Ventura

I passed one on the road today, maybe. But it's hard to tell at a glance. I tried to grab the cell phone and take a picture but the phone was full. It did not look like mine exactly, but it looked like a well cared for one.

1976 Pontiac Ventura, but I did not get keys to it until around 1986. Ours, as handed down to me, was a two door with an odd cream color. It was sold metal, not so much as a Landau top. Chrome bumpers that were metal made when metal was made. The light dimmer was on the floor - a nice piece of metal to push with the left foot. There was a transmission hump in the middle of the car that went under the bench seats, and those bench seats were stitched vinyl that was complimentary to the cream color of the metal.

They told me it had a 350, though I really didn't know what that meant. At least not compared to any other engine, since I had really only driven that car and my parents 4 door Oldsmobile 98. Both had engines that would carry the metal across pavement like a battleship across the sea.

I thought the design of the Ventura looked a lot like a Camaro or a Trans Am or some other sexy car. I saw few similar cars in my town, but the ones that I did see, and have seen, I always thought looked less sexy - that their grills and hoods didn't have the sleek shape of mine or their tail lights looked boxy and ugly compared to mine. As if, somehow, I had a great 10 year old Pontiac Ventura. I'm not sure that I even knew it was ten years old, though I knew it was not new. I remembered my dad buying it. I think I even remember going with him to the car lot. I remember, if it was 1976 I had to be about 7 or 8 years old, and I remember my mom piling covers and pillows into the two foot areas in the back seat - as separated by the transmission hump - and creating a horizontal area out that gave her two kids each a sleeping area for the long drive to our grandparents. One could sleep on the bench seat and one in the floor. Now, THAT was before the time of child restraint seats and laws.

I would grow up to receive the car sort of by default as I turned sixteen and started driving more and more. I guess if I thought about it, I could remember when we sold it. I think I remember it came to a point where it rolled through oil and smoke and we sold it for something else.

But I remember it. It was a great car.

(Mustin Mentell is in 2nd season of Boston Legal. Not my usual type, but a young cutie just the same. And in the last episode I watched tonight, sporting quite the tribal tattoo down his right arm.)