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[Note from the Proprietor: This is a guest post written by Mike Botz, who for some strange reason DOESN'T have a blog yet. (Go figure...) However, that doesn't mean he can't participate in this month's What I Learned From... groupwrite project! Here's his entry:]

I don’t think you can write a story about transportation without discussing our love affair with the automobile. From the time we start to walk those cars of our lives make lasting impressions.

My story starts in 1968 when like most boys my age, I wanted a car. It didn’t have to be fancy or expensive, because I had unlimited ambition. Actually any car with 4 wheels would have fit the bill.

Day by day I searched high and low taking different paths to school in hopes of discovering just the right one. In those days the classified ads had not evolved to the point where they could provide much help, so I had to rely on good old small town networking.

Lo and behold a friend of a friend knew a guy who knew a guy—-before I knew it I was the proud owner of a 1961 Chevy 4 door Bel Air.  It was beautiful from end to end, with only one exception, it didn’t run.

This was a small hurdle when you’re in love; after all you wouldn’t break-up with the love of your life after discovering some small blemish -would you?

I had no history in car repair, but how hard could it be?

I discovered one of the keys to life under the hood of that 61′ Chevy. It’s simple: You discover what you’re good at by eliminating those things you are bad at, and I was bad at motor repair. It took me about 6 months to finally get her running, but it was worth all the effort. After all I was 15 and I had wheels—-life was good.

Over my life like most of you, I have owned several cars. Each one holds a special part in my heart, not to mention most of the money I earned during those days. They each represented more than simple freedom or transportation for they WERE my identity.

Time after time my life story revolved around cars and what they could provide. If I simply needed to get away from oppressive parents, all I had to do was climb in and drive. It seemed to me that even women in those days chose men by what they drove.

Few emotions in life are so directly tied to memory like Love, and I have a great collection of these past loves. I was even warned by my father to watch out for what he called “car fever”, and if you think about it—he was right. You spot your future love from afar and it’s love at first sight. Oh it’s not the perfect car for you, but it has possibilities. After all love is blind, and that big scratch could surly be buffed out.

Hindsight they say makes us see better, but when I look back I fall in love all over again. I would give a lot to drive each of my beauties one more time, to roll down those windows, and drive them one more time sounds like heaven. In fact would it be sacrilegious for me to expect to see them in heaven when I die? I think not for the God I serve knows the desires of my heart.

“Back in the day” one of the greatest friends of the car lover was a JC Whitney catalog. Anyone who has fallen in love with a car should remember those great catalogs. Each one provided unlimited possibilities for car transformation. After all they are the Victoria’s Secrets of the car world. I remember those catalogs being hidden away in the same places men hide VS catalogs.

As I get older it seems that love for cars just doesn’t hold the same bittersweet emotion it once did. Maybe it’s plastic where good old American steel once was, or the fact that few shade tree mechanics can even work on cars today. Either way I still have my memories, and no one can take them away from me.

The other day I passed the graveyard, and shed a tear for what was. Oh it wasn’t the cemetery for people it was the scrap yard.

Cars are just transportation now, a necessary evil; in fact I wonder how long Americans can continue to own almost a car per person.

So the other day my love was rekindled when a guy rode up on a bicycle retrofitted with a small engine. It gets over 150 mpg with speeds up to 35mph. Oh it’s not a 61 Chevy, but it’s freedom from high gas prices, and if I mount one of these small engines on my old 66 Schwinn bike, a bridge is built to my past.

Here is a link to my new love: http://snurl.com/2xcq4 (Note: link takes you to eBay)

Go fall in love again—–with transportation.

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