The year 1959 was a very good year.

I turned 16 and had a friend with a car — a 1949 Pontiac Chieftain with a homemade muffler.

The old Pontiac moved along with a continuous whine and a permanent list to port, but teenage boys could be stacked inside and the trunk was large enough for the multiple spare tires routinely required.

Stalwart machine that it was, it was primarily limited to joyriding, its occupants singing Kingston Trio songs, for the old Pontiac failed to impress girls. But, on occasion, it would be dispatched on a mission.

That summer, my cousin, Jerry Brandt, got married. A big wedding reception occurred at Memorial Hall, our community’s largest event venue. Beer was served. I had an inside contact.

With six teenage occupants, the old Pontiac idled into position around back by the hall’s double doors. Those doors were open, allowing fresh air to flow into the interior and our access to where beer was being poured from quart bottles. Kegs were seldom used back then.

My contact — whose identity shall remain forever secure — presented us with an opportunity we embraced: an entire case of jumbos was moved into our transport’s commodious trunk.

Despite limitations in stealthiness, the old Pontiac moved us with our acquired success off into the night.

But what success? At 16, none of us liked the taste of beer, preferring instead a Coke or Nehi grape.

Our success was never measured in brews. We had slipped the bonds of teenage giddiness and soared on laughter-silvered wings in a 1949 Pontiac — without the use of alcohol.

But we had a problem: What to do with all that beer?

We hid it in the woods, intending to retrieve it after determining how best to employ it. When we returned, the jumbos were gone. One of our own, craving the attention of others, had divulged their location.

We had been betrayed, our beer replaced with a lesson: betrayal arises from trusted sources.

Which brings me to our school board election.

Three school board candidates are featured on a website sponsored by the Northeast Michigan League of Conservative Education: Eric Lawson, Monica Dziesinski, and Sarah Costain. Below their images and biographies, three “Key Issues” are identified as ideals:

1. Support for school choice vouchers

2. Support for public charter schools

3. The facilitation of homeschooling

These are fine goals for some — Costain’s school-age children all attend a private school — but they are anathema to the public school system, for they deprive it of people and resources, adversely affecting its ability to serve the families of the rest of us.

A few days ago, I attended a candidate forum sponsored by this same sponsoring organization. The three candidates noted above appeared, presented well, and professed a desire to help the children of our community. Still, when asked if they would participate in the school board forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters — a longstanding, independent and religious-neutral community organization — none indicated they would.

Why? What motivates them to serve on our school board when they appear with a sponsoring group that advocates positions contrary to our schools’ best interest, a group that maintains a website advancing a link to a video entitled “Letter to the Church”?

This “letter” claims God is requiring action. Here’s what the guy in the video tells us God will do if we don’t:

“If you are afraid to speak up against cultural Marxism, if you are afraid to speak against critical race theory, if you are afraid to speak up against transgender madness, afraid to speak up against any of these issues — and other issues — God is judging you and will judge you.”

A diatribe of inaccuracy, denial of reality — and a tribute to hate. Is this call to act what motivates the sponsored candidates? And what are those “other issues”? Is there a devil in their details?

Cultural Marxism is a conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact. Critical race theory is the college-level study of institutionalized racism — the existence of which is historically evident. Transgender “madness”? Transgender people are part of the makeup of humanity and are mentioned in recorded history. They have existed since our inception — a matter of biology, not morality.

Our public schools are open to all. The first goal of Michigan’s Strategic Education Plan is that “all students access high-quality instruction regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, economic status, native language, physical, emotional or cognitive abilities.”

Thank God for that.

However, the League of Conservative Education appears to maintain otherwise. Do their sponsored candidates concur?

Public education is the foundation of our country’s prosperity and prominence. It honors the promise inherent in our nation’s traditional motto: e pluribus unum — “from many, one” — the creed that binds us.

Shouldn’t a child be allowed to explore the metaphysics of this world and the spiritual transcendence that lies beyond in a supportive, neutral environment — no matter their race, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation?

We have been blessed to live in extraordinary times — increased life expectancy, cures for cancer, unprecedented knowledge available at our fingertips, challenging, exciting opportunities, revelations of a cosmos more glorious than we had ever imagined — and the list goes on — much to the credit of our public schools and universities.

Problems? Sure. Challenges? Plenty. But nothing we can’t solve or adjust to — together.

In the meantime, better guard your Blatz — and your public schools.

Doug Pugh’s “Vignettes” runs monthly. He can be reached at pughda@gmail.com.