What is a monkeybox?

When I was a little girl, we had a pet monkey named Amanda. My Dad worked in the produce business, so each night he brought home that days culls in a big box - spotty cucumbers, pithy apples, limp celery, moldy oranges and the like. We called it a monkeybox. It was really just trash, but my Mom would take each piece of fruit and trim it, pare it and cut it up to make a beautiful fruit platter for Amanda. Even though it was deemed trash by one, it still had life left in it and was good for the purpose we needed it. That's how I live my life - thrifting, yard saling, looking for another's trash to be my treasure.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Pink Cadillac

When I was growing up, we had a lot of cars. My Dad would buy one and we would drive it awhile. A few weeks, a few months, maybe even a year and then he would sell it. Sometimes he would buy one and sell it a few days later. Sometimes my Mom couldn't find her car at the grocery store because she couldn't remember what she had driven there.
This is only a small part of the ones that I actually remember us owning....

Red Cadillac
White Cadillac
Green Cadillac
Black Cadillac
1937 Oldsmobile
Red Volkswagen Beetle

White Volkswagen Beetle (painted with Daisies!)
Blue Volkswagen Bus
Red Volkswagen Bus
Gray Thunderbird
Blue 1973 Mustang
Brown Mustang
White Subaru
MG Sprite
MG

These are just the ones I can remember. There were more. Many more. One time when I was just a baby we were living in Kansas. We had this very long driveway and I think the story was that he had six cars parked one behind the other. He went out to leave for work and the back one wouldn't start. He had to call a cab (or ride his bike, I can't remember) to take him to work. This was very unsettling to my to mother who was not happy about having six cars in the first place.

My dad got off work at 3:00 in the afternoon, so he often picked me up from school. I never knew what he would be driving, so I picked a parking spot across the street at a Church for him to wait for me. That way I could always find him now matter what he was driving. One day he picked me up in an old chippy peeling paint pickup. My crush was walking with me and I was mortified that he saw me getting into that truck. Ack! I begged my Dad not to ever pick me up in that again! The next day he picked me up in our cherry red 1963 Split Window Corvette. Much better. The crush was impressed! (Sadly, only with the car.....)
So, with all these strange cars coming and going, I never knew quite what to expect to see in our driveway on any given day. You can imagine my horror when I got off the bus one day and saw this in the driveway.

A hearse! A real honest to goodness hearse complete with a million little doors and pockets in the back that we never, ever ever opened the entire time we owned it. Ever. My dad was under strict orders to never, never, ever, ever pick me up from school in the hearse. Ever. I don't remember him ever doing it, so he either didn't do it or I have blocked it out and it will come out in therapy one day. I do remember that he would load up his buddies and they would go through the drive up window at the local donut shop and order through the driver's window and then pull up a bit so the guys in the back could order too. They found it hysterical. The donut lady? Not so much.

And, after all these years, I still never know what my Dad will be driving when I see him pull in my driveway. As long as it isn't a hearse - that's fine by me.

*All photos gleaned from the Internet but are exactly what we had. The Hearse photo is our actual car. Why I only have a photo of that one, is beyond me!

**I was going to title this "Little Red Corvette" by Prince, but that song is so totally not about a car. Oh my! We never actually had a pink Cadillac, but man, that would have been so cool!

6 comments:

  1. My husband would LOVE your dad! Right now at our house we have a Pontiac G6, Jeep Wrangler, GMC truck, smashed up Chevy truck that exists mainly to lure mosquitoes, Mitsubishi 3000GT, and a Harley, a chopper and a Harley re-build. I make him park them either in his workshop or behind it so I don't have to look outside and feel like I live at a used car lot. Boys and their toys, sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. that was too funny! great cars...especially the corvette. not so much the hearse...lol

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have always told my sons that if I won the lottery I would by a pink cadellic with giant fins and have rhinestones covering the steering wheel. How fun would that be.

    I'm catching up with postings after spending three days in bed with a nasty cold that turned to asthma issues. Just getting back up to my old self and have missed all of my blogging friends. Hope to be caught soon and back to posting on my own blog. Hugs to you. Sea Witch

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your dad sounds like a real character! An obvious car lover, for sure! I remember my Mom picking me up from school in our cherry red Pontiac LeMans, with mag wheels. When I would come out of school, there would be lots of boys standing around the car. I loved it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. My husband would love your dad too!One of DH's goals in life is to drive a hearse with "Abra-cadaver" painted on the side. I started to tell him "Over my dead. . .oh never mind".

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think my husband and your dad would get along just fine. Although hubby would probably be driving his 33 yeal old classic el camino. We have three vehicles at the moment, but we are about to have a driving daughter. We did have a 2nd el camino, but it was stripped for parts for the one hubby drives. Men and their cars - yet he can't understand why my daughter and I are addicted to shoes! :)

    ReplyDelete

I love my comments. I'd love to respond to everyone, but if you don't have an email address tied to your ID, please sign your name so I will know who you are! It makes it nice to know who is saying what. Now, leave a comment! Please? ;o)

I Can See You!



Look at my Visitors!

Fellow Junk Followers