early in our house (mid to late 1960s), as that is an odor I have always found repulsive.
Family dynamics are always complicated, even when everyone basically gets along and remains on their best behavior during visits. Although I only knew one of my grandparents and rarely saw him or any other relatives due to distance, I sometimes think that living 800+ miles away is the one thing that kept things sane. I now know that my siblings and I were spared some drama (or is it trauma?) since we seldom saw our kin, but at the same time, we didn’t have the deepest relationships or lots of warm and fuzzy memories like Joe describes above.
Thank you so much, William. It’s interesting for me with friends or acquaintances who had grown up in a house with one or more cigarette smokers, and how that smell has strongly negative associations. It doesn’t bother me as much (part of me gets a little nostalgic for my college years), but it’s different for me because I smelled that smoke by choice, and not because it was thrust upon me.
The smell of bacon is my jam. I’d say I’d wear it as a cologne, but then I think people might wonder if I’ve fallen off the wagon.
You have really given us food for thought here, Joseph.
I don’t have any specific culinary memories of my grandparents, whom we went to stay with every school vacation. They lived on the edge of a country town, after my grandfather sold the farm back in ’48. There was a dairy farm the other side of the road from their house; I remember when the old milking shed blew down in a storm back in ’61. That brings up a wealth of other associations and memories, all pleasant ones to muse over.
Where did that last hour go?
What I do remember most of all is the almost-tangible peace, the quietness, the ‘rightness’, the sense of having roots among these people. Belonging, in a way I never did at home. And the love. Grandparental love seems to have a special dimension to it, a dimension I seem unable to attain toward my own grandchildren. Or maybe the passing of my grandparents has elevated them in my memory, investing them with an element of… not holiness, but perhaps reverence is the word. Still, even now, sometimes my grandmother (who passed peacefully in 1969) seems more real to me than some live people. Truly, a life well lived.
Grandma would tell me stories of her childhood in Emerald Hill, back in the 1880s when the city of Melbourne was only about 40 years old. She would tell me stories of my own mother’s childhood in the Twenties, out on the farm at Jindivick, where there is still a road bearing the family name. Grandpa would be bent over, at work in the garden, where they grew their own vegetables and fruit in season. He made me a little rake so I could help him turn the soil. He had a strong accent (which I now realise was north-eastern German), and little me could hardly understand a word he said, but I learned by example; working alongside him I discovered how hard it was to get food from the soil. A valuable lesson for a town kid. Now I realize their lifestyle was plain and simple; then it just seemed right.
After all that, I’m afraid I can’t link to the Galaxie except perhaps by contrast. Grandpa had a twenties Chev tourer and a flatbed truck back at the farm, but by the time I knew him he wasn’t driving. Auntie Merle drove them around in a little Austin A30. This Galaxie is bigger than their whole garage!
Not a car for the plain and simple life.
I loved reading this on my commute home, Peter. I could imagine you there with you grandfather tilling the soil, learning some lessons, and just trying to understand what he was saying.
Now I realize their lifestyle was plain and simple; then it just seemed right. This seems to describe my thoughts on my grandparents’ agricultural lifestyle. I was always ready to head back to Flint and our house after a visit to the farm, but there was such peace I felt at there. I think my grandma had everything to do with that.
I agree to change color.My friend had the exact same on his LTD coupe.He ragged that piss yellow car to death.Im sure it was tough.Not mention his yeller Charger.Some people love beating there cars to hell.The best was the Dart.What fun.
The only thing I think about this light yellow is when it starts to rust. Then, you’d have this pretty buttercup yellow, with big, drippy, brown spots that make it look like an overripe banana. At least in a darker color, when the car starts to rust, it doesn’t jump out at you quite as much.
My brother Gary M. Had a 73′ Mach 1 Mustang.Large and in charge.Awesome Ford;miss em both.
What a wonderful old Ford. While I wrote about a green ’73 sedan some years back, my tongue was rather in my cheek with what I wrote. It must have been convincing as few caught onto it.
Family dynamics are a pill, having just dealt with some recently. As I joked to somebody, there is a reason I live 100 miles away. While nothing has ever been to the extent your parents endured, it has had more stamina, lasting for decades. It’s bad regardless.
Paul is very correct about fat vs. sugar. At our house, all of our milk is whole, we use copious amounts of butter and coconut oil, and there is always bacon, cheese, and eggs in the refrigerator. Three of my four grandparents lived to be 90 or older (one hit 100) and it was all butter all the time for them. Plus deep fried foods. And I never needed a snack when at their house.
Yes, I’m packing around some extra weight but it’s from drinking too much soda and sweet tea. Water tastes like sandpaper since a surgery a few years ago. In early 2022 I quit both cold turkey and dropped seven pounds in five days with no other adjustment in diet.
I’d say more than a few caught the jist of that one. Who else could include Mashed Potatoes and Chlymidia in an article about a car.
Jason, I feel like I need to go back and find that article! Before I read Moparlee’s comment, I would have guessed that it had to do with it being “Paul’s favorite car”, or some angle like that.
It sounds like I could stand to do a little more reading on fat. I feel like I’ve got the dietary and fitness thing basically down, but apparently I have had a few misunderstandings. And I always enjoyed reading about your grandparents.
Awesome writing, and what a twist! I was waiting to hear about how your grandparents owned a car like this, and instead it came back to the butter! I can almost taste it along with the bacon!
My Fords in the 2000s included a 1968 Galaxie 500 4-door sedan in lime gold with a 390, and a 1969 Custom 500 2-door sedan in teal with a 351w. ’69 was the last year for a 2-door Custom 500, and of course hardtops were forbidden on the lower model.
I have no antiques at the moment, but my next one will likely be a full-sized ford, as the prices for good examples are more affordable than the Chevy counterparts. I have a guilty pleasure attraction to the 1971-72 models…. probably driven by seeing the ’71 Custom in “White Lightning” and a similar low model ’72 beaten to death and blown up by Clint Eastwood in “Magnum Force”.
Thanks for the diversion. Back to work!
Thank you, Scott! And I like the ’71 & ’72 models, with a slight preference for the ’72 (rear styling looks more finished to me). That Lime Gold is such a late-’60s color – I think many U.S. manufacturers had something like it around that time. Even AMC had a fetching color I remember seeing on some Javelins and AMXs.
Also, my grandparents did have a “road-hugging” LTD in a spearmint-like green. I think it was a restyled ’77 (or so), if my memory serves me correctly.
I did forget to mention an important part of my childhood. My parents ran a local advertising agency. One of their clients was a local Ford dealer. This allowed me to hang out in the showroom once in a while in the mid 1970s, and I can remember drawing pictures of some of those full-sized Fords. I mostly remember the 1975 through ’78 models (basically indentical) as being the new ones at the time.
I also was able to take some of the brochures of the new cars. I would cut out the small horizontal pictures of the cars on the back page, tape them to a piece of paper and then ‘draw’ them into a scene, sometimes creating my own car “chases”. Now of course I wish I had kept them intact!
Sorry to keep rambling here… In 2007 I spotted a roadside 1972 Galaxie 500 4 door sedan in light blue in solid condition. It had the ‘dog dish’ caps on it and looked just like the Custom 500 in “Magnum Force”. The 1972 models had the same rear style between the Galaxie and Custom. I was able to contact the owner, but left my number and never heard back. I was so excited about the possibility of bringing the car back to life and getting a license plate that said “MGNMFRCE”.
Since then it is seldom that I see a ’71 or ’72 that is NOT an LTD convertible. Once in a while I will see a four door hardtop LTD (or ‘pillared hardtop’ as they were known)
To commemorate a long ago gathering of my late wife’s family, one of her cousins showed up with some T-shirts printed with “We put the fun in dysFUNction”.
That was a pretty apt description of her family – and also the ’73 Ford lineup. Those cars were everything you say in regard to a smooth & solid feeling. The trade-off was accepting the primitive anti-pollution equipment that choked off any semblance of performance or economy.
Kind of like spending family time with my in-laws. YMMV.
Oh my gosh. I wish I had known of those t-shirts like ten, fifteen years ago. They would have been in so many family pictures. Priceless.
That’s too cool I have a 73 LTD and my dad has a 68 galaxie fastback both are built beyond stock but still look original other than the over a ft wide drag radial tucked under the LTD I must say the the 73 galaxie and the 73 ltd look exactly the same mine has 69k original miles I purchased it from the man who purchased it brand new from Tallahassee Ford 50 years ago
Excellent. When writing this one, I was hard-pressed to find the visual differences between the ’73 LTD and Galaxie. In fact, I can’t remember now what they were
I loved this essay. I had a similar relationship with a grandma who didn’t live too far from yours. That generation of farm people is a group I miss a lot.
A treat we used to get at grandma’s house was homemade tapioca pudding. It is something I rarely have now, but I still love it. This old Ford is the automobile version of a big old bowl of warm tapioca pudding!
So well written ! .
I still love visiting the county but never want to live there again .
Being a (damn) Yankee our ‘country’ was full of trees and dairy farms, any open space would fill in in a year if you didn’t keep after it .
I remember these boats as Hertz rentals, pops would get them .
-Nate
Joseph, I am obviously a month behind on CC, but in your last photo, am I the first to note the sign above the car, “Vegas Vegan”?
I did see the sign, but I didn’t go to Vegas to eat vegan. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing so. 🙂