LX Marks the Spot: A Mama, a Ford, and the Road to Firsts
The day I learned that blessings sometimes drive in on four wheels—and sometimes wear a red pinstripe.
When I turned sixteen, I didn’t just get my license. I got my first taste of freedom. We lived twenty minutes from the nearest town, and as any small-town kid will tell you, getting a car wasn't about luxury. It was survival. Especially when you’ve landed your first job and your mama has made it clear she’s not driving you there every day.
Our town had two car dealerships. Two. If you didn’t like what was on either of those lots, well, maybe you didn’t want a car bad enough.
So one weekday afternoon, my mama and I headed up the road to go car shopping together. It felt like a rite of passage. Just a mother and her teenage son, walking the gravel between rows of pre-owned dreams, with a budget tighter than a drum.
I had my eye on the crown jewel: a white 1991 Ford Escort LX. I didn’t know what “LX” stood for, but I knew it made the car sound cooler. Ignore the fact that it was a four-door sedan built for gas mileage and grandparents—it had LX on the back. That was enough. To this day when asked about my first car, I never leave off the LX. Never.
But Mama and I were also realists. We needed practical. We needed economical. And we found it, if you could call it that, in a black Ford Festiva. I don’t remember the year, but I do remember it looked like a box with wheels. It had a red pinstripe going down the side, as if someone tried to dress it up for prom at the last second.
We did the paperwork. Told the salesman we’d be back in the morning to sign and drive.
That night, I told myself I was grateful. I was getting a car. That was more than a lot of sixteen-year-olds had. But man, I still wanted that Escort. The Festiva felt like a compromise wrapped in duct tape.
The next morning, we returned, ready to buy…and the Festiva was gone. Sold out from under us. I stood there in a weird swirl of disappointment and joy. The car I was supposed to buy had vanished. I was upset. And also relieved.
Mama could tell.
She turned to the salesman and asked with a smile, “Can we see the Escort?”
I don’t know if it was strategy, instinct, or just pure Mama magic, but within an hour, we were test-driving my dream car. After a bit of haggling, we drove off the lot with the Ford Escort LX. My name on the insurance. Hers on the check.
It had 40,000 miles on it and smelled like whatever they put in brand-new dashboards. Turns out, the only previous owner was an older lady who apparently just used it for groceries and church. The thing was spotless and practically purring.
And Mama?
Turns out, that was the first car she ever bought on her own. Just her and a teenage boy with a part-time job and a big dream.
That car got me to work and back. It got me to friends’ houses, fast food drive-thrus, and late-night Sonic runs. It taught me how to check the oil, how to roll windows down before automatic became standard, and how to fill up a tank on exactly $3.00. (Gas was 89 cents a gallon. I am not joking. Those were the days.)
But what I remember most about that car is not what it did, but what it meant. It was a shared milestone. A first for me. A first for Mama. And it all started with a Festiva that conveniently vanished at just the right time.
God knew what He was doing.
Sometimes the best parts of growing up aren’t the ones we plan for. They’re the ones that show up unexpectedly, like a shiny used Ford Escort LX on a gravel lot in a two-dealership town.
From the Writer:
There are few things as bonding as a first car… unless it’s buying one with your mama. If you liked this story, there are plenty more from life in the slow lane (and the carpool lane) at gritandwit.substack.com. Subscribe, share, and let’s trade car stories sometime.