My first car. A story about a kids first love.

It was the early 90's, I was 12 at the time and I only had one want, one need, and that was my first car. I had worked all summer mowing lawns and other jobs and I finally had some money, not a lot, but at that time $100 made me rich, this was before craigslist, or e-bay, so me and my dad went down every back road and up every holler trying to find a hidden gem. I was so impatient, I thought it would be easy, boy was I wrong, but I finally found it, hidden in some weeds was my first love, a 1976 Ford Maverick. It was in rough shape, and it wouldn't start, but it had everything I wanted, it was sporty, it had a V8, and it was not a Mustang, or Camaro, so it would be something that everyone else didn't have. We drag it from its grave and take it home, where I planned on resurrecting it. My uncle tinkered with it and after changing the fuel line it finally came to life, it was running rough, but it was running and that's what mattered to me. I saved up a few more bucks and got some oil, a filter, plugs and wires and got to work, I loved it. Laying under that old car waiting for the oil to drain, busting my knuckles while wrenching on it, in my mind I was no longer a kid, I was now a man, a man with a car! I finally got it running right and now it was time to have some fun, I was finally going to get to drive it, so I fired it up, put it in gear and off I went. It felt amazing, it wasn't pretty. but that 302 ran fine and that's the only thing that mattered. Now that it was running good I focused on making it look good, it already had the right color, a nice red, it was faded, but a lil' wax would sort it out, the few rough spots I sanded and painted. I spend every spare second working on that car, I knew it would never be a Lambo, or a Ferrari, but it was mine and after putting all that time into bringing it back to life, I formed a bond with it, I knew this would be the car that I would cruise the streets with after I get my license, the car I would take my first girlfriend out in, there would be a lot of first in this car, it was my world. Sadly, there was one thing I could not fix, the frame was completely gone, all the plans I had made were shattered, I was devastated. None of those things happened in that car, instead it was a 91 grand prix, a car that I loathed, not because it was a bad car, but because it wasn't my first car. I parted out the Maverick and ended up making more back than I had in it, but I still felt like I had lost out. I have always wanted to get another Maverick, but being an adult trumps fulfilling a childhood dream. That car made me who I am today, and now that my dad has passed, whenever I think back about that ol' car, I can;t help but think about working on it with him and the time we spent searching for my first car.