A Man, His Two Chevy Vans, and the Lessons of Fatherhood

I turned 43 a little over three weeks ago.

During the course of my lifetime, I recall my parents owning a Chevrolet van for all but seven years of my time, and for those seven years, it wasn’t the need to follow the worker bee crowd to an extended cab pickup with the legendary Z-71 suspension and four-wheel-drive option as much as having a vehicle that got us around without ever having to visit a repair shop:  The Bow Ties simply had to be there through thick and thin - jobs that took Dad all over the state, moving both of his sons into dorms, apartments, and back home from two college towns 201 miles apart following cars that today neither of us would want anywhere near our own driveways save for brief flashes of nostalgia. Well, my brother's Camaro might still bring a bit of positive trade-in value even in its tired condition – which is more than what I could ever say of my Topaz that once I left it in the Northland Hyundai (now Crain Hyundai of North Little Rock) parking lot on Labor Day 2004, it signified the end of an era in itself.

Let me tell the story as best as I remember:

Van No. 1 was a gray 1978 Chevy cargo van. No frilly conversion van from Starcraft, Explorer, Choo Choo, Mark III or any of the other American-built custom van manufacturers nor even the wild paint jobs, shag carpet, disco balls, velour beds or the assorted questionable choices of the custom van era as evidenced from the stack of Vannin’ magazines and J.C. Whitney catalogs would suffice this working man.

Not the gray van I was looking for but you get the idea

More than likely, it was the vehicle I took my first ride home from the hospital – and being a Sunday baby, it was the beginning of hauling more stuff than just DJ equipment and people in the two captain’s chair Dad ordered and installed not to mention the wooden bench constructed for a third row to prevent extra passengers from sliding around from one end to the other freely. It was my introduction to the workhorses the outer world tended to overlook yet it kept his tools dry and safe from prying eyes as it was authentically a work vehicle first and foremost. Sure, Dad later added a vent and swapped out those ugly wheel covers for a set of mag wheels – and even in the height of the A-Team craze, the van maintained its all-purpose utility until it was totaled ten years later.

Seven years passed along to Van No. 2:  a red 1995 Chevy Astro.

It’s still in the yard, and as replacement part inventories have dried up for that generation, the trusty soldier sits ready for another round of hard work not fully knowing its time has come and gone. Antique plate? No, sir; that would bring it – and us, to an extent – to an acknowledgment of how time moves so quickly with nary a reminder to slow down. As the perfect primary vehicle for everything else we did in addition to the one I learned how to drive in, the Astro was positively high falutin’ with its power door locks and windows, driver’s air bag, fuel-injected V6 engine, and the one feature that is criminally underrated:  Dutch doors. The Corsica next to it in the driveway became Mom’s car – it too was a beast mechanically and we all know broken Chevrolets last longer than some marques run at all as my own Mercury was a prime example of unreliability through glass automatic transmissions and my automotive misadventures with the stereo system that sapped batteries, alternators, and starter motors – but that van led a legendary existence over the past 26 years.

So…what do two Chevy vans have to do with my still-evolving relationship with my dad? More than you think – and would ever know.

I should have written and shared this story by now, but as we find ourselves living life in the moment as God intended, some things find themselves fallen by the wayside until a retrospective opportunity presents itself, and Father’s Day was one of those days.

Not the Astro I grew up with but can you imagine #vanlife lifted? 

I know that this is the final van he will own since there is a really nice Camaro that doubles as a daily driver and retirement gift to himself, a Lumina that belonged to his mother, a brand new copper Blazer Mom has only driven for the past month or so, and the fact my brother and I own Ram pickups today (Oh, what sacrilege!), and as General Motors exited the van business save the positively ancient Express/Savanna vans that are only sold to fleets, construction companies, airports, and churches, but its parallels toward how someone is viewed from teenage eyes to a more weathered approach of not being that bad. Maybe in a fit of nostalgia and evolution from not understanding his own life and work experiences to cherishing the true value of longevity and reliability. In other words, Dad has always been there; as I heard stories from his friends have told my buddies, the things that truly mattered were not the ones that held a specific price tag or a burning need to follow the crowd inasmuch the value that comes from remaining true to himself through a sturdy moral code and leading by example.

Do I think I would join him as a van owner? Only if some Chrysler dealer can find my family a matte gray Pacifica hybrid with a dual-panel moonroof at a reasonable price. With two exceptions, Dad always bought new cars when the time and money aligned and perhaps the longevity is the result. Having grown up in a time period where cars revealed more of a person’s character than the magic number in a bank account, one man and his two Chevy vans embodied the timeless Like a Rock campaign, and for 36 of my 43 years, seeing the red van sporting a gold Bow Tie would transport me through my own adolescence and the memories of that gray one long gone to the crusher or whichever automotive graveyard it spent its final days scavenged for parts to help other third-generation G10/20/30 vans continue their existence.

Like both vans, Dad has a purpose. After 74 years, that purpose continues to define who he is.