It has been said of us Americans that we love our cars!
Our cars are more than just transportation. Our trucks are more than equipment for hauling stuff. Sometime our vehicle is an extended expression of ourselves. Our car or truck is like the art of our lives. We want it to look in ways that we feel good about, we want it to sound in certain ways that are assuring to us. I've noticed for some time now an insurance commercial in which the young lady is talking about the car you had that just suited you. You named him Brad! You loved Brad! Then you totaled him! You were devastated. Then, of course, the insurance company came through for you and got you a new car, which was wonderful, and everything was good again!
Well, my story is a bit sad in the end, but there was lots of life that went on in between.
My Dad traded for our new 1947 Chevy Fleetline in early 1948. We had been driving a 1937 Chevy sedan for some time, and we had even taken a two-month trip to the west coast in the 10-year-old '37. It had been an adventurous trip, seeing relatives, sightseeing, seeing mountains and parks, having car troubles, and all that. I was 7 years old, Ben was 5, John was 2, and Donna hadn't quite arrived yet. The old '37 had performed gallantly, but with lots of overheating in the mountains. I learned a lot about traveling in an old car on that trip.
One of my jobs was to watch for water on the road when Dad said, Jerry, the heat gauge is getting up there. So when the radiator went to boiling, I would tell Dad that there's a stream of water on the road behind us, and we would stop and let 'er cool down and add water from the water bag we had hanging on the front bumper. Just about everybody traveling on Route 66 in those days traveled with two or three water bags hanging on their bumper brackets. Just about everybody had problems with engines running hot.
My Dad went after the new car by himself. The rest of the family was at home waiting to see the new car arrive. It was our first really new car! Before that, we had always had new used cars, which often meant new "old" cars. For example, in early 1947 we had traded our 1938 Ford sedan for the 1937 Chevy sedan, which was supposed to be a better car. During the years of World War II, very few people had really new cars. But now the war was over, and we were getting our first new car. Along about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, as we were watching and waiting, in came Dad with our new '47, shiny black, smooth and sleek lines, clean as a whistle! It was just about the most beautiful Chevy ever, or so we thought. We would later add white-sidewall tires, which were coming into fashion in those days, and they made the car even more beautiful.
Having a new car meant that we needed to travel, to try it out on the road, and to go places we hadn't been before. So, soon we worked up a trip to Illinois, to the Chicago area, to see my Mom's half-sister and family. My Grandpa Clement, Mom's daddy, went with us on that trip. I remember being on the great highways in the state of Missouri. They had better roads than we did in those days. Our new '47 was doing 60 with no effort at all, and not once had we stopped to cool down or add water to the radiator or fix a flat. I remember coming into a town and having to slow down to the 30 mph speed limit. I had become accustomed to 60 mph, and I thought we were creeping; 30 seemed so slow in our new '47.
We had a great visit with our Illinois relatives, then on the way home we stopped by to see Grandpa's brother, Uncle L.A. Clement. Uncle L.A. was a character. He was a musician, and played the fiddle and the banjo. In fact he and Grandpa seemed always to be competing to see who played the fiddle the best. They were both good. It was right amazing that Grandpa could play at all. He had lost two fingers on his left hand in a buzz saw accident, but he could finger the fiddle strings with just two fingers. Uncle L.A. was also a storyteller, and he must have memorized a thousand riddles. He loved to keep us kids guessing with his riddles and jokes.
On the way home, across Missouri, Dad decided at one point to see how fast our Chevy would run. The road was straight as a string, all six cylinders were hitting steadily, and the road seemed to be saying "ease 'er on up!" Pretty soon we were doing 85, and Mom was getting nervous: "Russell, you're just going too fast with all the family in the car!"
In those days, the Chevys still had the old-style 216-cubic-inch six-cylinder engine, with the babbit rod bearings and oil dipper trays in the pan. But the little six was really singing at 85, and seemed pretty confident we could hit 100. But, Mom prevailed, and we had to calm down the excitement.
To be continued.
•••
Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister and on the board of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. The views expressed are the author's. He can be contacted by email at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 08/15/2018