Thanksgiving and the 1960 Olds Dynamic 88!

This was not our Olds Dynamic 88, but we had one just like it!

Anyone who has heard me share anything about my childhood knows that there is a common thread running through all of those childhood accounts. The common thread is that growing up, we had little or no money.

As we approach Thanksgiving 2020, I was thinking back to some of those early Thanksgiving holidays and it dawned on me that somehow, my parents always pulled it off. Maybe food was cheaper back then, but I remember big family gatherings with lots of food. Such big gatherings that my Dad had to bring two wooden picnic tables and benches in from the yard and place them end to end to accommodate all of the guests. Not very comfortable, but memorable.

I am not sure of the exact year, I would say somewhere around 1966, I had one of my best Thanksgiving holidays ever, and it wasn't just about the meal.

After dinner my Dad had to drive my Grandmother (my Mothers's Mom) back to her home in the Kensington section of the city from our new "row" home in the Northeast section of the city. My Dad took me along for the ride.

This did not exactly seem like fun to me. I was 8 or 9 years old and the only thing that I can tell you about my Grandmother is that she was ill. I have no idea the exact nature of her illness but she was in constant pain and she was not shy about expressing her discomfort. She had a hospital bed in her living room and rarely left that bed, I am not sure how she made it through that Thanksgiving day, but we all felt her pain.

The second detail that I remember was more intriguing to me; we had a car! For large chunks of my childhood we didn't have a car and when we did have a car it was usually donated from a friend or family member. In most cases those donated cars were near or at the end of their useful existence.

This car was different, it still had some life in it. It was a 1960 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88, even the name of the car sounds fast! The car was formerly owned by my Aunt Kay and Uncle John who really were not my Aunt and Uncle but they were such close friends of my parents that we counted them as family.

So the last detail of the story is the newly completed section of Interstate 95 that connected the northeast section of the city to the center of the city. I had never been on that Interstate before that day. The highway was concrete, not the black asphalt that all the city streets were paved with. Smooth white, new concrete that was begging my Dad to go fast....really fast, like no one is on the highway fast, late in the day on Thanksgiving. Just one problem, my Grandmother! To this day I can still hear her telling my Dad to SLOW DOWN!

My Dad was a patient man, he throttled that car back all the way down 95 South and dutifully delivered my Grandmother back to that hospital bed in her living room. We both hopped back into that Olds, me in the front passenger seat, long before the days of seats belts and back seat mandates for kids. We weaved through the small city streets, navigating our way back to the interstate on ramp.

Thats when it happened, the best 15 minutes of any Thanksgiving in my life. Once on the interstate, my Dad looked over at me and he didn't have to say a word. With a huge smile on his face he gunned that thing and I assure you that we did no less than 85 mph until we exited the interstate.

My Dad was like that, we didn't have a lot of money, but we had more than our share of fun! I am not sure what happened to that car but it didn't last long.

Happy Thanksgiving!