1984–1988

Before the Jeep there was Dad’s Chevy Luv pickup, which is what I’d learned to drive in. Dad’s teaching method: handed me the keys on the beach in San Felipe and said “See if you can figure it out.” I learned to drive stick in sand, which made it harder than it needed to be. I didn’t burn out the clutch much.

I found the Jeep in the El Centro newspaper. I wasn’t looking for a car. I think my parents knew the guy selling it — Pettigrew, maybe? Dad helped with the money but made me negotiate myself. First lesson in vehicle ownership.

It was one of the later CJ5s with a tailgate and curved door openings made for vinyl soft doors, which it came with and took about a minute to remove. Simple straight 6. No whiplash headrests, lap belts only. I put a back seat in, got a bikini top for the summer, added a roll cage, replaced the gas tank, repainted the whole thing with rattle cans in the driveway. The windshield wipers didn’t always work so I had a Vice-Grip to turn them with.

Drove it from El Centro to Claremont constantly, and to San Felipe several times. Changed the spark plugs for the first time in the street in front of the dorm and got the firing order wrong. There was a campus street they liked to open and close at random — I learned I could get around it by driving up on the curb. Only got one ticket for that.

My parents were right to be concerned about me driving it back and forth to El Centro. It really wasn’t safe, for a number of reasons. I replaced it with an Isuzu Trooper and swapped the big BFG tires over. Driving on the Trooper’s smaller slick tires, I ran into a pickup that stopped in front of me at a T intersection. Totalled it. Sold the remains to a Jeep parts place; they repaired and resold it.