My dream Caddy
My father made an adequate living as a mid-level exectutive for The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Until the demotion.
As my father entered his early fifties (he spawned me in his late forties), his claustrophobia blossomed -- making the daily commute from Glen Cove to Manhattan an impossibility. My father insisted on taking the train. It was safer than driving. But before emerging at Penn Station, The Long Island Railroad dove under the East River through a darkened tunnel. And the sensation of being buried alive under 100 feet of bedrock and water isn't the best way to begin -- or end -- a work day.
Since there was no chance of us moving into Manhattan (we'd be murdered, raped, or worse I was told repeatedly), my father was given the "opportunity" to open a new branch office in Long Island's equivalent of Siberia: Bohemia. The Insurance Gods smelled weakness and abruptly kicked my poor father to the proverbial career curb.
On a lighter note, my father accepted the demotion with his usual mix of humility, Seconal, and Gilbeys.
Even before his fall from grace, my father worried about money. Growing up in The Great Depression, he learned early on that money was to be feared. Not enjoyed. So he developed a painfully restrictive fiscal tick. Each day, he'd sit at his desk and scratch away for hours on a white legal pad. For the duration of his life, he itemized every expenditure. For him. And my mother. On everything everything including light bulbs, prescriptions, a new couch, a spare house key, toothpaste, olives, eggs, motor oil, a new washing machine, haircuts, stamps, Jello, caulk, Windex, razor blades, a new water heater...etc.
My point is, he wasn't cheap. Just crazy.
Which is why I always felt slightly guilty about my obsession with Cadillacs. I knew how much more depressed my deeply depressed, PTSD-suffering (WWII) father became whenever I asked why he chose to drive a Ford Maverick -- rather than a Cadillac Eldorado. He's shake his Vitalis-slicked head and hiss, "Millionaires drive Cadillacs. And I'm not a millionaire." My response would always be, "Well, I fully intend to be a millionaire some day." To which he'd spit, "No you won't!"
So I spent a lot of time alone in my room mapping my escape. And assembling plastic toy car models. My favorite was an ebony 1964 Cadillac Fleetwood Series Sixty Special with vermillion red interior . It was destroyed when my morbidly obese, sadistic older brother smashed everything in my room as punishment for sneaking into his room and drooling on his Hustlers. Below are two examples of similar Jo-Han models from that period.
It was either this:
Joh-Han 1962 Fleetwood Box
Parts
Or this:
Jo-Han 1964 Cadillac De Ville Convertible Model
Jo-Han 1964 Cadillac De Ville Convertible Box
Ever since -- I have coveted THAT exact car. Not the model. An actual, #1 condition, original example with matching numbers and low mileage. I'll spend hours at a time culling through online sale listings. Or searching through page after page of owner photo galleries on various Cadillac enthusiast sites.
I Found It!
My Car Exists!
My obsession has spread across other Cadillac product lines from that period also. I once spent an entire year manically photographing a 1967 Superior Body Cadillac Ambulance that sat rotting on a local farm.
peterhamiltontravis.com From "view artwork" go to "Anatomy of An Ambulance."
The next summer, I drove 45 minutes each way every day to document some complete stranger's decomposing 1968 Fleetwood limousine. And I even went so far as to befriend a local mortician just to get close to his 1966 Coupe Deville in Caribbean Aqua over white and a perfectly preserved vintage Cadillac hearse.
peterhamiltontravis.com From "view artwork" go to "The Automobile."
