MOM AND HER COOL CARS

My mother always had great taste in cars. When I was 4, Mom and Dad drove all of us, four children age 3 to 7, up the Alcan Highway to Alaska. (The South Dakota National Guard was in Alaska to protect against Russian invasion during the Korean War.)

For the drive up the Alcan Highway, our car was a real "woody" station wagon, the kind that surfers now long to own.

When I was about 11, Mom bought a DeSoto limited edition Adventurer. It was white, with gold trim, LOTS of chrome and HUGE tail fins with multiple tail lights. Mom drove it at or below the speed limit. The car's mechanic was forced, forced I tell you, to drive the car at high speeds in order to keep it operating correctly. Restored versions are selling for over $30,000.

When my brother, one year older than I am, went to college, Mom recovered the car seats of the Adventurer with gold material. She then gave it to my brother to drive back and forth between Onida and the University of South Dakota.

I joined my brother at USD one year later. We spent many hours in the car my brother called "The Golden Barge." He would laugh at the VW bugs just coming onto the South Dakota highways. "I am in a tank," he would say, "don't mess with me."

Later, when my own children went to college, I understood the impulse to surround a teenager with 2000 pounds of American steel. This was because I remember that my brother never had to have the mechanic drive the Adventurer at high speeds. I never had to ask why.