There’s Sis with her super red ’75 Subaru GL-10. Circa 1986, just before she got married.
Last month I lost my beloved mom, LaVerne, who died peacefully at age 90. After her long, slow decline, our whole extended family is feeling relieved, grateful, and blessed. In addition to being a great parent and friend, Mom also indulged my car-craziness from a young age. My first toy was a Matchbox 1926 Morris Cowley and my last was her actual Volvo 850 (when she gave up driving). In an age before cell phones, Mom snapped photos with a cheap Instamatic camera that she kept near the back door. It was about the size of an ice-cream sandwich and captured images on a small rotating disc. Nevertheless, when Mom was itching to get pictures off to the developer, she would say, “Go stand by your car so I can use up the end of the roll!” Lately, in the strangeness of going through her things, I’ve been happy to find these driveway dunk shots. They’re not the best quality images, but that’s part of their charm.
Shopping list: two-stroke motor oil and some lefse.
There’s me a few years earlier in my ’68 SAAB 96, with a two-stroke engine and plenty of panache. Same driveway, but looking south instead of north.
Me clowning for Mom, June 1975. Notice the waffle-stomper boots and rebellious ragged jeans.
Going back even further, there’s me and my 1950 Buick Super. This was a hand-me-down from Grandma Babe, and it sat motionless in our driveway for many years.
This ’81 Rabbit went on a long strange trip after I sold it but didn’t clear the title. It came back to me TWICE after being abandoned by some Deadheads who took it to the East Coast and back.
There’s yours truly with an awesome VW Rabbit and some unfortunate facial hair. This was taken in the mid-’90s at Lake Samish by my Mom, who was always behind the camera and almost never in front. At least having to do with cars. Sorry there aren’t more shots of my sister.
Clark Griswold, eat your heart out.
Jerking back again to the mid-’80s, there’s me with my mom’s 1978 Audi Fox GTI. It’s a bit hard to see, but that’s one big-ass Christmas tree on the ski-rack, courtesy of a U-Cut tree farm near Mount Baker.
Me in my ’72 Volvo 144, circa 1988. Going, Going.
Finally, let’s end this madness and use up the end of the roll.
Gone.
Thanks Mom! Love you.
Nice story. Thanks for sharing it.
Condolences on the loss of your mom; but it also sounds like this was one of those inevitable events in life that really turned out as well as possible for all concerned. In that sense, congratulations for a life well lived and well experienced by those around her.
I absolutely love the idea of taking photos to “finish the roll!”. I haven’t heard that expression in ages, but it was often said in my household as well. Even better in your (and your mom’s) case that there developed a theme for those pictures. I’d be willing to bet that some of these toss-away shots are in fact some of the best in the family photo collection…or at least ones that will be the most treasured as they show progressions through the ages.
I think it’s hard to have reached this age and having owned a VW Rabbit, that didn’t incorporate “abandoned by some Deadheads” somewhere in its history.
Great post!
“I’d be willing to bet that some of these toss-away shots are in fact some of the best in the family photo collection…or at least ones that will be the most treasured…”
Absolutely! A lost source of treasure now, as we all delete the ones we don’t recognize as just that.
I’m with you guys all the way, and I will for sure post some more driveway shots when they become available. We still have boxes and boxes of photos to go through. I seem to remember some shots of a camping trip taking shape in our driveway…
What a beautiful post. Thankyou for it.
Here’s to your mum.
Great shots! Each pic, a timepiece for their era. Even if clues to a specific time are very subtle. Your mom was just wonderful!
The third pic, from 1975, I had a similar pair of jeans. The deeper flaring was going out of style by then. Fraying at their ends. And lighter denim was popular. Mine were Sears Toughskins. I had an equally similar well-worn baseball glove. Mine was a standard outfielder’s glove, as well. Not a trapper. My dad usually bought me a new glove every May. He usually saved $10 by purchasing the Canadian Tire store brand Mastercraft gloves. In ’75, they were around $17. Better quality Spaulding and Rawlings gloves going for closer to $28. Nothing beats the smell of a fresh ball glove. lol
I was younger than you, and really starting to love Top 40 radio at its cheesiest best, that summer.
You brought back another memory from late Spring of ’75.
I thoroughly appreciate how knowledgeable you are in both American and Canadian music of the ’70’s. I remember an odd Top 40 quirk the Spring/early Summer of ’75, two artists from different countries, had big hits here, with the same song remake.
Canadian artist Charity Brown was huge here, between 1974 and 1976. Mostly with remakes of ’60’s R&B. A lot like Linda Ronstadt, at the same time.
She’s unknown to most Americans, but Charity had an amazing voice. Her Canadian hit that Spring, preceded the Doobie Brothers, which hit a few weeks later.
Pic of Charity Brown.
The touch-tone sounds near the beginning of “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You” are the actual phone number of the band’s previous record company that had recently dropped them, perhaps hoping to send some prank calls their way…
That is awesome! Love the irony. Thank you la673. Always appreciate your immense automotive, and pop culture knowledge!
1974-75 was the same time I was starting to really hook into music. Since we are near Vancouver BC and the Canadian border, we used to get all the great Canuck Rock that others in the US weren’t privy to. Prism, April Wine, Doucette, and of course the mighty Guess Who. And of course the Stampeders. Sugarloaf was on American Top 40, which I listened to religiously. Good times, good music, good cars.
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing these with us.
I love posts like this. Your mom sounded awesome already but when I saw she bought a Fox GTI, she became eligible for sainthood, at least in my church.
Losing family members is hard; ask me how I know. Or read the following post.
Thanks for the kind words, Paul. Mom really was a saint to this car-loving son-of-a-gun. She once drove with me all from Bellingham to Longview, Washington to help me buy a 1959 Karmann Ghia Convertible. That’s a good mom!
Outstanding photos. I remember taking many of those “end of roll” pictures – also largely of our cars, and also pictures of our house, and just candid pictures of my parents and sister. Years later, those shots ended up being the most amusing and memorable to look at. Seeing pictures of us wearing sleepclothes, or pictures of the house showing weeds growing the gutters – those little details that we’d otherwise long have forgotten about. Sadly, all of those pictures were thrown out when my folks moved out of their house about 15 years ago.
“End of roll” photos were also a nice balance to the other family rule of “Don’t Waste Film.” “End of roll” was an occasion when I could take pictures of everyday things without being yelled at.
And among these photos of yours, I love the pictures of the Fox GTI – that’s a car whose existence I had completely forgotten about.
Sorry for your loss. I too remember the old “use up the end of the roll” thing.
I do have to ask about that Buick, not a common site by 1975, and yes you were definitely in fashion with the waffle stompers and ragged jeans.
Hey Dude, the Buick was given to my Grandma after her husband died, and then it became our second car in the early ’70s. We drove it around Bellingham for a few years. I ended up selling the Buick to a guy who lived on the Mt. Baker Highway, who showed up at our house in an ex-Ohio Phone Co. surplus van. I think the van was an old Ford Econoline and the price of the Buick was $110 cash.
Beautiful and heartfelt post, thank you for sharing. Clearly your Mom was a treasure. The Buick really stands out but I would be happy to have any of them in my driveway
A quick note on cameras, Instamatic would be 126 format which was approximately 35mm wide, was packaged in a plastic cartridge and produced a 28mm x 28mm square image. This came out in 1963, and 9 years later Kodak came out with the Pocket Instamatic, which used the 110 cartridges which produced a 13x17mm image, about a quarter of a 35mm.
Kodak introduced the disc format in 1982, which was a new self contained cartridge that had a rotating disc of individual negatives, rather like a Viewmaster reel.
At a guess Dead Swede’s mother had an an Instamatic and a disc camera, and may have had a Pocket Instamatic.in the 70s.
Theses sorts of pictures are a great time capsule, barely posed and sometimes showing unfortunate fashions.
The disc is pretty distinctive, so a recollection of that may well mean that she had a Kodak Disc camera (left in attached photo). On the other hand, the 110 Instamatic is almost exactly the size of an ice cream sandwich (top in the attached). The classic 126 Instamatic (right) is more the size of a pack of Twinkies. 🙂
You can still buy 110 film (not from Kodak). The other two formats are pretty thoroughly obsolete. Unfortunately, you can’t get the flash cubes that you need to operate 110 ice cream sandwich camera in most light conditions. Although you can buy an electronic flash kit for those. Believe me, I’ve thought about it.
BTW, both the disc camera and the 110 in my photo still have film in them (I found them that way)…and this reminds me that I really ought to use up the end of the roll(s) on both of these and see what’s there!
Common 135 (35mm) film can be loaded into a 126 cartridge – they’re the same width – though the additional holes at the edges of 35mm film will be in the exposed frame.
I had (and still have) one of those Pocket Instamatic cameras, a rare higher-end model that actually took decent photos unlike most 110 cameras. Still, both the 110 and Disc formats were hobbled by the small negative (or slide) size. The 126 film had much larger surface area, but took odd square pictures that didn’t fill photo frames.
My Step Mom had the 110 Instamatic, while I rocked the 126. So definite memories in that picture.
Someone owned a daily driver Subaru GL wagon, roughly eight miles south of my parents farm. In the boondocks of Eastern Ontario, circa 1978. It was yellow, with faux woodgrain on its sides. Always dusty, due to the back roads it lived on. All its windows, regularly opened.
The closest Subaru dealer, had to be over ninety miles away.
Is your sis’s Subaru GL-10 4WD?
My Dad bought a Subaru DL the next year (’76) back then most were still FWD but I think there was a wagon that was the sole 4WD offering. We’d moved to Vermont for the 2nd time, and Dad wanted a car with good traction similar to the ’59 Beetle (that got totalled in front of our house) and the ’68 Renault R10 (which he bought to replace the Beetle, it was also rear engine, but watercooled..sold in Virginia before we moved back to Vt) but FWD cars still commanded a bit of a premium in mid 70’s (Honda, VW, Saab weren’t inexpensive) so Dad decided to try a Subaru. He never bought another though (nor has anyone in my family).
Bought it from Winooski, Vt…Dad also considered the Datsun F10, wasn’t put off by the looks per se, only by a vent on the hood near the carburator that looked to him like a last minute engineering change…otherwise he’d have been an F10 owner.
Don’t have too many car pictures from back then unfortunately, or if so, they’re only part of the car. I don’t think we had any pictures of the Subaru. In 1980 he gave the Subaru to my sister after he bought a Dodge Omni (which was also FWD of course). The trick was on him (and me, I also bought a FWD car in 1981) when he ended up moving from Vermont to central Texas, I followed less than a year later…if we had known where we’d end up FWD wouldn’t have been a consideration…but within a few years most cars transitioned to FWD anyhow so we just got an earlier taste of it.
I had my Mom’s old Yashica from the 50’s…I think it took 126 film. Still have the 35mm Minolta I bought off my brother-in-law, but haven’t found too many sources for unexposed film or development, and not much of a camera person these days, though I have a cheap digital camera (separate from my phone) but it doesn’t take nearly the pictures that the Minolta did..but I don’t use camera enough to justify a nice digital camera so I keep using the cheap one.
As a matter of fact, it was 4WD. If I remember right, the GL-10 was gone-through by a mutual friend who was also an amazing bike mechanic. Only problem was my sister ran it out of oil on I-5 in downtown Seattle and made the evening news.
Genuine condolences on the loss of yr Mom.
My mom passed in Sept. at 94.
For years, I’ve marveled over how that 5-foot tall, 19 year-old, learned to drive in Gramps’ 1949 Star Chief without power steering. Or power-anything.
Until dementia drove her 2010 Camry into a mailbox, she logged miles & miles to schools, summer camps, vacations & supermarkets.
In between, her most interesting cars were a ’52 Henry J, and a ’61 Austin 850 (Mini).
To all of our departed moms:
Go well. Drive well. 😎
Thanks, Dan. Mom’s first car was a ’46 Plymouth Business Man’s Coupe but sadly there is no picture of it anywhere I can find. She learned to drive it in Bayview Cemetery, which was close to where she grew up, and where my wife’s kids learned. She said she could see the ground through the floorboards!
Sorry about your Mom, mine turned 90 on St. Patty’s Day (and her name is Pat). A couple new hips 10+ years back, and pretty darn spry, as they say. Getting around well in her 2013 Accord Sport with rather low miles, one of us kids or a grandchild will often pick her up for a dinner or event just to be on the safe side.
Great pics, I recently came across a pic from my misspent youth showing my matching color (burgundy metallic) Fiero GT and Grand Am SE 2.OL Turbo (yes that existed, for maybe 2 model years) in the garage while the parent’s Caprice Wagon and Buick Century languished outdoors in the driveway. What a brat I was LOL
These are wonderful photos and sorry about the loss of your mom.
Awesome story thanks for sharing. Question did you ever buy a real American car like a Chevy Ford Pontiac Olds Buick. Just curious.
Thanks, Kerry. I did indeed have a soft spot for American cars, mostly Fords and Chevys. My Grandma Babe’s last car was a ’66 Chevelle Malibu that was our second car for a while and then came down to all us kids in order. I picked up a diamond-in-the-rough ’61 Ford Falcon for $50 that I drove for a few years after spending about $150 more on it. That was the first car that I could work on with two feet on the ground in the engine compartment! All hail the skinny 144 CU in-line 6 cylinder. Later I got an ’82 Ford F-100 stripper that is in my top-5 of all time vehicles. I love American cars.