Ah, here we go again: 2024 now lost in the pages of history, 2025 sliding in to create a clean slate in its place.
This came to mind as I noticed that I’d forgotten to unpin last year’s calendar from the wall in my now home-based office and replace it with this year’s model, an oversight I suspect I’m guilty of on a regular basis.
Normally, if I remember correctly, Mary Contreras, our longtime insurance agent, landlord and friend, and the reliable provider of State Farm-imprinted calendars to the apparent horde who surely have been on her distribution list for something close to forever, never misses an opportunity to make sure we’ve posted the newest version.
“Did you get a 2025 calendar?” she asked when we breezed by each other in her office entryway a few days ago.
Although I recently moved out of the space that we shared in Mary’s Warner Century Plaza office for 20 or so years, I still drop by regularly to catch up on the latest goings-on.
And, inevitably it seems at this time of year or a bit earlier, to pick up a calendar.
Because I had discarded the one she handed out last year before posting the 2025 update, I can’t recall what the theme was. Puppies, maybe? Seems like I would have remembered that one. Toddlers? Hmm, probably not.
I can tell you, though, the 12 months featured in this year’s calendar definitely caught my eye.
Cars. Eight-by-10 color photographs of those big gas-guzzlers from the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s. Cars I mostly never owned but yearned for. Cars whose make and model I once could recite in the blink of an eye. And, in a lot of cases if I happened to spot one today, probably still could.
Even though I readily admit, even to the sneers of friends, that I’d buy one of those newfangled-design parallelograms on wheels — I think it’s called a cyber truck — I still have a place in my heart for some of the ones that are featured among the dozen oldtimers selected for a corresponding month of 2025.
January? 1969’s Chevrolet Camaro. The muscle classic that even 30-year-olds like me at the time would have traded a girlfriend’s Beetle for. Or maybe even the girlfriend herself.
February? 1955 Nash Rambler Country Club. What a beast that one was.
Manual three-speed gearbox, 90 hp, 16.7 mpg, 86 mph top speed. Not sure what the cost of that baby was, but even at bargain prices it wouldn’t have made any difference. We thought it looked like an upside-down bathtub.
Long and short of this discussion is that if you’re as much of a car nut as I am, you might want to drop by Mary’s office one day and pick up a calendar.
If you care to compare favorites, mine is November, the 1957 Ford Fairlane convertible. I actually owned one like that, including the whitewall tires.
Buyer beware, though: the zipper on the plastic window of the fold-down top went off its track about the sixth month I owned that beauty, and I spent six months of every year nearly freezing my tail off. Even with the top up.
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