Hot Wheels
Whether called “Alexander Beetle,” “the Hippo” or a Buick with “a land yacht’s attitude,” they have one thing in common—they are the fondly recalled first cars of Dickinson graduates. Our call for submissions in January yielded nine lively responses. Surprisingly, three alumni still own the cars they drove in college, including a 1966 Mustang. One of our faithful first-car enthusiasts, Bruce Balderson ’85, is featured on the cover and in a lead profile for this special feature. This issue focuses, too, on America’s love affair with automobiles and travel, with commentary by Cotten Seiler, assistant professor of American studies, and an ode to Route 66 by Joseph Winberry ’79. We also highlight two young graduates, one with a red-hot ride, the other who is furthering the family car business. While many of our vehicles featured are heavy gas guzzlers, we also celebrate the more socially conscious among the Dickinson family, those who have sought fuel efficiency and pollution control by going hybrid.
A Hotchee and a Hot Car
Bruce Balderson ’85’s Chevelle fever lingers 25 years on
 By Barbara Snyder Stambaugh
Folks who own old cars are a happy, if afflicted, bunch. If you ask, they’ll explain the causes of their condition. They’ll say, “My dad had a car like this, so I bought one,” or “This is the car I wish I’d had in high school, so I built one.” And they’ll tell you their symptoms, too—“I’m running out of garage space,” or “I’ve spent a fortune on parts for this thing.”
Call it old-car fever.
Bruce Balderson ’85 has causes and symptoms, too, but he gets off easier than most. His fever is mild, almost imperceptible, except for a few symptoms that he can’t deny: he owns a light-yellow 1972 Chevelle Malibu convertible—a real looker—and he’s been spied at Spring Carlisle—one of the biggest car shows in the world.
As he walked around the old fairgrounds on the northern edge of Carlisle in April, jostling between crowds of people and aisles of auto paraphernalia, Balderson said that he acquired his low-grade fever by default.
“I’ve had this car for so long that I can’t get rid of it now,” he said.
He bought the Chevelle in high school and then drove it off and on during his years as an economics major at Dickinson. But when he started law school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1986, he tucked the car away in a friend’s garage for a “long winter’s nap”—a nap that lasted 10 years.
In 1996, his everyday car gave out, so he decided to drag the old Chevelle back into service, at least for one summer.
“I cleaned out its accumulated contents,” he said, “including the directions, which I found under the seat, from my first trip to my now-wife’s [Stacey Wittmeyer Balderson ’86] house, and I had the car taken by flatbed truck to a mechanic where it was restored to drivable condition.”
A few months later winter weather sent the car back inside, where it has remained ever since, except for some short outings and a complete body restoration in 1997.
It was around this time that a few traditions were born. Every other year or so, Balderson makes the trip from his home in Moorestown, N.J., to Carlisle. He visits a few Dickinson friends, and he hits the car show to rummage through boxes, looking for “new old-stock” parts—usually small cosmetic items, like knobs or chrome pieces. And he’s always well prepared for his parts quest with a brown-bagged, toted-to-the-car-show Hotchee-Burger lunch from the Hamilton Restaurant in downtown Carlisle.
Balderson remembers an earlier trip to the car show, back when he was still a student at Dickinson. It was a fraternity father-son weekend.
“My father and I came to the car show together,” he says with that tone grown-up sons often use when remembering special things they did with their dads.
This spring, after munching down the traditional Hotchee lunch, Balderson kept an eye out for a new rear bumper, saying that his was a little banged up. As for the more mechanical parts offered for sale at the car show, Balderson said he didn’t know what most of them were.
“Really,” he smiled, admitting that he’s no mechanic, “I don’t know anything about cars. I’m a real-estate lawyer.”
For a self-confessed nonmotorhead, Balderson has some pretty good car connections. Wife Stacey is a chemist for DuPont, a NASCAR sponsor, which means the Baldersons have access to race events and to DuPont’s most famous driver, Jeff Gordon.
“We’re having dinner with Jeff next month,” he said, “and we have pictures of our kids with him. He’s a really nice person.”
Balderson believes the excitement of meeting a racing legend like Gordon was probably lost on his kids because they were too young, but the old Chevelle once gave his son a genuine moment of wonderment.
Reeves, 6, had never been in the front seat of any car until one lovely day, when dad took him for a ride around the block in the old car. The sun was shining and the top was down, but, he noticed, his son wasn’t looking at the passing view—Reeves kept his eyes locked on Balderson’s feet. After a few puzzled moments, it became clear that perspective was everything … because kids sit in the back seat, they can’t see the floor of the car, so Reeves had no idea that cars had pedals and that feet were involved in driving.
Like so many old-car stories, it was another parent-child moment in time, one that Balderson won’t forget.
And maybe someday Reeves or his sister Shea, 4, will go traipsing around the Carlisle car show, looking for old parts or pausing to gaze at a light-yellow convertible, remembering how their dad had a car just like that.
 Alexander the Great
This is my first car, Alexander Beetle, a 1958 (?) VW bug bought while I was a sophomore living in Biddle (visible to the left in the photo). Roger Harris ’77 drove me to the car lot in his bug. No salespeople were around, so Roger and I blithely started taking the car apart to check out the brakes and such, until we were interrupted by the cops who had been called by the dealer who was watching from across the street. Luckily “our” dealer arrived back from his lunch break, and Roger and I weren’t hauled off to jail.
Other than fiberglassing the floor under the driver’s seat so that I wouldn’t be splashed when driving over puddles, I did all the work on that car myself ... valve jobs, tune-ups, etc., until one sad day on a dirt road up in Vermont when poor Alexander’s fuel line broke in the engine compartment, and he went up in flames.
My second car, a baby-blue ’67 bug, I bought with the certainty that it would have the same karma as Alexander. No such luck. A baby-blue lemon without soul. I have never found a car the equal of Alexander, and I have stopped searching.
Alice Bisbee ’77
Hull, Mass.
 Song of the Skylark
You never forget your first love; I’ll never forget my first car. It wasn’t pretty. But I loved that car. Its color—rust brown. Its size—behemoth. Make/model—’72 Buick Skylark. My love had nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with freedom.
I remember driving up and down hill, through the apple orchards around Dillsburg, on my way back to Maryland. I was flying really, with the stereo pounding JT or CCR or some other band I loved. I barely drove
the car in Carlisle, but classmates may remember it parked by the side of the road on Louther or College streets. Or that when I opened the trunk, you could see right through to the ground.
That car turns up in dreams still—garaged and perfect in every way. I even tried to write about it in Robert Olmstead’s poetry class. That car carried me to student teaching at Boiling Springs High School and around the block a few times with the souped-up muscle cars. It carried me west on the turnpike to some great weekend parties in Bedford, Pa. You’d turn left at the wooden cow and be on your way.
My memories are tied to that car, memories like no other. And yes, I got caught speeding a couple of times.
Galen McGovern ’87
Kingston, R.I.
 Mustang Freedom
My first car was and still is my 1966 Mustang. I bought my burgundy Mustang with a black interior the summer of 1966, after I graduated from Dickinson. I have owned it for 39 years and absolutely love it! When I am driving my Mustang, I feel free and ageless. People wave, toot their horns and want to buy it. Needless to say, it is not for sale. I kept my car just because I love it. I had no idea it would become a “classic.”
I have driven it 182,000 miles. After 120,000 miles, I had to get a new engine. Other than a fresh coat of paint about 10 years ago and the typical repairs to any car, I have not altered the original look. I tried to keep the original parts even if they showed a bit of rust. That only adds character.
Today, I drive my Mustang on sunny weekends, enjoying every moment I am behind the wheel. Everyone should experience this kind of freedom!
Kay Cadwallader Dambrosia ’66
Silver Spring, Md.
 Model-A Memories
On Christmas morning 1957, the presents had been exchanged and opened. My father asked my mother to ride with him to his business in town (highly unusual) while I watched my younger brother and sister. When my parents returned up the driveway, there was not only the family Buick but an amazing, noisy sight. Rumbling in the drive with a huge red ribbon over the hood was the best Christmas present ever, a shiny, black Model A Tudor sedan that my father had bartered for with scrap metal and cash. The wonderful presents under the beautiful tree and the sumptuous Christmas dinner faded in importance as I took family, friends and neighbors on introductory excursions.
I drove that wonderful machine through the last of my teenage years. In high school I began restoring it, learning about auto repair from my grandfather. The old “A” and I did lots of scary things together.
In 1962, I left Dickinson for the Navy, and the car was sold. Ten years later, I was on a sales trip driving Route 30 through Fraser, Pa., when I saw my car for sale. I made the error of telling the seller that this had been my car, and he promptly quoted me $950, a price at which I balked. I checked with my family to see if that was an inflated price. They responded that they had been quoted $1,200. My brother finally found the owner who had consigned the car, and I bought her back for $695, only to sell her again 10 years later for $2,500.
I miss that old girl and may look for her again.
F. Scott Greenfield ’64
West Grove, Pa.
 The Little Car that Could
The icy, nightly bicycle ride to George’s Florist from Conway Hall finally convinced me that I needed a car. Once there, it was a battle between my list of Russian verbs or stoking the roaring furnace at the 17-greenhouse complex, a job where a snow-sparked drop in temperature could threaten bloom damage. So, come spring, I became the proud owner of a used light-blue 1947 Crosley four-passenger sedan, complete with a World War II-surplus marine engine. It was so super compact that, when empty, I could lift its back end off the ground!
By the time my GI educational benefits ran out, the little car carried me (at 50 mph and 50 mpg) to a summer construction job near Santa Fe, N.M., later, to a night-clerk job at Green Acres Hotel on the Harrisburg Pike and, finally, to the Dickinson-supported Washington Semester Program at American University. There, in 1949, I schmoozed with ambassadors, lobbyists and congressmen while researching the politics of the Pan American Highway.
Sadly, though, one dark winter night just before Christmas, in a mechanic’s dingy repair yard, my little Crosley, starved for parts, went to that big junk yard in the sky.
Requiescat in pieces!
Richard R. Renner ’50
Gainesville, Fla.
 Day Tripping with The Hippo
She was big, gray and had a huge set of chrome teeth, so I called her The Hippo. She was my first car, a $150 bargain “driven only to church on Sundays by a minister.”
In those days—days of “real steel”—cars were so big and powerful that she frequently transported eight of our starting hockey players to games. Unfortunately, that stopped when the usually faithful Hippo broke down on the way to a tournament at Millersville. We wound up hitchhiking to the tournament and missed the first two games!
The Hippo, a 1953 DeSoto Firedome V-8, also was used as a “party car” for gatherings at Opossum Lake. Because eight people could fit into the seats and another two or three in the trunk, she would go to the drive-in movies on dollar-a-car nights. She also was used as a moving van for road rallies and as transportation for my student teaching.
The Hippo was an important part of my Dickinson life. In fact, she was so important to me that I still own her. She has been restored once and is waiting for me to retire so that I can work on her second restoration.
Karen N. Pflug-Felder ’71
Collegeville, Pa.
 Austin’s Powers
I am pictured here with my first automobile, a 1957 Austin Healey 100/Six. It cleared the road by only 5.5 inches, and its snug-fitting bucket seats gave the sensation that one was wearing the car rather than driving it. While motoring back to campus from the Deer Lodge one starry night, the hood latch unintentionally released and caused the wind to blow the engine hood back over the windshield. Fortunately, I was stopped before a major accident occurred, but the incident gave my date and me quite a scare.
In all my life, no other material possession has given me so much joie de vivre as that sassy little red sports car.
Dick Hepner ’60
Salisbury, Md.
 Land-yacht Attitude
My first car is forever tied to Dickinson. A red 1963 Buick with the lines, edges and angles of the period, it had a land yacht’s attitude. It was my bridge from home to Carlisle, from escape to anticipation in one trip. On warm days, my arm out the window, no worries about skin cancers or insect impacts, it floated me toward my goals. In winter, it oozed its way along Pennsylvania roads ever on the edge between control and fear.
It took a load of WDCV’ers to an FCC licensing in Philadelphia and back, or at least in front of the War College, before it grew tired of rain and decided to stop. It died a Dickinsonian’s death in Baltimore, just before my graduation, transmission lost in front of a bar on the bad side of town. With me was Robin Mayper ’77, en route to an end-of-school party at the Bay Ridge home of another friend, Beth Barker ’77. Noble in its death, the Buick donated its tires and wheels to Roger Lowe ’77’s gray hearse.
Now I’m the one who is high mileage, understanding the pleasures of being in park and not drive but still ready for a long drive to nowhere.
The photo is of a sister ship, accurate except for the subtleties of character. •
R.H. Booz ’75
Durham, Conn
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