This is a love of longevity and loyalty

Wimbledon White Mustang

©2011 Joyce Seeger

     As our two-year Peace Corps assignment in the Philippines was ending, Connie McPherson and I enjoyed planning our trip home. Since we had come across the Pacific Ocean, we decided to travel home through Asia and Northern Europe. I would also make a stop in New York City. I had a friend there, named Anne Guilfoile, whom I had met during a summer job while in college. One of the things we would do was go to the World’s Fair in New York City.

      I remember as we neared Kennedy International Airport from London, the pilot announced that because of severe weather in New York City, our flight would land in

 Boston. After going through customs there, we were bused to New York City, but to

 La Guardia Airport rather than JFK. I was a little worried about the airport change, but

 Anne had been informed and met me at La Guardia.

      We enjoyed the fair, and two things still stand out almost 50 years later. One is that

 Pepsi-Cola sponsored a ride called “It’s a Small World” and after the fair this ride was

moved to Disneyland in Anaheim.  The second is The Ford Motor Company Pavilion where I saw their newest car on display. I looked up at the rotating rotunda and fell in love with what I saw.

I decided right then and there that when I got a job I would save my money and buy that car.

      My job was teaching 6^th grade in Racine, Wisconsin, and my salary was $6,600. a year.

 I lived in a room at the YMCA, rode the city bus to my job, and by March 1965 I had saved

 enough to buy my first car, a 1965 Mustang. It was Wimbledon White with black interior, a six-cylinder and three-speed stick shift.

           Because I had gone to college in Iowa and was teaching in Wisconsin, the requirements

 for a teaching credential in Wisconsin specified two additional courses. I needed to take

 these during the summer, and now that I had a car, I decided to register for summer school

 at UCLA. My parents drove to California with me, and after visiting friends in Inglewood

they flew back home. But before we left Wisconsin some friends of theirs reminded them

 that mutual friends, Henry and Irene Seeger, lived in San Bernardino, and suggested

to my parents that they stop and visit them on the way to Los Angeles . So, after a few days

of traveling west in my new Mustang, we checked into the Valley Motel on Mt. Vernon

 Avenue (Route 66) in San Bernardino . After we had some dinner, my mother found the

 Seegers’ number in the phone book and gave them a call. They offered to pick us up at the

 motel and take us to their home for an evening of visiting. These Seegers were people I did

 not know, so I said I would stay at the motel, but when the Seegers arrived , my parents had talked me into going along. When we got to their house I was introduced to their son, and fourteen months later we were married.

The lady, who would be my mother-in-law, served us homemade chocolate cake with ice cream that evening, and throughout the years she always had a homemade dessert on hand to serve to guests or family.

      I drove back to Wisconsin alone at the end of that summer, and since then the Mustang

 has gone across the country often: to the edges of the continent, the bridges and water   

of the Florida Keys, the Canadian countryside all the way to Halifax, Nova Scotia. This included the steep  hills of San Francisco where STOP signs at the tops of the hills, with a stick-shift, were always a challenge. My children both learned to drive in the Mustang, and I still drive it regularly.