MEN LOVE their cars, their trucks, their rides. We fall in love with them when we’re little boys, and anticipate our “first” with an intensity which mirrors our other primary interest in those teen years. As we progress in life, we get newer, faster, prettier ones that make a statement of who we are. Perhaps more than we intend.

I’ve been driving for 45 years, since age 14, and have racked up about three quarters of a million miles, mainly in Texas, our Texas. My early cars were a reflection of limited choices, determined by my parents, because my first cars were really their second cars.

The early 1960s were a time when families were beginning to have a second car, and often the second car was a smaller car, like a VW Beetle. My parents bought as a second car a 1960 VW Beetle in 1963, and I drove it a lot from then through the summer of 1965.

My parents let me drive that car a great deal, and as part of the trade off, I took over the duty of driving my sisters to places they needed to go, and picking them up. Since my older sister had a lot of girls she hung out with, this was a major plus for a kid trying to get accustomed to being cool around girls.

I KEPT THAT VW cleaned up, washed and waxed, its maroon color rich and reflective. No air conditioner, no radio, no clock. Just that high pitched engine in the back, a lawn mower engine on steroids, air cooled and with limited power. A stick shift and four forward gears completed this no frills automobile that I absolutely loved!

It got great gas mileage, and had that cool reserve tank, which comes in handy when you’re a teenager and you can still forget things like getting gasoline. It also had the trunk in the front, which was bizarre and amusing to kids in those days.

That little VW bug would top out at 60 miles an hour in the quarter mile, and took about a quarter of an hour to do that. If I headed down a big hill on highway 59, with a good wind behind me, I could push it to 70 mph.

Stuffing a VW bug was one of the fads from those days, and we once stuffed nine people into mine. Seven girls, my buddy Mike Capps, and me. Tough duty when you can get it. We were in hog heaven.

ONE NIGHT we actually snuck someone into the drive-in theater in the VW trunk. A drummer in the high school band, a smaller guy named Kenny Umbarger, got into that trunk and, although we couldn’t shut the trunk lid entirely, we were able to close it enough to get him in without paying. Yes, I know. We were terrible for cheating the drive-in theater of their revenue. But sneaking people into the drive-in was a rite of passage. It had to be done.

That little 1960 VW bug is the simplest car I’ve ever had, and yet, it holds a place in my heart none of the others can reach: my first.

© 2008, Pappy Moore, All Rights Reserved.

Pappy Moore is a humorist, a native son of East Texas who still makes the piney woods his home. oaktreefm58@hotmail.com

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