1982-1993 – My Toyota Tercel

My first car was a white Toyota Tercel, a stick-shift car which I loved and cherished as if it was my first baby. Just before my driver's test I attended two 2-hour classes on drivers' safety and there I received what will always be the best safety advice I ever heard of. It was the concept of ’periscope driving.’ The teacher taught us how to use the periscope mentality to predict what’s coming from your right and left, keep track of what’s going on behind you, through the rear-view mirror, and of course, keep your eyes in front. It’s a simple technique to be aware of what’s going on around you,  all the time. My first ever drive in my Toyota with my friend Fr John Heinlein was as historic as it was nerve-wracking, as he wanted me to experience expressway driving in the rain, and boy was it scary, driving in pounding rain on the Meadowbrook Parkway, late at night. I don’t ever remember so much rain in a span of 5 minutes, but it was a baptism of fire, let alone water. Then my first solo ride was also quite interesting as well as disappointing. It was a short ride to a local store and I parked the car where there were a lot of garbage cans on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, I did not see the fire-hydrant in their midst and within 3 minutes, I got a ticket for illegal parking (close to a fire hydrant.) I was pretty upset until I got back to the Rectory and my pastor Fr John calmed me down and convinced me it was just a minor infraction which everybody gets once in a while. It would take another 30 years for me to get my second and only other ticket in my stellar driving career. More on that on another day. 

But all in all my Toyota Tercel gave me a lot of driving pleasure, as I remember driving 60 miles at a stretch for the first time ever, from New Hyde Park to Riverhead on Long Island. My biggest trips were for upstate New York, and even into Canada through the Adirondack’s.  Looking back I realize how brave I was to drive through the bizarre neighborhoods of Queens and Brooklyn, over the Verrazzano Bridge, all over Long Island, and over many bridges to head upstate New York, where traffic was much less hectic, and the scenery spectacular, especially between October and November, with the colorful foliage that is so prevalent at this time of the year. Stay tuned for my second car tomorrow.