The 1987 Chevy Blazer at Rock City barn AL-11. U.S. Hwy. 11, DeKalb County, AL.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We spent the day with our son Don, who lives here in Knoxville. Our daughter-in-law Kim cooked a great Christmas dinner and we enjoyed seeing grandson Devlin and granddaughter Marlee and their significant others.
But to get back to our topic -- I bought my first car in 1956, when I was 19 - a slick 1950 Ford V8 coupe purchased with a $500 loan from my grandmother. Since then, I've owned more cars than I can count -- and all of them were bought used. Owning a good car was important to me, but owning a new car never was.
I drove many of those cars to high mileages and most of them served me well. The only outright lemon was a Dodge Aspen sedan I bought in the late '70s.
At the time our son Rob was born in 1961, we had an NSU Prinz, a tiny German car that was lots of fun, but didn't prove very durable over the long haul.
Barbara, my first wife, passed away in 1963, and in 1965 I married Louise. We embarked on our honeymoon in a 1959 Volkswagen.
Away on our honeymoon in our '59 Volkswagen.
Then there was the 1963 Plymouth Belvedere that we bought while Louise was in school at Florida State. A great road car. We routinely made the 490 mile trip from Tallahassee to Miami in six hours -- in the bad old days of very restrictive speed limits. You can see it here.
After her graduation, we moved back to Miami, where we later sold the Plymouth and bought a '62 Chevy II Nova wagon from friends. We drove that car when we moved to Chattanooga in 1970 and drove the wheels off of it for the next six years with no problems. In 1972, before the first great hike in gas prices, we drove it to Miami on about $12.50 worth of gas!
Before I forget, I need to mention the photo at the top. That 1987 Chevy S-10 Blazer took me nearly 35,000 miles in 15 states as I searched for Rock City barns for my book. The transmission gave out in northern Indiana when I was nearly finished. A year or two later I sold it to my garageman for $2,000. It had 235,000 miles on the odometer.
That's enough for today, but I'm not finished with this topic.
Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.
Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia
are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal
address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943
Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how
you would like your book inscribed.
Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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