http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2015/01/video-42nd-annual-march-for-life-in.html

Beverly, I know this car stuff will bore you but it was so much fun thinking about the good old days and all the laughs in connection with the rattle trap cars we had. That term reminds me of our commanding officer’s statement in Harrisburp Pa. when we were starting out in convoy to Huntsville Ala. He said “we are going in to the South where the cars are mostly rattle traps and they will run into you if you will let them, so be aware it’s a problem ” He wasn’t far from the truth because in 1946 our car companies hadn’t produced a passenger car since Pearl Harbor. Prior to that my Dad used to buy a new car every year.

But re old cars,I had lunch with [my brother] Bob, we looked at the Mercedes [87] pictures and talked for most of an hour re the 87 and many other old cars we have used down through the ages. Remembering is so much fun for our vintage, even Bob’s.

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Down through the years our garages starting with New Orleans had grease spots in the garage where family cars were parked all of which were new cars beause pre war Dad bought new Lincoln car every year during the “depression”, but they leaked in the garage.

I know, ancient history,,,,,, so boring. So much for the grease spots and believe me my dad especially watched those grease spots to see if anything notable was happening…….justt natural with most guys but more so with Dad,,,, cars were his business. He started as a mechanic in Lake Charles La. with a Ford dealer and had lots of blue collar jobs before they turned white( No college degree ).

In late 1942 I got a driver’s license because the gov. of Ga. Talmadge changed the driver’s age for elligibility to 15 years of age from 16. (I had learned to drive when I was 12). Dad was my mentor.

One summer vaction while I was in H. school I was hired as a mechanic’s helper at Wade Motors a Ford dealer on Spring Street ( automobile row ) in Atl. Friend of Dad’s. In the service dept. ( Ovealls ) I learned a little including a lot of lousy jokes at lunch break brown bagging with the mechanics. They were prejudiced agenst me, age discrimination. And they thought they knew more about cars than I did.

I know this is boring but it is so much fun.

When Althaus moved in with us for the war and turned 15, together we begged and talked our fathers into buying a clunker 1930 Chevy from some mechanics that lived on our paper route. We were impressed with the car’s huge 6 cylinder engine. They wanted $60 for it so our dads looked it over and after lots of begging and pleading by us came up with $30 apiece and it was ours!!!!! Nirvana, Oley, Hooray Too. So we lived happily ever after for a while. But short story long it had a crack in the mighty engine’s block that limited it’s top speed to 30 mph and various other impairmints too long to list terminated it’s short but interesting career with us. We worked hard on it but a cracked engine block….NO WAY. So endlessly on “Irregardless”.

So what to do?????, only a miracle could help but one happened !!!!! The Michigan farm boy across the street who lived in a former stable had a Model T Ford ( more model Ts were built than any other car so far). A lots of laughs friend named Elmer Dunn Some spelled it Dumb and I bought the thing after a training program by the Michigan farmer.

Actually Dunn and I each got a one third interest for three dollars each and MIchigan guy kept a third interest.

On our first training run after buying it, Elmer was driving it when we came to this high hill on Peachtree Dunwoody road and couldn’t shift down to a lower gear with the ” Planetary transmission” which involved three foot pedals and and double clutching with the throttle on the steering column. No big deal for us We knew waht we were doing every minute. But in spite of our expertise the T started going backwards on Peachtree Dunwoody because the brakes were ok when going forward but useless when going backward. So Elmer, whose IQ was pretty low, turned the wheel so the car ran off the road and up a steep red clay bank which stopped it at which point it was listing about 40 degrees to port and we jumped out.

Will spare you if you are still aroind, the rest of the T story, but I lost my $3 I had earned at five cents per tip as a bag boy at Colonial Stores that summer. So moving on I remained clueless and carless untill we married and bought a 1934 Chevy from Mom’s brother Buck for $150 in 1953. Surely you’re not still reading this stuff. It did work OK and had a nice feature which was a hole in the floor next to the accelerator so you could check the quality of the road as you went along. It let lots of air in too…….”cool”. Our attic appartment at that time was real cool too.

But then bad news I was transferred to Loisville, wherever that was. I told my Dad that mom and baby Vivian were going to fly up and I would drive the Chevrolet. He looked at the thread showing tires and said he wanted to drive it around a bit before the 400 mile drive. When he got back it had four new tires. I think by then he was thinking that ” a college degree doesn’t show me too much”

In Louisville ( I made it , no big deal ) our friends across the hall ( great frinds, the Mudds from St Louis ) had a brand new Oldsmomile ” Rocket” 88 that was theee real hot car at that time with a huge over head valvue V8 engine and speed of sound no big deal. We were impressed, but they liked our 34 Chevy’

I rode the train to cover my “territory” which was mostly West Virginia ” coal mine country “. End of the line on every other Friday was Bluefield where the life expectancy of an Environmentalist was averaging about twenty minutes. But I got a ride on the PULLMAN back to Cincinatti where I got a shave and a haircut at their fabulous train station. Grand Central was a distant second.

I’m almost thru…………But a miracal happened ! I got a company car !!! But they wanted $20 a month if we wanted to use it for personal travel as opposed to business. We said ” Hell no” to the $20. Actually Loiisville was a lot of fun. We made it back to Buckhead when we were transferred and we still had the Chevy, but no company car in Atlanta they had a pool car there for business. Sacrificing a terrible but funny story about our 46 Buick Century ( it could go 100 mph when new but yhose days were long gone when we got it. I did learn how to drive a stick shift car when the clutch is not working. Not easy.

So in 1954 we bought a 1950 6 cylinder Pontiac with unknown mileage on it which worked well except when the drive shaft fell off on main street when mom was driving and I was out of town and the Greenville office guys rescued her but I was exiled to the dog house and the dog was ticked off a lot about that. Eventually we got better cars but that’s boring except for Old Blue.

Yesterday Bob reministe (sp?) about his old cars including some good Puegot stories and his highpowered Mercury that lasted a month or two and decided to terminate with a side swiping accident out near lake Chicamagua in the rain. His fault, $400 car. I wore out the Puegot’s clutch with the many trips up this moutain hauling the boat and having to shift throug all the gears to get to the top with the boat. But I did get a SHADE TREE GUY TO FIX IT ON THE PROVISION THAt I would pay him in full ” as soon as he fixed it” I said ok and he finished the job and called me at 2:00am saturday nite and said on the phone, “Mister Cooper your Puejot is ready”

This is way too much but not the whole cars story. Love, Dad.

Off topic, but did you see this article about the AirAsia disaster?

It’s still preliminary yet, but it sounds like your December 30 comment was spot on.

She was also very artistic. She could draw, paint, sketch, and design clothes – all without any formal training. I always admired her talents, but I have none of them. She had a sister who was also talented the same way. All my cousins on that side are artistic and creative. It’s interesting to me how those genetic talents seem to pass on to some and not to others.

Parental love is a gift.

No parental love is a perpetual haunting.

The bar is set so low. How much more lovely when the the bar is surpassed.

What happens in our imaginations becomes the faith we live.

Picture a person who comes across a poem not reflecting the humanity of a mother or a father merely, but a poem of love for oneself.