OVER MY SHOULDER

Through the 30’s, there was not much change in the car situation or operation at our house---funds were quite short, and there just was not money for a better car, nor for tires and fuel to operate the car. Dad was a very talented person in may ways, and was always able to maintain his own car-----I can recall many times seeing the motor ‘pulled’ and hanging by block and tackle in a tree while he ‘overhauled’ it. He had driven a cattle truck hauling cattle to Kansas City for a while before he was married-----and one had to be a mechanic to keep the equipment running.

We had an old pickup for a while---I remember one time in the late 30’s that my brothers and I were in the back of the pick up as we were ‘spinning’ up the hill on the dirt road out of the yard, watching the back wheels spin and throw mud out behind us----We boys pretended that we were “shooting old Hitler”. (Not completely isolated even then were we?)

By the time that I started High School in 1946, we had moved to Mom’s home place South of Blue Mound, ----- our status with vehicles had improved some---we still had ‘older’ vehicles, still patched most of our tires, although the local service stations did do tire repair---but it was cheaper to do your own. (tire repair on the road had not changed much, except that we did have a spare tire by this time). There were several concrete or brick roads, and a lot of roads were gravel---although there were still some dirt roads. We had been through fuel and tire rationing during World War II (as well as other rationing---more about that later)

By the time that I started driving by myself, we had an old ‘34 chevy. It had a cloth top which leaked most of the time when it rained---(after I started dating, I always wanted the roof to leak on the passenger side, so that my girl would have to sit close to me---however, my luck was that the roof always leaked in the middle of the front seat). We often ‘coated’ the canvas top with tar, to try to stop the leaks---this worked until the car had been out in the hot sun for several weeks, or until we had several weeks of cold weather.

It seems to me that fuel was about 10 or 12 cents per gallon---I remember that it was not unusual to put in only 25 or 50 cents of fuel when I was going to Moran or Mound City to the movie on a date.----even when I went to college, it was not unusual to buy only 50 cents or a dollars worth of fuel. I often was accused of ‘driving on fumes’, and have on occasions run out of fuel. I found that when the car ‘sputtered’ I could swing from side to side of the road and get another 2 1/2 or 3 miles out of what fuel would splash over the intake screen----Ken Swender can explain the process.

It would not be unusual for the car to ‘drown out’ if one was fording a creek, or driving through areas of surface water. It seems that we were always burning out fuses in the lights----there have been a number of occasions that I would be caught without a spare fuse, (and no gum wrapper from which to get aluminum foil to make a fuse), and have to drive the rest of the way home without lights.-------It was not too bad on moonlight nights, or if you would get in the far reaches of someone else’s head lights and stay ahead of them---(sometimes, they would wonder where the dust came from).

Probably the most interesting car trouble that I had was one evening when I was a Junior or Senior in High School, after I had started dating Christine. We went to Moran to a movie one night----(I had accumulated 75 cents or maybe even a dollar and a quarter for fuel, tickets, popcorn and a pop).. As we started to leave Moran, the clutch peddle broke completely off where it fastened to the shaft under the floor board.-----Now the clutch worked fine, except that there was no way to engage or disengage it.

Certainly, any young man by the time that they were a Junior or Senior in high school, knew once you were moving, that if you ‘revved’ the motor up and let your foot off the accelerator, you could shift gears without a clutch---sometimes the gears would ‘grind’ a little bit, but if you hit it just right they would shift ‘clean’----after all some of us had ‘practiced’ this procedure even when the clutch worked. There are however several problems in this procedure that one has to ‘negotiate’ -----the first one is that the car has to start in gear.

We pushed the car away from the curb in Moran and headed it down the street, put it in low, and hit the starter---sure enough it started and we were on our way. I shifted into second while still in town then remembered as I approached the stop sign that I had not solved all of the problems----luckily there was no one coming from either direction on ‘54’, so we did not bother to stop at the sign---I shifted into high, and we were on our way home----provided that we did not run out of fuel and the fuse on the lights held out.

I had watched Junior Johnston drive without brakes for so many years that I knew that one could ‘shift down’ the same way that I was shifting up, so at each corner that we had to turn, I shift down the same way to keep the motor from dieing when I slowed enough to turn. We even made it through the gate at the lane of Christine’s place without hitting the gate post. By now it had dawned on me that I would have to stop to let Christine out at her house. So I made the turn at the house at the end of the lane, so that I would be headed back toward the gate when I started the car to leave, and killed the engine to stop. We agreed that it had been a ‘fun’ night and thankful that we had made it home, I saw Christine to the door.

Walking back to the car, I was proud of myself that I had ‘managed’ another problem----then as I tried to start the car in low again, it dawned on me that I had stopped the car headed up hill---the driveway sloped down hill all of the way to the house, and there was enough slope that the car would not both start in gear, and go up hill at the same time. I was not about to go back to the door---as I suspect that we may have been ‘a little’ past curfew as it was, and I did not want to call that fact to Brownie’s (Christine’s Dad) attention.

Then it came to me---start in reverse---which I did, and this being down hill, the car started good---except, I was in reverse. I opened the driver side door held the door with one hand, the wheel with the other hand, and stuck my head out the door opening to see where I was going. I backed around the ‘turnaround’, backed up the hill past the chicken house, parallel to the driveway until I was with in a few yards of the gate and angled down over the bank to the driveway to back through the gate-------forgetting that there was a light pole on that bank.

When I hit the light pole dead center of the rear of the car, I remembered that it was there-----it killed the engine---slammed the door catching my head between the door and the door jam. After my head cleared, I got out to survey the situation. I had hit the spare tire that was fastened on the back, thus had done no visible damage to the car---after all I was not moving very fast. I climbed back in the car shifted to low and started the car---now it was headed down hill----drove down by the house, out the lane and the mile on home.

I am advised that the vibrations from the lines from the pole to the house ‘rattled’ the house which caused Brownie to sit straight up in bed with a very clear question as to what that was. I still don't know for sure what Christine told him as an explanation, but it work and several years later he still allowed me to marry his daughter---an approval for which I will for ever be grateful. LDC