Matt's Memories, Part 1: Cars
The following is a large selection of memories from my other cousin, Matt—Margie’s older brother. He is the oldest of the 5 of us first cousins, and I am the youngest. Funny enough, our birthdays are only 1 day apart: July 13th for me and July 14th for him: France’s Bastille Day. I have divided Matt’s memories into 2 parts: Cars and SCUBA diving. I have attacked them in 2 sittings because they’re fairly lengthy. His memories have links to photos and videos, which give a much more tangible feel to my dad’s years. I have edited his text only slightly and added my own comments in italics. Enjoy!
CAR MEMORIES
I remember as one of
my strongest memories the fact that Dave always liked cars, read things like
Hot Rod magazine, and always had an interest in going fast, having unique
cars. The earliest car of his that I remember was a 1953 or so MG TD,
similar to the one in this clip, red with a tan convertible top.
The main reason I
remember this car so well is that when I was very small, maybe 2 years old,
Dave brought this car over to show my dad. It was very cold winter
weather, and I was totally bundled up. They wanted to take my picture with
the car so my dad stood me on the hood of the car. I remember being
concerned it would hurt the car but they didn’t think so. I think my
sister may still have a copy of this picture somewhere. It was taken by
our garage in the alley behind our home in Oak Park.
Another odd story I
remember from being ‘out in the garage’ doing work outside, shadowing dad, was
that Dave brought over some miracle stuff called ‘epoxy’. It is a common
thing now, but at that time, I think he was still working for Western Electric,
which provided equipment to the Bell phone system. So he got his hands on
some epoxy and it was really high quality stuff which I remember he used to fix
some issues on one of the early Thompson wooden hull boats that he owned. These
2 boats were very similar, if not identical, to one that grandpa Stanley Kungie
owned for a while. The boats Dave had were similar, but I think they were
16 feet long, not 18 like this one (second video)
Not too many years
after this, I remember that our grandfather Stanley Kungie, for some reason,
bought a used Illinois state police Ford Galaxy station wagon, model year 1961
or 1962. It had black exterior, and the inside may have been a blue or
tan color. It had some kind of police interceptor engine and was really fast
for a big car. He used to fold down the second seat, and since the seat
had a metal back, we used to sit on blankets, and when he floored the gas from
a stop light we would slide all the way to the tailgate. Great fun, no
seat belts, no child seats or locks. We survived. I am pretty sure
it was this 1961 year, and you can see when they show how seats folded how we
could slide. Chris might remember this car, but he was pretty small.
Some other Dave cars I
remember are:
1962 Corvair
convertible.
1955 or so Pontiac 2-door
that was more like a truck, it could go thru any kind of snow or bad
weather. It was green, not 2-toned like this one. Not exactly sure
of the year, but he was driving it when we first moved to Elgin and were living
in an apartment.
1963 Chevy Belair/Biscayne
station wagon, light blue. You might remember this car. He had it
when you guys were living in Des Plaines on Norman Court.
I remember that for a
long time this car had a broken fuel gage, and Dave had a stick that he carried
to stick into fuel tank and check to see gas level. I’m pretty sure it was like
this one with 2 tail lights not 3 as some models have
I remember one story
of this station wagon where all of you took it on a family vacation somewhere
in the South. You stopped in a small town to see sights and came back to
car to find it had leaked radiator coolant all over. You had to go to a
local garage to get it repaired, and I remember Dave said it looked like
someone had walked up to car with a big long screwdriver and jammed it through
the radiator to damage it deliberately. It was expensive for the time to
fix it, but that’s all I recall of the story.
1967 or so Corvair with
a high performance engine that had 4 carburetors on it. All I ever
remember of this car is that it was neat, but Dave did nothing but work on it
to get it to run right and he sold it pretty soon after getting it.
Mercury Capri, 1972-ish. I
think he had a silver one and a yellow one.
(K’s note:
I drove this car. It’s an
imitation Ford Mustang. This car had
some kind of fuel line leak, as I could literally watch the fuel gage go down
when I gave it some strong gas. It was a powerful little car, but not
practical.)
1966 or 1967 Plymouth
Satellite. It might have been a GTX.
He had this car early on when you first moved into the Des Plaines house. It
was a very nice car-- silver with a black vinyl roof. We also had a very
similar car that was dark green with black roof and interior.
1972 or so Ford Pinto,
powder blue color I think Chris may have learned to drive this car, and
there was more than one Pinto, but I do not remember them well. By this
time, I was close to or out of high school and going to college, so I was not
around as much.
(K’s note:
I drove this car, too. I remember
it with resentment because it was more than inconvenient for me for one
particular reason. This powder blue
Pinto would not go in reverse when the engine was cold. Patti and I had this car down at college when
I was doing my student teaching [maybe Patti was graduated by then?] in the
spring semester when the weather was Midwest-cold. Snowy. Frozen. And the dorms we lived in
mandated head-in-first parking.
Shit. If only I could have backed
in when I returned from my student teaching in the evening when the engine was
warm…. But no. Every morning for the
whole semester, I was left unable to back out of the space, and every morning I
had to literally PUSH that car out into the middle of the parking lot—far
enough so that I could drive forward to get out of the lot and get to
school. Mind you this was in the snow
and dressed in nice, “teacher clothes”. Grrrrr!!!)
1979 Ford Fairmont station
wagon, brown with tan interior. A very
ugly, plain car. I have no idea why he bought it except that it had room in it
to carry 6 people or so.
(K’s note:
yes, that was a very, ugly, plain car!!
You could almost think of it as “generic” it was so plain and ugly.)
1973 Mustang Grande Coupe.
I remember this car because Dave came out to AZ to visit and bought this car to
take back to Illinois. He also bought a 1964 Chevy Impala 4-door that was
incredibly low mileage, and a 1983 or so Porsche 924.
(K’s note:
OK, I remember the Chevy Impala, and I loved it. The crazy-amazing thing about it was that Dad
could literally take the key out of the ignition when the car was driving, and nothing
would happen. Bizarre. This was a
pinkish car, typical for the 1960’s, and it was big, smooth, and comfortable—smooth
being the operative word. I knew forever more that the Impala was the car to
drive, but Dad didn’t let me drive it at all, or only with him, since it was
such a valuable vehicle to him.)
I also remember the Porsche, and I owned it
until just before I got married. It was
a 1978 Porsche 924, and it was a brown-auburn color, like my hair. When Dad
died, Patti and Chris offered to let me buy out their shares in the car, so I
did. Patti drove it from Illinois to
Arizona, and George, the guy I was dating at the time, accompanied me to
Arizona to go retrieve it. George
himself had a Porsche 911 and an Porsche 914, both with amazing, creative paint
jobs, so between the two of us, we had 3 Porsches. Good times. This car had some noisy rattles
in it, being that it was so old, but like Tom Cruise said, “It cornered like it
was on rails.” I loved driving it. Once George and I drove it up to Mammoth, CA
to go skiing, and out in the middle of nowhere we took it up to 100 mph.)
I remember that the
first car my dad and Dave ever had was a 1932 Chevy 4-door sedan that they
bought from someone for $35. It was in bad shape, but Grandpa Stanley knew a
mechanic that helped rebuild the engine and got it running. I think they both
learned how to drive in that car. I think there might even be a picture of it
in some of Dave’s old photos. I seem to remember a photo of it in
front of an apartment building. It would have looked something like this
I also remember from
an early age my dad telling us as kids, that no one would ride with Dave
because he was a crazy driver. When my dad went into the Army in 1950, he
had a 1949 ford convertible, which he had souped-up and left with Dave.
Needless to say, Dave wrecked this car and sold the engine to someone. I have no idea to whom or any other
details.
Part of his driving
issues may have been his eyesight because I do remember him driving out here in
AZ in later years and running over a curb or two. I think his vision was
not the best, but he wouldn’t wear glasses.
(K’s note:
yes, I remember this, too—Dad’s vision issues, but I wasn’t sure that it
was a sight think—I’ll have to ask my mom.
What I do recall is that when he was afflicted with cancer, and I was
out visiting him, he was suddenly driving on the double-yellow line in the
middle of the road. I remember saying,
“Pick a lane, Dad…” Not trying to sound
alarmed, as there were no oncoming cars, but still…)
K: I
need to add a car memory that Matt doesn’t remember, probably because it’s a
vehicle that we didn’t have for very long.
It was a purple Ford Mustang convertible (at least I think it was a
Mustang!) Patti definitely remembers it, but I haven’t spoken to Chris about
it. I think we had this car when I was
really young—preschool to 2nd grade, since I recall driving around
the Des Plains area (where we lived only until the summer I turned 7). I
remember standing on the back seat with the top down and Mom driving over a
particular set of train tracks that I still know of. I think I had a large sucker in my hand. Reckless. Slow, probably, but still a little
un-mom-like!
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