TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS, AND AUTOMOBILES

Like most boys at 15 I was enthralled by cars. I would spend time at the local hobby shop looking at and purchasing plastic models of a variety of model cars. Once I got them home I would paint them, usually in candy apple colors, and then customize them. Some would be lowered in the front, some in the back, some had a continental kit added and some were chopped. I just enjoyed my romance with model cars.

My dad had always been a Nash man. My first memory was of his 1946 Nash and then later his 1951 Nash. The 1951 Nash looked like an upside down bathtub, but my dad loved his Nash. My job was to make sure that car was washed every Saturday and that it was polished a few times a year. That job lasted for a very long time since my dad bought the car new and we had it until it was destroyed in 1962. More about that later.

The Nash was in an Airflyte model and when we were kids we’d try and convince my cousin, Gary, that the car could fly. Of course he did not believe it so we showed him where, right on the dashboard in chrome lettering, were printed the word “Airflyte”. My dad and mom perpetuated this myth when I would ask my dad to put out the wings so we could fly. He would come up with the excuse that there were too many cars around and no room to extend them. My cousin who was probably about 8 or 9 was pretty gullible and bought into it hook, line and sinker. It was great fun!

My dad did buy a 1951 Chevy before he bought the Nash. He piled the whole family into the car. He, my mom, my sister and me. He drove us up to Mount Wilson located a few miles north of Pasadena, California and the highest peak overlooking the San Gabriel Valley. When we got home, he took the car back to the dealership and turned it back in. No Chevy for him. He’d stick to the Nash.

In 1962 my dad bought a used 1959 Chevy station wagon, just like the one pictured here. That was our Sunday go to meeting car and our number one car while the Nash was used to get my dad back and forth to work. By now my three brothers had appeared on the scene and thus the need for a station wagon. Not sure who the car belonged to before but it had a really unusual item that had been added on.

Just to the left of the steering column and mounted just below the dashboard was a Kerr fruit jar. Leading from the top of the fruit jar was a tube that extended up and next to the steering column. The tube was attached to a chrome funnel about an inch across and it had a small latch that allowed the funnel to open and close. This was something I have never seen before or since. It was a place to dispose of lighted cigarettes. My dad and I both smoked but the person the car had belonged to was a chain smoker according to the used car salesman who sold us the car. You would finish your cigarette and then place the lighted butt in the funnel, push the latch and a vacuum would suck the butt into the fruit jar where it would extinguish itself.

I was 15 ½ and yearned for my California Learner’s Permit so I could drive with one of my parents in the car. I spoke to my dad about getting my permit but he said I could get it but before I could get my license at 16 I’d have to find a way to pay for my own insurance. I got my permit, took a driver’s training course offered through the high school and enjoyed driving. When I turned 16 I did not have money to pay for insurance so no license. However, my dad had never been one for obeying all the traffic rules, so very often I was allowed to drive the Nash…by myself…no parents or anyone else in the car.

I am reminded of another time my dad scoffed at the rules. My dad, mom, sister and I were at Keeler and Stimmel’s, an appliance store in Temple City, California. Not sure why we were there but my dad did not put any money into the parking meter. I was about 6 years old at the time and as luck would have it an officer appeared and began writing out a parking ticket. My dad flew out the door and told the officer he had just gone in to get change to put in the meter. Well, I knew that was not true and I had been raised (in my short time living on the planet) the importance of telling the truth. I ran out behind him and told my dad he must be mistaken, that we’d been there for a long time. I don’t remember if he got the ticket or not, but if looks could kill I would have been dead a long time ago.

Now, I really wanted to use the Chevy for my dates. It certainly was not a “chick magnet” but it was way better than the Nash, the upside down bathtub. Unfortunately, the Chevy was off limits. I was allowed to use the Nash if I only drove it locally. Out to a local drive-in restaurant, a drive-in theater, or to church and back.

I was embarrassed to invite a date out and show up in the Nash but it was all I had. There was one good side effect of the Nash. The car was a four door and it was advertised that the seats would lay down and make into a bed. As youngsters, my sister and I often slept in the car while my parents attended meetings or visited with friends. I remember one trip we made when we were returning home from a vacation. It was late at night and my dad was tired from driving. This was in the days before freeways and driving took a lot more attention than it does today because of blinding headlights and curvy and narrow highways.

We pulled off to the side of the road in Bakersfield, California. We were still about 4 hours from home so my parents laid the seats down and we all laid down to take a nap. Bakersfield was known as the earthquake capital of the United States back then and I remember that we had just gotten settled when my mom popped up and said, “What if there’s an earthquake?” “What if the earth opens and swallows us up?” Well that did it. Put the seats back up and hit the road. Everyone was too nervous and excited to sleep. As I look back on it, so what if there had been an earthquake. I think my mom watched too many movies.

Back to the story. The front passenger seat was broken and the back would sometimes fall back if somehow it was pulled forward a few inches. Otherwise it would stay in place. In high school, I had a steady girlfriend that lived across the street from the church we both attended. The parking lot on week nights was the perfect place to “park” and “share a little romance.” As we would be “making out” as it was very easy to release the broken seat and allow it to lay flat without missing a beat. Okay, I know what you may be thinking but I was a virgin until I got married a few years later. I only had the thoughts in my imagination, I did not act upon them.

In 1962 I was driving the Nash late one night when I was involved in a head-on collision with a 1959 Cadillac driven by a drunk driver. The driver of the Cadillac nearly died and I had a few stitches and lost a couple of teeth but survived. Unfortunately the Nash did not.

I eventually saved enough money to buy my first new car and pay for the insurance. It was a 1964 Volkswagen. No fold down seats, engine in the rear, trunk and gas tank under the hood. Not a lot of power, but it was mine all mine.