Like Grandpa Leo, I liked my cars! (Part 1 of 3?)

The most imortant part in my life: Learning to drive stick!
When I had my temp license in December 1991, my cousin Nick Thompson was brave (or foolish!) enough to teach me to drive stick shift in his Volkswagon GTI. It was a snowy night, and since there was enough snow on the ground to spin the wheels a little bit, I quickly learned to start without killing the engine, burning off too much of his tires or the clutch for that matter. It was a piece of cake and I was thrilled.

Car #1: Absolute P-O-S.
I turned 16 on February 8, 1992. Probably within a month or so, I bought my first piece of junk: a 1984 Chevy Cavalier. But the key to me was that it had a stick shift. I paid $400 for the car from someone at my high school named April Johnson, and I surely paid too much! I had to add a quart of oil every time I filled up with gas, which was about 200 miles or so. A friend of my dad's named Chuck Meudt helped me change out the faulty air pump and also taught me to replace the Throttle Body Injector because the car didn't idle right. I tried 3 different TBI's from a junk yard and the car never did run right. By July, I was done with that car. I'm not sure who I sold it to. Seems like I still sold it for $325. I was working at Piggly Wiggly grocery store and earning about $3.85 per hour.

Car #2: Luxury?
In July 1992, I bought a 1983 Pontiac 6000 LE from an older man in west Madison. He was the original owner and worked in sales, so it has 160,000 miles on it. I paid $1600 for this car. It was silver, and the interior was a bit worn but completely clean. The car was loaded with options including power seats, A/C, power windows and locks, and even had a CB radio for cruising East Wash. This was the car in which I started to build the boomin' system. I built a custom subwoofer box for the trunk. Chris Cormack, Peter Luttrell, Bill Franks and I made a few trips to the Sony Outlet Store in Kenosha to pick up great stereo parts. I installed new speakers and a 10-disc changer, amplifier, and head unit. Other than the rattles, it was a pretty great system. In Mr. Ableidinger's Physics class, we even used the decibel meter: I was able to crank out 126dB it seems. Yes, I have a little bit of ringing in my ears. Kids, don't try this yourselves.

The engine ran great for over a year; I eventually started to have problems with the radiator and the transmission. The torque converter clutch was failing, and I had to carry several gallons of water with me during the summer of 1993 because of the leaky radiator. I started searching for a new car, and I unloaded the silver Pontiac 6000 for about $1100, with 177,000 miles on it.

Car #3: My hot rod
My third car was the one that nearly did me in. It was my prized, shiny black 1986 Chevy Cavalier Z24 with a 4-speed and a sunroof. How could I have been so foolish to buy another Chevy Cavalier, you ask? Well, I reasoned that since this one had the same V6 as my excellent Pontiac did, then it must be an OK car! Man, was I wrong. It seems like I bought the car for $2100, but it must have cost me at least that much again in repairs... probably even $3K in repairs over the next year that I owned it. I was young and foolish, and boy, did I want a hot fast car. I paid for it dearly.

The boomin' system came over to this car; I was pretty much an expert at pulling door panels and dashboards apart between the ages of 16 and 25. The V6 and 4-speed were pretty fast. Granted, nothing like the 1980-ish Camaro that Tom Virnig had (105 MPH on Hwy I one time), nor like the 1984-ish Mustang 5.0 of Craig Koltes. But all the same, this was MY hot car.

Then winter came. The timing chain jumped a sprocket and cost me $$. The bearings in the camshaft started to fail and I had low oil pressure. Spring came, and some hag backed into me in a parking garage when I took my ACT test or something like that at UW-Madison. The Herbrand's german shepherd even dented the car with his teeth because that crazy dog used to chase cars that went past their farm on Easy Street. I couldn't win with this lemon. It must have spent more time in the shop than it did running, but I can't even remember what all the problems were.

Finally, the camshaft bearing just simply failed. It actually happened when some guy was test driving the car as I was trying to sell it. The engine had a knock. In the end, I sold the car for about $1500 to a guy named Dale Payne who used to be a manager when I worked at McDonalds. Funny thing is, he lives down the street from the house I built in Conservancy Place now. I worked for my dad and also at McDonalds at some point during this process. I know at McDonald's I made between $4.25 and $5.25 during this time period, because I started as a weekend opener.

More cars to come another day!

My reasons to start blogging

I've been learning about the family history on my Mom's side for the last few years. My grandpa Leo Tennie died in 2004, and my grandma Dorathy Tennie died the day after my birthday, February 9, 2008. I spent a fair amount of time with Grandma Tennie in the 18 months preceding her death and got to talk to her about a lot of things. But even more importantly, Grandpa Tennie was a prolific writer and even more a record keeper. Since I never know what this life may hold or when I could be called home to my Lord, I should start writing now.



Moreover, I recently joined Facebook and found out just how many Degnan's there are in the nation and world. I had never heard anything about my dad's side of the family, but I was pretty sure he has no Degnan first-cousins. We got together with my parents for dinner and I learned a lot more. My mom had something my dad's sister wrote a few years ago with Degnan family history going all the way back 5 generations to Ireland! So between the information from Grandpa Tennie and Aunt Judy, I now know a little more about both sides of my family.

I'll trace the Degnan family back to Longford County, Ireland.

But, as I was reading what Grandpa Tennie wrote tonight, I noticed how he really likes to talk about his cars. And that might just be my first set of personal history.

Off on a new adventure.