Meet my Love Bug.

The first two cars I remember are my Mom's white 1960 Buick Invicta Hardtop (one of the "fin" models) and my Dad's 1957 black Volkswagon Beetle. Both cars had red interiors. My Mom drove Buicks from the late 1950s until 1991. She didn't drive stick, and she usually chose a roomy model that would be suitable for transporting five people on family vacations. For example, we drove that White Invicta, which Mom called her "Swan," from Chicago to Toronto, and then through Niagara Falls to Cape Cod in the summer of 1963. The car had no air conditioning, and I remember feeling quite green on the red vinyl of the back bench seat. During another trip, we took a mid-1960s gold LeSabre from Chicago to Montana and then up the Alaska Highway. Automatic transmission and power steering!

My Dad instead chose European cars with manua transmissions. There were two VW Beetles followed by a Volvo. When the Volvo was struck and totaled on a Chicago Expressway, Dad opted for economic prudence and bought a Buick Skylark. He hated that car, and it eventually got passed down to me. He then bought a VW Rabbit in 1979. Dad had great faith in German engineering.

Suburban Chicago, April 1961. I sit on the bumper of my Dad's black VW Beetle. An original: the engine was in the rear, the trunk was in the front, it had no headrests, no safety belts, and no car seats. Dad took me to Brookfield Zoo in this vehicle nearly every Sunday. I already am making that grown-up facial expression that I commonly struck for the lens.