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STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND
The Perpetual Upgrade Machine of Suburban Life in the 1960s
Chapter 2: A split-level on a cul-de-sac, a car in the carport, and intolerance
A car in the carport
We didn’t have a car when we lived in the house on Macdonnel Avenue. Everything we needed was nearby, and Dad worked for himself fixing up houses so he didn’t have a commute. I think he got rides from our cousin John, who owned a taxi, if he needed to carry tools to a job site. But after Dad sold the income properties and we moved to Etobicoke in suburban Toronto, he got a full time job working at Kobi’s Cabinets way over on the other side of town. It was time to buy our family’s first car.
Until the late 1990s, when he bought a new Mazda sedan, Dad bought only used cars. It wasn’t about money. Dad had cash to buy a new car if he wanted to. And it wasn’t that Dad was stingy, although he was. No, Dad’s perspective was practical. A car is like a warm winter coat, utilitarian and necessary. Used works just as well, so why buy new?
Dad was not just practical, though. He also had an instinctive sense of style. If you saw him in the 60s or 70s, he’d be wearing a tailored suit and pocket square, a crisply ironed shirt, a nice fedora, and a…
