LTD(IV)

It’s hard for a lot of people now to appreciate the size of old cars. I was thinking about that this week–and it brought a couple things to mind with my beautiful LTD (RIP).

I was thinking about there being streets in Davenport I couldn’t drive down–because parking was permitted on both sides of the street and that if people didn’t park properly, I couldn’t get down the street.

I was also thinking about a trip to Des Moines in my car to go see “The Running Man” back at the start of December, 1987. We had a big group going–though I don’t completely remember who went along. What I remember is putting nine people in the LTD. We had four up front, five in the back. I think it was Sid Johnson up front with his girlfriend sitting on his lap. In the back, four people were back there with a fifth laying across them.

Thinking about it–wow, that was totally unsafe. Did I mention that was before seatbelts were mandatory? Did I mention that shoulder belts were separate from lap belts? Should I mention there were no airbags either? Yeah…two tons of metal hurtling down the road at 65mph (which was speeding since the limit was 55 back then). The funny thing–it seems unsafe now but back then when I was 19, it seemed perfectly reasonable. It’s funny what age does to your thought process.