New for 1956: The Beginning of a Love Affair

"Now wait a minute," you're probably saying, "How old were you in 1956?"  Some of you might even wonder if I was even alive in 1956.  God bless you...but I was.  I was five years old.  I had started kindergarten.  And I began a love affair.  But this love was for all cars from the 50s, unless you count Miss Gore, my kindergarten teacher, whom I remember having a wild crush on.  She was, as they said then, the bee's knees.  

Anyway, 1956 was also the year my grandmother bought her first Dodge.  We had a connection in the car dealer business, a distant cousin named George.  He was smooth one.  But he took care of my grandmother through all her generations of Dodges, right up to her last, a 1976 Dodge Aspen.  It looked like a junior g-man car which I inherited and drove for while here in California in the early 1980s after she passed away.

For some reason, though the '56 Dodge Lancer she owned was my favorite.  It was three tone-color, just like the one in the picture.  It had four doors, which I guess from the ad, was really something(?)  I remember riding in that new car and loving it.  In those day, however, cars were not the prices of what houses were then, so grandma was able to get a new car every three to four years.  It broke my heart when she traded in on a '59 Dodge Coronet.  It was solid green and uglier than sin.  It was so long, it almost didn't fit in the garage!  

So long story short, I think about that '56 car frequently.  Probably didn't have a/c or power anything, but it was a fine car.  What really strikes me though, is how very UGLY it was!  In fact, most Dodges were ugly right into the 70s if you ask me.  "Only a face a mother could love," is a phrase that comes to mind.  And, yes, I do love it.  Sometimes the memories attached far outweigh the superficial looks.  Love is a funny thing.  And once in love, it is wonderful if you are able to stay in love.  

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