On OPEC, a DMZ, the DMV and SUVs: An MPH tale

Decades ago, in a far less politically correct time, my family went on summer vacation in a station wagon nicknamed a “Beaver Car.”

That, of course, was due to the fake wood paneling on the sides.

The house next door was occupied by a car salesman and his wife, and Dad and the man must have worked out a sweetheart deal that involved the purchase of a new Country Squire every three years.

The first one was white, the second one blue and the third brown.

From the ‘60s into the early ‘70s, we were a Ford family.

Right around the time of the OPEC oil embargo, which caused a 300% hike in gas prices, when it was even available, I was heading off to college. The Country Squire, with its muscular V-8 engine, got 10 miles per gallon, which made filling it up pricey.

There’s a website I want to credit at this point — Wheels History — for the facts I’ve quoted thus far and may add to quite soon.

Just wanted to let you know I’m no expert on vintage cars.

But I do have firsthand experience in station wagons, having ridden in one from Boston to Chicago, Virginia Beach to St. Louis, Provincetown to Washington, D.C., and many spots in between.

It also was in a Country Squire (our third one, if memory serves) that Dad trusted me to sit behind the wheel and get us 350 miles from Bardstown, Kentucky to Cherokee Village, Arkansas. I can still hear my siblings, especially my younger brother, pleading for him to change his mind. He even lobbied for Mom to drive, a nonstarter.

Our mother was a lot of things — adept cook, popular college professor and fine mom — but good driver was not among them.

She had a crippling fear of thunderstorms and would, at the first flash of lightning, herd her children into the basement, where we would hunker down until the front had swept through. I think she passed along her astraphobia to the family dog because Heidi was a basket case when thunder rolled. She’d start shaking and slink behind the davenport in the family room, squeezed safely between the frame of the piece of furniture and the wood-paneled wall.

Speaking of wood, that was the Country Squire’s signature feature, something that announced membership in the American middle class, making the station wagon the preeminent family car, something that said, “Today’s good but tomorrow might be better.”

Sure, it was a pretty imitation, a stick-on nylon graphic adhering to an all-steel body, but the Country Squire was one sweet ride.

The faux wood, obviously, is what earned it the “Beaver Car” moniker, and we’d yell it out when we spotted one on the interstate.

Maybe you had to be there.

Another distinguishing characteristic of the station wagon was something we called “The Way Back,” an open area behind the second row of seats, a non-seat-belted expanse of freedom where anyone — mostly me — could seal himself from the pressures of the front seat and the bickering in the middle row and just feel lucky.

From that isolated DMZ, I could listen to the Rolling Stones on my cassette player or read Mad magazine or take a nap using the pillow I always packed for vacations, the rhythm of the tires humming over the road surface lulling me into restful repose.

Plus, I could easily enjoy a pack of Rollos or a Clark Bar, snack stuff I’d secreted into my travel bag, which was actually a box.

When it came time for me to take my driver’s license test, I had the option of using one of the DMV cars on the lot or the Country Squire, which, at 218 inches long (nearly 18 feet), would present quite the challenge when it came to the parallel parking portion.

Naturally, I flunked the first time I tried, but it wasn’t the station wagon’s length that stymied me. It was a flashing yellow light.

It meant proceed with caution, not come to a complete stop.

Soon enough, though, I earned a passing grade, and the first thing I did once I was driving solo out there in God’s country, way, way out of town, was to see what it felt like to go 100 miles an hour. I can hear you saying something like, “What an idiotic thing to do,” and I take your point, but when you’re 16 years old, hurtling down the road in the middle of nowhere, common sense takes a back seat.

I had no idea how much power a big block 400-cubic-inch engine could generate, but I remember the AM radio blasting “Brown Sugar” and thinking to myself, “What a fine summer day this is.”

Taking ridiculous chances aside, I was a very responsible driver, though I did get a speeding ticket in Fulton County once, when heading back to Notre Dame for my senior year. I got popped for doing 90 in a 65 zone. I tried to explain to the state trooper that I’d been following a convoy of semis for more than 30 miles, hoping to make better time than the four hours it normally took, but that got me nowhere, and I ended up having to pay a rather hefty fine.

But I think the Country Squire rather enjoyed being reminded of the immense power under its hood and the way it just zoomed.

The station wagon has disappeared from the American landscape, giving way to SUVs, but it will always be my favorite fast car.

Mike Dewey can be reached atCarolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page, where speed limits are only a friendly suggestion.