I was searching for a job and an opening was advertised in Fort Morgan, some ninety miles northeast down the South Platte River from Denver. When I had moved to Boulder some four years earlier, I entered Colorado on I-76 (then still called I-80 S) from Nebraska, close to that right angle that encloses Colorado on the north and east, at night, and I was curious as to what might lie out there in the daylight hours. I remembered driving through rolling country and the feeling that we were at a high elevation, surrounded by dark and more dark. I asked a friend to drive me out to the interview, thinking, "Yeah, I'll check out this place."

I was qualified for the job, and an offer was made. Chief among my qualifications, I assume, was the lack of response from the Denver metro area, and lack of equally qualified people locally. One hitch was attached to my acceptance, I would need a car, because I would be required to circuit ride the far northeastern corner of the state.

I had prided myself on my ability to survive in Boulder quite readily without a car. While there is certainly a freedom that one derives from car ownership, there is another freedom altogether associated with not owning a car -- freeing oneself from expenses, mostly, maintenance, insurance and parking. In addition, in most instances American cars are too large and consume too much energy, contribute inordinately to pollution (and perhaps not recognized at that time, global warming) and destabilizing international geopolitics.

Of course, not having owned a car in four years created an intrigue to explore that other freedom. And if I were to live ninety miles from my friends and the mountains that had first enticed me to settle in this area, it would be nice to exercise that freedom to leave Fort Morgan on weekends. I found an ad in the paper for a 1964 Chevrolet Bel Air for about $500. My first car had been a 1963 Chevrolet Impala convertible , a bronze color, some nine years or so earlier, for which I had paid $300 then, a body style that was a classic of Detroit design, and the Impala was the top of the line for Chevrolet. I tried to remember how the model had evolved after 1963, and I thought that I hadn't liked the design changes that followed, a bland look I seemed to recall from my first years of high school. Nevertheless, the price seemed good, and if the car was in reasonable shape, it would be a good buy. The owner told me over the phone that he was an Australian living with his family in Boulder and taking classes at the University of Colorado for a year, and that he had purchased the car from another Australian who had spent the previous year at C.U.

But, as I pulled up into the parking lot where the car was parked, I realized that 1964 was the final year of the design that I thought was so dynamic, the culmination of that design. The grill was flatter than 1963, simpler and more understated, as was the redesign of the back and taillights, a final touch on a template that had evolved through 1962 and 1963. This one was a four-door, pale beige, ivory or light tan color, Bel Air the family car of the Chevrolet line at that time.

I had been looking for a car with a manual transmission, and this car had it, with a three speed shifter on the steering column, the no longer seen "three on the tree." The six cylinder engine, though not the smallest available, was substantially smaller than several V-eights Chevrolet offered in those days. But plenty large for the kind of driving I expected to do. And the added simplicity for maintenance I intended to do myself, and savings in increased gas mileage, this was the car I didn't even know I was looking for.