The Silver Bullet

Three months once I graduated from university, and one month before I started flight training to come to be a U.S. Naval Aviator, I bought a slightly used Datsun 280Z sports activities car. My father notion that I had misplaced my mind when I advised him that I traded a three-yr-vintage Dodge Dart that sported the famed "slant six" engine for a coupe without a trunk. I did no longer inform him that the loss of the tricked out stereo machine (focused on an 8 song tape player) inside the Dodge had bothered me the maximum. I gave the automobile supplier my whole collection of 50 eight track tapes with the alternate in due to the fact the 280Z featured a new (on the time) cassette tape deck with the stereo gadget.

I named my 280Z (sterling silver in color) "The Silver Bullet." I have become "The Lone Ranger," no longer a lot due to the call of my vehicle, however because my "almost engaged with me" university female friend started to question her lifestyles as a destiny Navy spouse. She had two years of college in the front of her, and I changed into now not with her in Charleston, SC. Suitors told her that if she married me she would end up "a sea widow" after I deployed with my ship for plenty months at a time. Guess what? Apparently the auto does make the man. The Silver Bullet have become a head turner and shortly I dropped the inappropriate Lone Ranger name for me.

The Silver Bullet moved like the wind itself! I especially cherished to race it on I-10 (East-West Interstate Highway 10) on weekend nights when I traveled among Naval Air Station Whiting Field and Pensacola, to "Trader's Johns" (well-known Naval Aviator dance and dinner club). On numerous activities, the police stopped me for rushing. Lucky for me, whenever, the officer desired to check out The Silver Bullet. I showed officials how I may want to increase and lower the radio antenna by using flipping a transfer in the cockpit. Who could write a traffic price tag after in view that?

One 12 months after I sold the 280Z I engaged to marry a Pensacola girl. Then, I confronted the awful prospect of helping each a wife and a sports car. I negotiated with my credit score union to increase the loan for the auto. The loan officer informed me that the credit score union might handiest do that in an emergency situation. "I am getting married," I discovered, which qualified as an emergency. I got the lady and I stored the car! Six months after marriage, I received the Wings of Gold and a designation as a Naval Aviator. My new wife, a guinea pig in a cage, and I drove away in The Silver Bullet on a shiny summer morning, to start the journey that the Navy promised and delivered to us.