Recently at our Ol’ Geezer Gang morning coffee klatch the conversation turned to old cars. Many of the models that came to our aging minds we thought of as either “vintage, jalopies or just plain junk.”
I’m glad we happened upon that automotive conversation becuz now I have some “vintage” or “junk” vehicular memories to share with my faithful readers.
So, let me start with a vintage car — a Kaiser-Frazier — that wuz given to the Yield clan by my paternal grandmother when I wuz in high school. The low-mileage car stamped my childhood memory with several unique traits.
I think it wuz a 1949 model. It wuz shiny black when it arrived in our yard. It wuz adorned with what must have been a half a ton of sparkling chrome on the grill, both front and rear bumpers, along the edge of the running boards, around all the lights, and a spear-like hood ornament. My pappy, Czar E. Yield, thought he’d hit the automotive jackpot.
Alas, that early judgement turned out to be a fantasy for a car that wuz driven on dusty rural roads. That’s becuz another feature of the Kaiser-Frazier was a felt headliner. And, sadly, some manufacturing quirk turned the car into a passenger-sized vacuum cleaner. While being driven on dusty roads, prodigious and copious volumes of dust wuz sucked up and stored above the felt headliner. Then, every time the car hit a jarring chug-hole, a fine cloud of dust filtered through the headliner and covered all the passengers below. It wuz like riding underneath a flour sifter, only it wuz a dust sifter.
Needless to say, my sainted mother didn’t appreciate the “flour sifter” trait of the Kaiser-Frazier. She looked like a dusty vagabond ever time she went to town. So, the gift Kaiser-Frazier quickly got sold to another unsuspecting soul. In retrospect, I hope its new owner only drove on paved roads.
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Another vintage car from my childhood memory bank wuz a yellowish “big boat Packard” driven by my maternal grandfather. It might have been a Packard Caribbean model. This would have been in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
At the time we were living on a rental farm in Bourbon County in southeast Kansas and grandpa lived in the fast lane of life in Kansas City, Mo. His Packard wuz top-of-the-line becuz grandpa wuz a successful electrical contractor at the time and he felt the need to flaunt his success. He added to his aura with a jaunty snap-brim straw hat and an ever-present Roi-Tan cigar clamped tightly in his teeth. He “ate” cigars, more than smoked them.
I loved the times grandpa drove his Packard down for a visit becuz he never failed to bring me a bunch of candy bars. That is one memory etched into me.
Another grandpa Packard memory is much more humorous. For the record, he drove fast whether it be in the city or on our dusty county line road. On one of grandpa’s visits, he wuz fogging down the county line a few miles north of our home and he drove smack through a flock of guineas dusting in the road. I never knew if he didn’t see the guineas or if he simply didn’t want to slow down for them. But, I’d bet he never hit the brakes.
What I do know is that when grandpa drive into our driveway that day, the expansive chrome grill of his expensive yellowish Packard wuz thoroughly adorned with guinea feathers, blood, guts and gore. And, grandpa had some choice words to say about guineas. I’m not sure he appreciated the belly-laughs of his son-in-law and daughter either.
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I recall two of my uncles and aunts from my mother’s side of the family tree drove to see us on the farm in their own vintage cars. One wuz a Nash Rambler and the other wuz one of the first Volkswagen Beetles. All I remember about those cars wuz that both were too low-slung for gravel roads.
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I’ll move along now to some of the memorable cars that I’ve owned. My first wuz a high-mileage 1953 Ford Custom Deluxe sedan. Cost me $400. It wuz junk from the get-go. The most memorable thing about that miserable car wuz that it burned up generators at a disgusting pace. And, I hope the auto engineer who decided to place the generator in a nearly-impossible-to-reach-place underneath the engine has spent his time in Hell busting his knuckles changing the brushes on those generators — in the winter.
The only good thing I can say about that ’53 Ford is that it didn’t dissuade Nevah from courting and marrying me while I owned it.
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Our second car wuz a brand new Opel Kadett station wagon. It looked sharp at the time, but the metal in it wuz so tinny that a friend dented the fender by just leaning on it. However, it did get great mileage in the mid-1960s. I recall a round trip we made in the car from Stillwater, Okla., to Knoxville and Pigeon Forge, Tenn, and into western North Carolina — more than 2,000 miles — on less than $30 worth of 15-cent-a-gallon gasoline.
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Another lemon of a vehicle that I owned wuz a brand new Chevy pickup truck. I know it wuz a lemon because it shelled the engine just after it passed the 25,000-mile new car warranty and General Motors virtually said, “Sorry, Bub.” I’ve never bought another Chevy truck since that day. The incident still sticks in my craw.
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My words this week about cars and trucks are not words of wisdom, but simply my personal credo: “I’ve never been a vehicle lover. I own them because they are an expensive necessity. I own them to take care of me, not for me to take care of them. I’m a vehicle ‘appreciator’ because I appreciate when they get me from here to there in comfort and safety.”
Have a good ‘un.
