My Classic Car: Jim’s 1965 Chevrolet Corvette

My dad was always a car guy. As I grew up, my mom always had the latest Caddy while he had various models of Fords and Chevys.

In the early ’80s he traded my mom’s Cadillac for a Datsun 200SX. We thought he went mad when, in fact, he had already accepted the fact that imports were more reliable and starting to get quite stylish.

The picture is him in Yuma, Arizona, where he was a border patrol officer standing with my sister in front of his 1963 Ford Galaxie 500. He had just married my mom — and her fie kids.

He was a great man with a great work ethic. He married into an “instant” family and was a devoted husband until his death in 1997.

While I wish I would have spent more time with him, my true wish would be to sit with him and talk cars. As it turns out, I think I’m a just as much a car guy has he was (see my ’65 Corvette) as evidence.

— Jim Harper, Dallas