Bonneville

My mom and dad drove me to Hanover College in September 1967 in a blue Bonneville Pontiac. I learned to drive in that car. I thought of that Pontiac and the burnt orange and cream colored Fire Chief we had with the orange and cream colored leather seats before we traded it in for the Bonneville when I heard Friday that GM was stopping production of its Pontiac line.
After the Bonneville we never had another Pontiac, but they were the car of choice for our family during my childhood. I remember the purchase of each of the three (was it three?) Pontiacs we had and the Saturdays spent with my dad wiping on car wax, waiting for it to dry and then rubbing a shine into the finish until you could see your reflection in the fender. I haven't done that since. But it was a ritual in the summers growing up in Kokomo, IN.
Charlie Conkle had the Pontiac dealership in Kokomo when I was growing up. He passed it to his son, Charles Jr. and he to his son. We did our car buying business with the first Charlie of that line. His wife, Juanita, was my grandmother Georgia's best friend. They were an elegant couple. Charlie was tall and lean and a smoker. He'd unroll himself from behind his desk in the dealership and walk onto the showroom when he saw my mom and dad and I enter on our infrequent car-shopping treks. It was an event. We'd ponder the cars, considering the cost, ask about the previous owner because we never bought new, always used. And always from Charlie Conkle. The blue Bonneville was our most luxurious car. I sat in its backseat for endless drives to Indianpolis to shop for clothes before school began in the fall; on Sunday drives after church; for Christmas shopping at Blocks or Ayres in Indianapolis and to Lake Michigan in the summer. I'd lie in that backseat on my way home from trips to Indianapolis , my mom and dad in the front seat talking. My feeling that I couldn't possibly be safer or happier than on those night excursions with my dad driving and me watching the Indiana dark sky roll by like I was in some kind of spaceship or cocoon.
Like the newspaper industry, the car industry is changing, fading. And some brands, deeply rooted in memories of my childhood, are dying. When we were in Kokomo in March I saw that Conkle's used car lot on Indiana 24 was closed. It's lot empty.