By the time I got through tenth grade, my khakis and sport shirt and deck shoes (very comfortable!) set me apart like a great white shark swimming through a sea of blue denim. I am telling you, it didn’t hurt with the girls, either.
Chapter 14: Junior Year
September 1971
In the Seventies, it was a lot simpler getting a driver’s license as a teen than it is nowadays. You could get your learner’s permit when you were still fifteen, and then get your license when you were sixteen, as long as you had taken Driver’s Ed classes and passed the tests at DMV. Now you get different grades of license, all depending on how old you are, but back then, if you had a license, you could drive. I was going to be sixteen in another couple of months, and I wanted my license.
On the first trip through, Hamilton and I weren’t even allowed to get our learner’s permits until we were seventeen. By the time we went through driver’s ed and took the tests, it was the spring of our senior years before we got our licenses, and we weren’t allowed our own cars. Well, fair is fair, neither of us had any money to buy a car. We could only drive Mom’s old 67 Dodge Dart, and we ran that sucker into the ground!
I raised the subject at dinner after school started in September. “Dad, what does your company do with the company cars when you turn them in?” Dad had driven a company car for years, mostly station wagons, but had now started to drive sedans. He always had some work gloves and steel toe boots and a hard hat in the back, for going to quarries and job sites.
He shrugged. “They sell them. Harry T. Campbell’s doesn’t actually own the cars. They’re owned by a leasing company. Why?”
“What’s a leasing company?” asked Hamilton.
I didn’t look at him and we all just ignored him. “How’s that work? After so many years you give it to them and they give you a new one?”
“What’s a leasing company?” pressed my brother. He hated being left out of a conversation. If it wasn’t about him, nobody else should talk.
I looked over at him. “I’m talking to Dad, not you.” and then turned back to Dad.
Dad was on the verge of answering when Ham started complaining. Mom cuffed him on the back of the head and told him to be quiet, which he did grudgingly. Dad waited for this little Hamilton drama to finish before answering. “Pretty much. They’re typically three year leases, so every three years I give them back my car and they give me a list of three or four new cars I can get, and I pick one. Why?”
I didn’t answer directly. “What do they do with the old cars?”
“Sell them. Why?” he continued.
“Give me a moment. Can anyone buy one?”
He looked at me very curiously. “I suppose. I know they offer them to the employees first, but then I suppose they auction them off. Where are you going with this?”
“Is it only when you turn them in, or can you buy one at other times?”
He crossed his arms and stared at me. It was obvious he had figured out what I was up to. “It’s a big leasing company. Every month they send out a list of cars and prices. Tell me why you’re asking.”
“I’m going to need to buy a car, and I figured a corporate model might be better than going to Honest Abe’s Used Car Emporium out in Timonium.”
As expected, the room erupted in nonsense. Mom said I wasn’t old enough to drive, and besides, I didn’t have a license or money. Hamilton protested I wasn’t allowed to — I guess it was in the rules somewhere. Suzie thought it was a great idea. Nana didn’t understand. Dad just sat there staring at me.
This was not at all a crazy idea. Way back when, Hamilton and I had driven that poor Dodge Dart to death, and it finally gave up the ghost in 1976. When that happened and Mom needed another car, Dad bought one from the leasing company. It was located in Youngstown, Ohio, so he loaded me on a shuttle to Pittsburgh and then on to Youngstown, and had me drive it home. Why couldn’t we do the same thing now?
Dad silenced the room and then said, “Everybody be quiet and give him a chance to talk.”
“I will not! This is ridiculous and I won’t stand for it!” replied Mom.
Dad gave her an aggrieved look and said, “Shirley, let the boy talk. You’ll get a chance later.” Mom huffed but crossed her own arms and waited in a bad mood. Dad looked back at me and motioned for me to continue.
I took a deep breath. “Okay. First, I am going to need a car by January. I will be starting to take college courses over at Towson State then. I will need to get back and forth between Towson High and Towson State. There is no bus service. I could take a bus from Towson State to here, but it would take at least one transfer and then it dumps me up on York Road. Unless of course one of you wants to leave work and drive me back and forth.”
Dad lifted an eyebrow at that but didn’t stop me. “There’s no reason I can’t buy a car. I will pay for the car, gas, and insurance. It won’t cost you anything.” I glanced over at Mom and her face was getting red. “Finally, as long as you sign off on it, I can take driver’s ed now, before I turn 16, and then can take the tests in November. If we time it right, I can get it all done that first week in November.”
“Shirley?” Dad said, inviting her response.
“No. We’re not buying you a car. That’s the end of it.”
“Mother, you wouldn’t be buying me anything. I already have the money to pay for a car. It’s like I said, I’ll buy the car and pay for gas and insurance.”
“Where did you get money to buy a car? Answer me that!” she demanded.
“From the lawsuit three years ago, remember?”
“That’s for college. You can’t have that.”
Mom was really pissing me off, because even after three years, she still thought of that money as her own. It was a damn good thing I had Dad’s name on the account with me instead of hers. “Mom, I have already tripled the money I kept in the brokerage account. I can afford just about anything this side of Harvard already. In two years I’ll be able to afford that.” Even including room and board, you could go to Harvard for about ten grand a year in the early Seventies. This was before tuition increases began to rival the increases in health care costs. “Would you like me to write a check, or do you prefer cash?”
“You tripled it?” interjected Dad incredulously.
I turned to face him. “Large cap stocks such as ITT and LTV are changing growth modes from stock acquisitions to cash, increasing market volatility. Volatility is opportunity.” My Advanced Finance Professor at Fairleigh Dickinson had taken us through the conglomerate formations and breakups in the Sixties and Seventies, and as I worked at ITT at the time I had followed it keenly.
Dad shook his head in amazement. “What about driver’s ed?”
“I can go to a night school in Towson. They advertise in the Yellow Pages. I need 10 hours instruction and another 10 hours of practice, and then I take the written test at DMV and the driving test. We do that the week I turn 16. I’ll pay for the classes and the cost at the DMV.”
“Darn right you will,” he replied.
“Charlie! This is ridiculous! We’re not letting him have a car! The next thing you know, Hamilton will be demanding a car, too!” Mom said. Hamilton perked up at this, an eager look to his face.
“Yeah, well when Hamilton can pay for his own car, we’ll talk about that. Besides, he’s only 13.” Hamilton’s shoulders slumped at this, and he looked daggers at me. Like I cared. “Besides, you know he’ll need a car at Towson State. I can’t drive him back and forth and neither can you. Be realistic!”