The fact that the Shirley men dabble in automobiles is a well known fact. I have therefore decided to stay true to the Shirley Creed, which more or less states that if it is older, runs more roughly, requires ten times more maintenance, but looks like a cruiser from American Graffiti, we as Shirley men must have it.
Mark owns a 1967 Ford Fairlane, and my dad owns a whole fleet of oldies. No one ever asked him how he could possibly drive them all at the same time, but he -IS- talented... As such my first car showcased is my 1968 Chevelle SS. It in fact does hold true to the Shirley Creed and has not made me a liar yet. I have Christened the dear beast 'Memphis Belle' after a long and oh so fun drive from New York to Michigan in the driving snow without a heater. At least the moisture from our breath sufficiently obscured the windows so that we could not see the other automobiles and their toasty warm passengers. What would we have done without that ice scraper inside? In 1995, I was so young...
This is a picture of the Chevelle when I paid for it. See how purty and shiny it was?
The plan was for my dad and I to drive it from Florida, where I bought it, to Michigan and then
to West Point for my senior year. Just ask how reliable these 30 year old cars can be!
Obscure trivia question: Who is the recently departed sticking out of the windshield area on the background picture?
Hint- it isn't me!
This is a picture of the Chevelle twenty minutes after pulling out of the parking lot. Of course, it was a very large bump in the road! But really, those parts are from another attempt at getting a reliable car, a car which has proved even more costly, a 1989 Ford Probe GT. I don't have any pictures because that car makes me too mad to deal with it. This picture of the Chevelle was taken after both cars' engines decided to leave me a Dear Matt letter.
After those fiascos, I decided to get a different sort of vehicle. This one goes from zero
to sixty in about 20 seconds, weighs 25 tons, (yes that is 50,000 pounds) and can kill you from
over two and a half miles away with a wire guided missile. Yep, you could say that people kept
out of my way on the highway. It cost you a half a million dollars though.
I'll talk about this one a little more during Lieutenant Years. The short story on this is that I had the privilege of being one of the first two platoon leaders of a fully equipped Engineer Bradley Fighting Vehicle platoon in the entire US Army. I learned a lot about how to think 'outside the box' in developing how the engineers fight out of this infantry vehicle. My company (a total of nine vehicle crews, four of which were mine to lead) qualified 'Q1' which at that time was the best company qualification score in the entire division. The plow you see is a special design made specifically for defeating enemy surface-laid mines on relatively even ground (such as clearing a road of enemy artillery delivered mines).
Well after returning from California on maneuvers in my Bradleys, I decided to break the Shirley Curse (which is what Pauline calls the Shirley Creed) and buy a new car. I waited for it for months and finally picked it up in Michigan in February 1999 and drove it to Texas the next day.
It still looks pretty much like this now, because I have been pretty vigilant on getting things
fixed (like door dents and paint scuffs from scared 18-year old girls). Hey I may have crashed
every car that I have owned (except the Anal Probe) but it usually wasn't my fault. In fact, I am
blameless except for the COP! on Horton Road and the ski slope/road in da Yoo-Pee. You
should have seen that Volvo that rear-ended me in New Jersey. The CD player in the Chevelle
skipped for a second, but the Volvo 'Crumple Zones' sure do work great.
Bowling take me away from this horrible web site!
Back to my main page. On to my thoughts on life.