The 1958 Caddie

Yes, this is us. My mother, me, and my sister  accepting the keys for a 1958 Cadillac we won at a gas station.   The San Jose State prof-- that would be my father--is nowhere in evidence.  He might have had to teach that day (or he might have thought that art professors should not be seen with Cadillacs.).

There was no question of us keeping the car, but my mother dressed up in her fake fur stole, and my sister and I put on matching fuzzy knit hats with our school dresses and patent leather shoes, and off we went for the publicity photo.

The actual car we won was red, with fins, and the proceeds from its sale became the seed money for a trip to England the following summer. My mother hadn't seen her family since 1947, when she emigrated to marry my father, whom she'd met in London during World War II.

Family lore.