My first car was a 1963 Rambler. My dad bought it for me in 1971 because I needed transportation to get from college to my student teaching assignment. A boxy looking sedan, engineered by the American Motors Corporation to be economical and sturdy, the Rambler was not exactly what I envisioned as my first ride. A putrid pink, somewhere between flesh color and throw up, I nearly fainted when Dad drove home with it. On one of my first outings, I turned the wheel too much while backing out of a parking space and scraped the whole side of the car parked next to me. It looked like it had been hit by a semi-truck. My car did not have one scratch. Made of solid iron, I named my pink baby El Tanque, the tank. A few weeks later, I t-boned a mustang that belonged to some high school football hero who lived down the street from us. For the record, the kid was at fault this time and not I, so he got the citation. I was following him when he slowed down and rode along the curb on