The other day, Otis, the used car dealer, pulled out a wad of bills and handed my son two crisp C-notes. That’s all Danny’s ’98 Pontiac Grand-Am was worth anymore, but the rite of passage it had provided was invaluable.

Danny purchased his car from Otis years earlier with $3,000 saved from two summers of maintenance work at the local golf course. The Grand-Am served him well, but it didn’t really shape his development or fuel memories the way a first car did in my day. That was the 1960s, when kids with cars reached a zenith. Movies such as “American Graffiti” and TV shows like “Happy Days” celebrated a time when teens lucky enough to have wheels drove just for the sake of driving — often up and down the same block for hours at a time.

My first car was a two-seat ’57 Thunderbird convertible. Never mind that by the time I got it the rag top was missing, the seats were ripped and rust had eaten through the fenders. It was a classic, and it was mine.

For three months before my 16th birthday I spent afternoons polishing the T-Bird and most evenings cruising in our driveway — a distance of about 150 feet. I listened to WABC on the radio and fantasized about driving with my girlfriend, Diane, on Grand Street in our small town of Croton, N.Y., about 40 miles north of Manhattan.

Statistics show that since the ‘60s the percentage of American teens owning cars has declined steadily. Today’s kids tend to ride bikes, scooters and even roller blades, while those with cars are mostly interested in getting from Point A to B and back. They’re not like George Lucas, who made “American Graffiti” after what he said were, “four years of my life cruising the streets of my hometown, Modesto, California.”

In my neighborhood, cops were always looking for me and the T-Bird. That’s because soon after I got my junior license, which prohibited after-sunset driving, I was caught coming out of Robbins Pharmacy after the deadline. I beat the case in court, with Mrs. Robbins testifying that although it was after sunset when I left her store, I never actually drove; I was immediately ticketed and my parents came to take me home. For the next two years local police were determined to catch me doing something wrong — which served to make me a remarkably careful teenage motorist.

Then there was the time I drove the T-Bird off the road and deep into the woods near Silver Lake, where Diane and I made love for the first time. The windows steamed over, the car became stuck in mud, and a woman walking her dog tapped on the door to ask two naked teens whether we “need help.”

I don’t imagine Danny had any such experiences with the Grand-Am. Then again, if he did he probably wouldn’t have told his parents. That’s how it goes with young men and their first cars.

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Copyright 2021 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Funt’s new memoir, “Self-Amused,” is now available at CandidCamera.com.