There are certain firsts that one never forgets: the first day of school, the first kiss, and the first time you called alleged psychic Miss Cleo and realized that Jamaican accent might actually be fake. Your Mountain Times staff has many firsts, including the time citrus fruit was presented as our Christmas bonus. A more memorable first that makes for better writing, though, is our first car experience. Here are some of our favorites.

Melanie Davis: 1981 Chevrolet Citation

Keep in mind Melanie’s Citation was four-door, but this one is parked next to a Dumpster and we couldn’t pass that up.

My first car... the nostalgia and scent of oil are instantly causing me to tear up. My first car was a 1981 Chevrolet Citation hatchback. Not the sleek, two-door model, but the four-door, tank version.

The car had been given to me by my sister after a valve burnt. Up to the challenge, I parked the car in the garage and set my mind on re-building it before I turned 16, a mere six months away. I had a basic car knowledge, capable of brakes, oil changes, starters and such, but had never completely dismantled an engine.

Armed with a socket set and a Hanes auto manual, I went to work. I managed to take the engine apart, repair the burnt valve and put it back together myself. I will grant you that a mechanic could have done it in a week or less and it took me two months, but I did it. The only assistance I received was lifting the head off and back on. I lacked the physical strength for that. Verbal advice came in handy, but no one was allowed in my garage area.

I don’t think I have been, before or since, as excited as the moment I put the key into the ignition and it turned over. My father was also more proud of me than anytime I can recall. He had given a chuckle or two when I confidently explained I was going to tackle this project alone.

I drove that car, nicknamed “Old Blue,” for two years before it unceremoniously died on the interstate. It spun a rod bearing. I removed the valve cover and cried like a small child as I surveyed the fatal wound, complete with oil spurting over my shoulder.

My favorite aspect of Citation ownership was the amount of time spent under the hood. Those were two very educational years. I no longer fear a break-down, but instead pack my glove compartment with duct tape, WD-40, J-B Weld and a AAA membership card. If you can’t repair it with the first three, tow it back to the garage for another few weeks.

Scott Nicholson: Scott’s Machineries of Joy

Scott’s Willys CJ-3B jeep gave a new meaning to “general purpose.”

My first vehicle was a 1963 Willys CJ-3B, an offshoot of the old Willys Army jeeps. It had a PTO so you could hook farm equipment to it, and it also had two sets of gearing differentials, so you could have two-wheel-drive high and low and four-wheel-drive high and low. You could gear it so low that you could literally step out and walk beside it while it drove itself.

Once on a camping expedition with an informal jeeping club (basically three buddies who would hide in the woods for entire weekends where their bad habits wouldn’t be noticed), I drove the jeep’s bumper against a huge oak tree, got out, and let it sit there grinding away, digging itself into the mud while I went back to the fire and enjoyed refreshment.

The jeep, like its owner, had a couple of personality quirks. The alignment was off so when it hit 35 mph (out of a top speed of about 50), it would shudder and shake until it hit 40, and eventually this caused the body to begin ripping in half. It often had no doors, even in winter, so sometimes when I drove my brothers to school, their hair would be frozen if they had showered that morning. Who cared if they died of exposure? I was way cool.

Caroline Monday: 2000 Ford Focus

Caroline’s 2000 Ford Focus, as it looked in an advertisement in the year 2000.

I’ll go ahead and admit something I don’t think many people would admit, no matter how true it is. I’m really not a very good driver. I have many skills, but driving is simply not one of them. It’s my aspiration to someday live in a place where I will never have to drive and can travel solely via public transportation, like New York or Paris.

However, I did have a great first car. It was a red 2000 Ford Focus and I was its first owner. Even then, when driving was a novelty, I didn’t really like doing it. I recognized my poor driving abilities and I did not deserve a new car. I still don’t.

With an intro like that, you can probably guess how this story is going to end. One rainy Saturday during my freshman year of college I was driving from N.C. State to Greenville, where I grew up and where my family still lives. That day I learned just how inadequately Highway 264 drains during a heavy rain as my car fishtailed, spun out of my control and ended up upside down on the side of the highway.

I totaled my first car, and to this day I get a little scared while driving in the rain. So, if you see someone in a blue Toyota Corolla driving 15 mph in the rain, know it’s me. And don’t honk, I’m going as fast as my nerves will let me.

Jason Reagan: ’66 Mustang

They called him Mustang Sally, until he told them “Jason” was more preferable.

In 1986, I received my license and permission to drive my father’s 1966 Mustang — an electric blue beauty he had owned since it rolled out of the factory. I should add, at the time, I measured about 5-foot, 1-inch so I had to sit on a pillow AND place one behind my back to push my body far enough forward. While the Mustang still remains one of the all-time best American autos, the transmission did not exactly lend itself to my shrimp muscles. I can remember shifting from first to second with two hands but, to this day, I never have trouble with stick shifts thanks to Transmission Boot Camp.

My parents lived on and still own a rural farm with a long driveway. My pre-license Saturdays were spent rocketing (at least when Pappy wasn’t looking) the Mustang back and forth between the house and barn in my own version of driving school. As much as I loved the car, it betrayed me at a vital teenage moment. On the first day I drove to school — two days after my 16th birthday— the gas gauge decided to malfunction. It lied almost maliciously, claiming to hold an eternal quarter of a tank and sputtered to a halt about 200 feet from our town hangout. Imagine the scene — a Gary Coleman-esque teenager propped up on cushions steering a dead car while the laughing hyenas he called friends pushed the treasonous jalopy into the pump island.

Throughout the next two years, the ’66 provided plenty of great times and I eventually outgrew the seat cushions as puberty arrived at the party late. Unfortunately, the ‘Stang’s 289 engine eventually gave up the ghost and I fell into a pattern that would repeat itself upon moving to Boone 15 years later— I got a Subaru, no cushions required.

Jeff Eason – Pony Boy, carry me home

The 1965 Dodge Dart, with what may or may not be the Eason family.

My first car was given to me by my aunt, Pauline Ruckart, not long after we moved from Alabama to Triplett in eastern Watauga County. It was a black 1965 Dodge Dart with a red leather interior. I named it “Pony Boy” after the Allman Brothers’ song of the same name and drove it to WHS every day and to my friends’ houses during the weekends. It leaked a little oil and wasn’t nearly as cool as some of the cars in the WHS parking lot, but it saved me from going out of my teenage mind down in Triplett (at that time, there was very little for teenagers to do down there… and nothing’s changed in 30 years).

One time, I tried to drive it up Triplett Road in a blinding snowstorm, against my father’s wishes. I made it to within a quarter mile of U.S. 421 before I slide backwards off the road. Too embarrassed to go home, I hitchhiked the rest of the way into town and spent the night with some friends. Some neighbors in Triplett spied my car off the road the next morning and called my mom to tell her that I was probably inside it either dead or dying.

To make a long story short, I didn’t die but I sure got grounded.