We bought a 1973 Volvo Station Wagon in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Paid $14,000. But received a $2,000 rebate because we contracted to take delivery in Sweden during the summer months I wasn’t teaching. The rebate bought airplane tickets to Gothenburg and back from Paris, where we would leave the wagon to ship to Norfolk, Virginia.
If these prices sound low in 2020, remember the ’73 Reagan dollar overseas bought one hundred drachmas in Greece.
By the time we reached Yugoslavia, we had driven from the Swedish Volvo plant to Denmark, Holland, France, Germany, Italy, most of Greece, and Macedonia. Driving through Yugoslavia we saw women working in the fields while a man sat on a tractor seat smoking. Several times, after we parked in a town to buy a roll of bread, meat, cheese and a bottle of wine—our usual roadside park lunch—women waved to us as we left town.
Margaret drove when we left Sarejevo. She soon parked us in a long line. The road ahead was under repair ahead of the 1974 Winter Olympics in Sarejevo. She sat behind the wheel while we waited two hours. When cars in the other lane were cleared to drive to the city, many drivers honked as they passed.
Later we went to a nearby store. As I bought Margaret a soft drink, I met a hydro-electric engineer who spoke good English. He insisted on buying me a ‘piva.’ I bought the second. We got along fine. Friendly enough that in the second hour of waiting, he asked a personal question.
“Something wrong with you? Physical, I mean. I see your wife is driving.”
I answered that we shared the driving. It was Margaret’s turn to drive.
“Well you need to know, in Yugoslavia women don’t drive.”
