Most of us can name more cars that we've owned than people we've kissed.

Which is the more important event? Owning a car or kissing someone? Maybe because most of us kiss more people than we have cars, we likely remember the cars we had more than the people we've kissed.


But how about if we up it a notch and include sex? Can you name all the people you've had sex with? And, again, can you name all the cars you've had?

Quick now: name both. The clock is ticking. Okay, there was this girl/guy and that car, and then there was that other girl/guy and that other car. Time's up!

Did you name more sex partners or more cars? Or more people you'd kissed? My guess -- and I'm out on a limb here -- is that you correctly remembered more of your cars.

If I'm right, what does that say about us as a people? That we have more kiss/sex partners than we have cars? Or that our cars stick in our minds more than our romantic sex partners do?

Hmmm . . .

My first car was kind of a clunker that I had my dad buy for me while I was in the army, looking forward to coming home and cruising and picking up chicks. I honestly can't recall what it was -- maybe an Oldsmobile? -- with the money I'd sent home -- but it was big and clunky, the kind of car I'd give a lot to have now but which, at the time, spelled "Nerd" even before the word had been invented. A "friend" told me I should say I'd won it in a poker game.


For the record, I'd already kissed a number of girls by then and even had sex with some. And yes, I can remember them all, but probably not as well as I can remember that car, which ran well but looked like something my grandpa should be driving.

The second car my dad helped me buy -- with my money again -- was an old black Cadillac. He loved Cadillacs, knowing -- as I didn't -- that they were not just good-looking but also strong and sturdy. When I promptly got into a wreck with that one -- driving too fast -- it almost totally destroyed the car I ran into, a 1950 Ford sitting innocently in its driveway. I ran it into a tree.

The car I bought when I came back home from the war was a '62 Chevy, a beautiful one-owner that I subsequently ran into a bridge on my way home from a drunken party during which I took a pistol away from a woman who was about to shoot her husband. (That's another story.) My big brother, now deceased, sold off most of its parts and later denied it. (But that's another story, too.) During that same time, when I was young and dumb and married for the first time, I had an older Buick that the guy at the neighborhood service station passed on its inspection just because he liked me. I didn't wreck that one but later had to surrender all my cars to the bank after I let my (now ex-) wife do our finances. I rode buses around Austin, Texas, for a year.


In the meantime, despite being married -- still young -- I did kiss some girls, though I'm not proud of it. (She probably kissed guys, too.) No sex, though. I was married, right?


My first vehicle after that was a 1968 red Ford Ranchero pickup, my first truck, and by then, with my marriage heading south, I was kissing anyone who would kiss me and having sex with some -- memorable in some instances, not so much in others (for them, too, I suspect). Sad to say, I wrecked that one, too, when I turned in front of someone who whacked me. (My fault.)
I eventually sold it, for not much, to a guy who wanted a beat-up truck to herd his cows. I think he gave me $400.


I was divorced not much later and stopped kissing girls other than my future wife.


Nowadays I drive a min-van and don't kiss anyone.


Do I miss those days? Yes and no. I'll never regret kissing girls and will always regret the ones I could have kissed and didn't. All guys regret not kissing, or having sex with, girls they knew.
It's just part of being a guy. Shameful, maybe, but true. (I'm sure girls think the same, but I'm not privvy to their thinking on this.) For guys, it's just part of our pathology.


But do I miss those cars? Again, yes and no. I wish I had that '62 Chevy back again. I would baby it and preserve it. I might do the same for the 1959 Thunderbird that my big brother sold out from under me while I was in the army (and swore that our father had sold it).

I really wish I had that 1952 black Cadillac again. At the time, it was so un-cool but now it would be a dream car, worth restoring. It was built like a tank and drove like a dream. And when I ran it into that 1950 Ford, when I was young and driving too fast, the Ford crumpled like a Coke cup under my wheels. Yes, I got a ticket, and yes, recompense was made, but that's the car I wish I had back.

(Since then, by the way, I've been a very good driver.)

Do I remember the names of the girls I kissed (and did more with) while I owned those cars? Some I do, some I don't. I'm not even sure I remember all their faces. Do I remember the cars? Yes, I do.

What does that say about me? About guys? About our society?

Not sure, but give me the right girl in the right car on a moonlit night, and I'm transported back to those innocent years when everything seemed possible.

That's what it's all about, no?