I was reading my son, John's blog the other day ( www.kavern.net ) on the problem starting one car with out a verbal curse.  I got to thinking about the cars I could remember in my life and thought I would relate some of it to you.
    
     I don't know what the type of car was that we had when I was three or maybe 4.  I can remember that the back door opened from the front and not the back though.  The reason that sticks out in my mind is that we were driving down a country road and Butch pulled on the door lever and the wind caught the door and swung it open and threw him out on the road.  We were probably not going over 25 or 30 because the roads were a little like wash boards and you could literally "hop" yourself off the side of the road if you were going fast enough.  By the time Dad had the car stopped, Butch was along side, screaming and crying, "Don't leave me!! Don't leave me!!"  He had a few scratches and was dusty and dirty but none the worse for wear.  I don' t think we had that car for much longer.  Another time, my dad stopped at Coker's store for a bottle of wine.  He was drinking and driving and I was in the backseat.  I decided it wasn't nice for him to drink all that "strawberry pop" by himself and started crying, "I want some pop! I want some pop!"  Dad handed the bottle to mom and said, "Go ahead and give him some."  Mom held the bottle over the front seat to me in the back.  I took a big gulp and then started crying that it was awful.  More proof to be careful what you ask for, because you may get it.

    We, later had a 1956 Ford station wagon in 1960. I think it was the only new car we ever bought.  I remember one day when we were going to Weir from Cherryvale.  It was undoubtedly to visit Ma and Papa.  Mom had the pedal to the metal.  We were going 110mph by the speedometer when a Kansas Highway  Patrol car passed us going the other way.  You could look out the back and see his brake light come on and then a second or so later go off and he continued on.  Guess he wasn't up to the chase......Mom did slow down after that.  No so with my dad going back to Cherryvale.  When we were approaching Parson (halfway between Weir and Cherryvale) the Parson's Police pulled him over and gave him a ticket for going 75 in a 40mph speed zone.....believe it cost him $75 for that one.

We were a 2 car family then.  The other car we had was a 1951 Nash Rambler with a continental tire kit on the back. (Where the spare was attached to the trunk lid and had a cover on it.  It was 2 tone green...I think the only color scheme I ever saw on it.  We lived about a mile out of town then.  I was 10 and asked my dad if he would teach me how to drive.  He said ok.  We went out and I got in the driver's side and my dad in the front seat in the passengers side.  He gave me the keys and then showed me how to work the clutch and the gear shift.  It was a three gear on the column gear shift.  You would pull the gearshift back to you and up for reverse.  Pull back and down for Low.  Up to neutral and then push forward and up for 2nd gear and through neutral and down for third gear.  After a few minutes of demonstrating to him that I understood the coordination of the clutch and gearshift, he let me start the car (in neutral).  He then said ok, put it in reverse....I'm sure I ground off some of the tips of the gears as I forgot to push in the clutch, which he directed me to do.  I got it in to reverse. Then he said, "Give it a little gas and slowly let out the clutch" to back out of the driveway.   I immediately dumped the clutch and caused him to spill his coffee.  He had a choice deleted expletive and told me to restart the engine and S-L-O-W-L-Y let out the clutch and give it a little more gas.  I gunned the engine and very slowly let out the clutch, probably burnt 5% of the clutch plate off I went so slowly, but the car started moving.  I was thrilled.  I was actually in control of a car.  He said, " Back up a little more, ...a little more... I  could see the road behind me through the rear view mirror.  Where we started was about 75-100 feet from the back door of the house to the road.  I had traversed about 70 feet ok....then, plunk!  the passengers rear tire fell off the driveway into the ditch (and killed the engine).....no curbs or gutters in the country.  Dad said, "That's OK, start it up again and put it into Low and ease it forward".  I put in the clutch and started the engine and put it into first gear without grinding off any more gears....fast learner right?....I gave it some gas and s-l-o-w-l-y let out the clutch again.  I eased it out of the ditch and back into the drive way.  Dad said, as he was looking backward, " Good, ease it up a little more......a little more......a little more.......a little more".  When we were back where we started he said, "Turn off the engine, give me the keys and get out, you're not ready to drive yet."   Of course I didn't relay the story to Butch as it happened (he was already able to drive), I just told him, "Dad let me drive the car today".  Isn't that the way it always happens? 
     My first, rather Butch and my first car was a   two tone light green/dark green 1954 Chevy.  6 cylinder automatic 4 door sedan.  I was 17 and Butch was 18.  He was out of school and I was a senior in HS.  He used the car to go back and forth to work, which, most of the time was with our cousin, Johnny Poznich on his farm.  It was part time work a couple or 3 days a week, driving tractors or bulldozer or working on barns, fences or whatever Johnny needed to do.  He went on a date one night with a girl from McCune (about 15 or 20 miles west of where we lived).  He hadn't thought about transmission fluid checking, or it was late and no one was open to get any, so he drove home 20 miles with no ATF in the engine.  This converted the three speed with reverse transmission into  the following, "P" park was park, "R" reverse was park, "N" neutral was neutral, "D2" drive 2 was neutral, "D" drive was drive and "L" low was neutral.  Basically a 1 forward speed transmission with several options for park and neutral, but none for reverse.  When we went to Pittsburg, we couldn't park on Broadway because it was 45 degree angle parking.  We had to go to a side street and park just before Broadway or just before an alley so we could just take off forward.  I took the car to my Jr-Sr prom and showed up early so I could drive around the circle entrance of the country club and park just before going back out on the road. I misjudged the amount of space at the end of the drive and allowed enough space for a VW Beetle to park, of which it did.  When we left the prom, we had to push the car backwards until it bumped the car behind us to allow enough space for us to pull out....you would have thought we would have saved the money to get the car fixed....but no.
     My next car was a 1951 Buick Super 4 door with a straight 8 engine and real hydraulic shock absorbers, you had to put hydraulic fluid in them on occasion.  I ran so smooth and quietly, I couldn't believe it.  I bought it for $150 cash with the help of my Uncle Turk, who actually found it for me.  I was going to college in Chanute, Kansas and had some money left over from my summer job in Orange, Texas.  Strangely enough, it was also green.  It was quite luxurious to me.  I found a 6 x9 oval speaker out of an old radio that stopped working and mounted it in the rear deck by the back window.  It used the trunk as a resonating chamber and really pumped the AM radio sound up....especially the bass.  I was very proud of it.  All the gears also worked...quite a change from the last automatic transmission.  It got me all around southeast Kansas and down to Orange, Texas to work the next summer after my freshman year at college.  One day when I was going to work, I went over a raised railroad track a little fast and sort of left the ground, when the car came down, I heard a crunch and then it just coasted to a stop.  I walked to a phone and called my dad and he came over with a chain and we towed it back to his house......the rear end was out.  He called a few junk yards but could not locate another rear end.  I left it with him to dispose of when I came back to Kansas to start my sophomore year in college, in Pittsburg.  
              I bought a 1961 Ford Galaxy from my mother for $500. and used it until I went into the Army.  When I came back to Kansas to get married, I went to my mom's house and asked her for the car.  She said she had to sell it because she didn't have enough money to put new tags on it.  You also had to pay personal property tax on cars in Kansas in order to buy your tags.  I said, OK, well then I'll take the money you sold it for along with the money I sent you from the first 5 months I was in the army (about $50/mo for 5 months).  She said she didn't have that either.  Oh, well...........



I got married Aug 11, 1969 and went to Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana to the Joint Services School. Accounting, Personnel Management, Finance and a couple of other clerical schools.  We took Mary's 1961 Ford Fairlane as our vehicle.  Thank God I married a Rich Irish Girl.   The only real problems we had with the car while at Fort Benning, Georgia was a brake job and a little kid broke out the front windshield throwing rocks at his cousin Herman while I was driving home from the Army post one evening.  It even had the giddy up to pull a 5 x 8 U-Haul trailer from Fort Benning, Georgia to Orange, Texas to visit with my dad and step mother before going back to Pittsburg, Kansas to resume my college.
        I don't remember exactly how we got the next car, a 1966 Chevy Caprice 2 door with a 283 V-8 engine.  It was solid white.  It ran pretty good for about 3 years and the tranny went out it while we were coasting down hill into Fort Scott Kansas to trade it in for another car...


  A 1972 Ford Torino station wagon.. We now had 3 kid and all the accompanying stuff that you have to travel with at that point.   I got us around wonderfully until 1978 when I hit a parked semi with a dump bed trailer, that was totally covered with mud  and it was dark and foggy.  It was a light blue car as opposed to the Squire version pictured to the left here.  My oldest son Chuck was not wearing a seat belt, nor was I and he hit the windshield and I kinda bent up the steering wheel and broke off the "add-on" air conditioner with my right leg.    Well, you are all probably bored to death with my car stories, but blame it on John for making me think of the cars in my life that have their own stories.    Safe driving to all, I pray.