Ok, my better half and I have this ongoing debate about station wagons. (really interesting life we lead, eh?) Anyway, when I was a kid we had a white station wagon with avacado green interior, how oh, so 70’s. It also had one of those flip up seat things that faced backwards and my brother and I always fought over who got to sit in it. You know what I mean. (if you are over 25ish)
Anyway, here is my question: you have the front seat, you have the back seat, then you have the space BEHIND the back seat, right? What did you call the area behind the back seat? I don’t want to know the “proper” name of that space. (apparently its called the “cargo hold”) I want to know what YOU, as a little bugger, called it.
My hubby, who had very little imagination as a kid, called it “the back”. Yawn. We (my bro and I) called it the “backety-back”. whoo-hoo. I asked some girls at work and I got the “back-back” from one and the “way back” from another.
When I was little, my family called it “the very back.”
Parents would let their kids ride back there without any thought of seatbelts. Amazing, huh?
Later in college, some friends and I used the phrase “backety-back,” but I don’t really recall the context.
My dad had a white Chevy wagon with a vile blue interior, and we called it the White Flash. Later we had a dark green Olds wagon called the Action Wagon.
I guess now they’re wondering what to call that space in the SUV. Ho Hum.
Ahh, the old family wagon. What a heap! Ours was a blue Chevy wagon, boring old blue interior, and an aftermarket A/C that would produce icicles and spit water. Yes, we imaginative kids called the special seat the “back-back” also. In 1972, Dad went wild and crazy, and we got another Chevy Wagon, but this one was…Gold. oohh…ahh. And at ages 12,10 and 6 we still fought over the back-back.
My dad had a '62 or '63 chevy wagon. Only the doors on the driver side opened. We once ran out of gas at the top of the mountain pass above our town and coasted for many many miles, listening to the radio.
Since I was bigger than my brother and sister I got to ride in the Prisoner Holding Area, my dad called it the Drunk Tank also but I also remember it being refered to as the Way Back.
We got to ride in the truck bed with the only instruction being “don’t lean against the tailgate”.
The very back. We had a '69 Plymouth, silver-grey. Eight miles to the gallon, highway, downhill with a tailwind, as Dad used to say.
We used to go on looooong drives to visit my paternal grandmother, who lived several states away. Dad would put the very back seat down, and Mom would make up two beds there for my sister and me. Then she’d spread a huge woolen army blanket over the beds, and flodsis and me would sit there and play with our dolls while driving along the highway. When bedtime came, we’d pull into a service plaza, Mom would fold up the blanket, and flodsis and I would lay down and go to sleep while Mom and Dad took turns driving through the night. I can still smell that wool blanket.
My brother, much older than us girls, was the Guardian of the Ice Chest. He and the chest would share the back seat and get by as best they could. Remember how everything in the ice chest tasted like baloney by lunchtime?
Another vote for “The Way Back.”
We had an early-70’s Chevy Caprice, big, boxy thing with fake wood paneling. Big as a boat. The tailgate opened two ways; either sideways like a door, or flat down (like an oven door).
I can remember riding back there, with the seat folded down, just sitting on the flat surface, the window down (they don’t even go down anymore!), and sitting right by the open window. No seat belts, Dad hauling ass at 60-70 mph 'round the Baltimore Beltway…ahh, the carefree days of my youth.
Now I don’t leave the driveway till the kids are buckled up, the youngest in his carseat and the doors are locked.
Another vote for “wayback” here. Mom was an ER nurse, so sis and I weren’t allowed to fool around in the wayback while somebody was driving. However, we could sleep back there or sit unbelted in either of the back seats while my dad tore down the turnpike at 70 or 75. Go figure. . .
My folks were biiiiiig station wagon fans. I remember a '68 Chevy Bel Air, '72 Olds Custom Cruiser, '77 Buick Estate Wagon, '79 Dodge Aspen (a horrible mistake) and an '87 Ford LTD Crown Victoria in succession throughout my childhood and teenage years. While they were maintained well with regular oil changes and suchlike, my folks were not big on “appearance care” (as the owner’s manual called it) and by the end of their tenure with us most of these cars looked like crap.
The LTD was the car I learned to drive in and used on several dates (including the GF’s junior prom) before I got my own wheels. While it wasn’t the swankiest thing on four Goodyears, it had its charms. Can you say “eight foot long flat load area with the rear seat folded?”
Of course, all of these memories meant that when a '92 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser crossed my path late last year at the right price, I had to have it. Now all I have to do is find somebody to take to the drive-in, but that won’t be too hard. Chicks dig station wagons. Especially ones with phony wood. Right?
Another “way back” checking in. Ours, known as The Behemoth, was blue with a giant rust spot on the hood. At some point, my older sister decided to “help” dad and waxed the fake wood paneling, which resulted in its colors fading considerably and most of it peeling off in long strips over a period of 7 years. When it finally got bad enough that even my dad was embarrassed by it, he went out and bought… a brown station wagon, no fake wood. I was 13 by then, and mortified.
My friends and I loved the way back when we were little. So far away from the parents, and you could face each other! And make faces at the people in the car behind you! It was perfect! On long trips my sister and I could lay out sleeping bags back there and be cozy. Good times, man, good times.
IN MEMORIAM
The Behemoth
1972 - 1988
“back-back”. All other terms for it were banned in 1983.
We always had a station wagon - (6 kids, go figure). I can recall four of them. I hated the backwards facing seats (I got nauseous), but I loved being in the back-back. My sister and I had a game that we would lay in the back-back and would let our bodies move freely in response to the car turning or whathaveyou. Once we ended up in a position, we weren’t allowed to move until the car took another turned and moved us.
Lots of times, when we were stuck upside down or in some painful position, we’d be screaming to Mom “take a left turn!! Take a left turn, NOW!!”
IIRC, we called it the ‘far back’. I loved that station wagon – it was a 1963 Chrysler, white and red two-tone. We had to sell it when a glass gallon jar of fresh whole milk broke in the far back. We’d put them back there on the ride home from a friends dairy, and by the time we got home we had butter forming on the lids. Rough country roads and that boat-like suspension.
Later we had a 1965 Chrysler New Yorker, black on black, with great features. It had the push-button automatic transmission, the shifter was pushbuttons on the dash. It had a rectangular steering wheel, very comfortable. Serious power steering and power brakes – you could parallel park with one finger, and the slightest tap on the brakes was sufficient to spill your soda. It even had dual air conditioners – two compressors, one for the far back.
The radio had an automatic seek feature – press a button on the floor, and a motor ran the knob through the stations, one-by-one, first one way, then the other. If you were really out in the tulies, and there were no good signals, it would keep going until you turned the radio off. The button was right next to the headlight dimmer button – don’t know how many times we changed radio stations instead of dimming the lights.
The engine was stupendous. A 413ci Mopar with a huge 4-bbl. Tremendous torque and top end. Didn’t turn for shit though, so it’s good that the brakes were tough. I used to take it down on Riverside Avenue for stoplight drags and cruising. Kicked ass, what a great sleeper.
I wonder if I can find one to buy now? It would be great for a road trip.
Although our family didn’t own the vehicle (it belonged to friends of ours) the back section of their station wagon was called the “Barf-back” (kinda of sound-a-like to barf bag).
Warning for the vomit intolerant of you, skip this post or risk an episode of sympathetic puking.
The back section was Christened with this moniker after returning from a fellow six-year old’s birthday party–that would make the year 1971 or '72. As 8-10 of us first graders piled into the back section. Kenneth decided he wasn’t feeling well. And to prove the point, he barfed purple all over the back area–no lie it was honest to God purple. I think we had those Grimmace shakes from McDonalds or maybe we just had grape Kool-Aid. Anyhoo, after his first spew, the mother driving the wagon pulled over and cleaned it out while all us kids checked each other for collateral damage, “Eeew, you’ve got some on your sock!” “Uh uh that’s just marker.” So we climb back into the stinking hole and hit the road again. As if barf doesn’t smell bad enough–believe me it worsens in the congested confines of an old station wagon in the middle of a Chicago summer. By now, Kenneth had been advised to lean out the back window (the kind that could be raised or lowered just like all the other windows) if he was feeling ill again. Well, good old Kenneth didn’t want miss another opportunity to barf on his friends so he let loose another round. Repeat cleaning up scenario and add, “Goddammit Kenneth, what did I tell you about leaning outside?!?” Back on the road and third time’s a charm they say, well thankfully Kenneth was pretty well empty by now and although I guess it was technically still vomit, it trickled more like spit-up (but still purple as ever). By the time we made it back to the house to continue the party, one of the adults mentioned taking along barf bags for us wee ones and that then evolved into having us just sit in a giant barf bag which then became sitting in the barf-back.
Whew–that was one memory I didn’t particularly need to relive in graphic detail!
Yep, it’s the wayback. Early 70’s Ford Country Squire (forest green with the classy “wood” trim on the sides.)
Not only did we get to sit in those funky little backwards seats, but my parents would let us put down blankets and pillows in the back and sleep during long trips. Right next to all the luggage and the 50 pound cooler. Good idea.
Yep, I only have vague memories of two of my siblings. Hey, you try to deal with a big family.
And don’t get me started on family reunions - I was one of 46 cousins on one side of the family. Early on, I mastered the judicious use of the words “dude” and “buddy”.
My parents never had a station wagon that I recall but I had one when my kids were young. It was a 1988 Chevy Celebrity Eurosport wagon and I loved that car. It was affectionately called “The Beast”. It was maroon, grey interior, radio, A/C power windows and doors that all worked! Front wheel drive and good tires meant it would go anywhere and never get stuck or spin out. It never once refused to run for me. The "seat if you can call it that was really just a flap that opend up and you could sit in a little carpeted hole. I called that the 3rd seat by the way. The cargo hold was “all the way in the back”
This car still runs somewhere in Michigan. It had over 150,000 miles on it when I gave it to my daughter. She drove it a couple of years and then gave it to her brother in law who “customized it” with straight pipe muffler–for a cool sound, garish paint job and lots of window stickers and dingle balls and such. It was/is truly a damn fine car.
