Honda Civics

A grade four student, Olivia, came to my door today with a picture of my 1978 Honda Civic.  It had been taken in the parking lot here at A.V. Graham school in 1987 by her mother, Julie, who had been in my grade 5 class that year.

Not really my 1975 Civic, but it looked exactly like this one.

I have owned two Honda Civics - a brown 1975 sedan and a gold 1978 hatch back, both purchased new.  These cars were somewhere between the size of a Mini and a Pontiac Firefly and had 1,200cc engines (a Harley motorcycle has a larger engine).  I remember a friend of mine at the time telling me that General Motors were considering using the Honda Civic engines in their Cadillacs - for  windshield wiper motors.  Great little cars, one of the first front wheel drives, ran like steady little sewing machines, but unfortunately, like all early Hondas, they rusted out, badly, in only 9 years - both of them!

So in 1987 (yup, by then the '78 Civic was on its last rust encrusted legs) I purchased a new 1987 Mercury Topaz (my first air-conditioned car) because I had to junk the Civic - the front end was poking through the floor.  On the delivery day for my new car, I planned a whole day's lessons around saying good-bye to my Honda.  We created Happy Retirement cards for it, designed brochures about it's retirement home, and even did math work (like finding out how many gallons of gas it had used in its lifetime, the average weekly mileage, how many times the driver's door had been opened and shut, etc.) and after lunch recess, I told them that they were going to do something that they would probably never ever do again (legally) - paint their teacher's car!

I put the students in groups (hood, right or left door, hatchback, right or left fender, wheels, roof, and right or left rear quarter panel), gave them their poster paints along with their two instructions - no bad words and no glass or lights could be painted - and then set them loose.

This is the picture that Julie sent in today of my originally gold coloured Civic.  On the other side that you cannot see, was a very large peace sign.
 

Yes, this is my 1978 gold Honda Civic after being painted by my grade 5 students.

 So, after school, amid the stares and quizzical looks of drivers and pedestrians alike, I drove to the dealership to pick up my new car.  The salesman, a personal friend of mine, met me at the door with, "I've got some bad news, Rick.  Your car didn't arrive today and will not be here until next week."  So guess what I got to drive for a whole week.  Yup, my very own miniature John Lennonmobile!