Monday, January 19, 2009

OK. What would you like to know about me and my life? Send me an email or comment to this blog and let me know.

Dad

Friday, January 2, 2009

My most memorable automobiles








CARS

I have owned many cars in my life time but there are three that are most memorable. Well maybe four. Or five. To a young man his car is an important thing. It is a statement of his personality. Sorry but this is a long blog entry.

The first car that I owned was a 1946 Ford Coupe. I never registered it but owned it just before I joined the Navy. I worked at an Esso service station in Norwichtown, Ct and stored it on their lot for a while and tinkered with it there. I did some real dumb things in those days. I would drive my dad’s car a 1956 Dodge 4 door sedan to work. After work I would take the plates off the Dodge and put them onto the Ford and go for a joy ride. The real dumb thing was that my dad’s plates said “HALE” on them and dad was very well known in the area. IF I had even been noticed I would have been in real trouble!

One night I was chasing my girl friend who owned a 1955 Chevy ( overhead valve V8 boss car) in 1957 and she went one way and I went the other. I braked, slid sideways into a Church parking lot; slammed it into reverse popped the clutch and an awful grinding noise came up from the transmission! I had torn out the cluster gear which is used to change first gear into reverse. I pushed the car around with the help of a buddy who was with me and limped back to the garage using second and high gears. A few days later I got dad to tow me across town to the house and parked it in the one car garage we had and started to change the transmission. I got the old transmission out and the new one part way in when I went into the Navy in October 1957. Dad sold it to the neighbor for $75. I was not very responsible in those days. I never did date that girl but wanted to.

After boot camp I went back to Great Lakes, IL to Electronics Technician School. Two buddies and I decided we needed transportation and there was a notice on the bulletin board for a 1947 Buick 4 door sedan. It was powered by a straight 8 engine and had nice cloth seats and lots of room. We could and did crowd 8 guys into it. We each put up $25 and were told that we could register it with an insurance man across town. He gave us a receipt for the $30 which we taped to the rear window and drove it for next four months with no plates or insurance. We were in a Navy town with the ‘honest folks’ just hanging around to help us. We would go to the trolley station just outside the main gate and pick up 4 or 5 boots from the recruit training center and for $5 each, give them a ride to Chicago about 40 miles down Rte 41 from Training Center in North Chicago, IL. That way we had money to blow and they got into town much quicker.

We literally ran the H… out of that car. When I got transferred to Connecticut in August the one remaining buddy drove us to the Indiana Turnpike and we hitchhiked home leaving him our share of the car. The car’s muffler had blown a hole in it and the local police told us that if they ever caught us with the car they would throw us in jail! We used to spend the weekends in Chicago enjoying the sights and would roar up Rt 41 and then on the road leading into town and to avoid the cops and coast into the parking lot where we stored the car. We did have one close call when the cops pulled in to the parking lot just after we had arrived. That is when the warning about catching us was issued. Oh well we only had a couple of weeks to go and didn’t care what happened after the transfer. Life as a single sailor had few goals in mind and responsibility for a dying car was not part of it.

One Saturday after spending the night at a flop house in Chicago at $3 a night each we went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. We were standing on the front steps in our whites with our Dixie cup hats on the back of our heads and our neckerchief pulled up high looking real cool when up pulled 3 bus loads of college students from Northwestern University. Two of them were full of girls. We were working out how we could meet up with them when 3 girls (just enough to go around) came up to us. One of the girls said that her brother was in the Navy. He was stationed on the USS Forestall (only 5,000 guys on that tub) and did we know him? Righttttttt. We had some fun dating them a couple of times and discovered that she was an only child. But I digress.

One weekend, as we were leaving Chicago we turned right onto Rt 41 and went through a yellow light. A cop pulled us over. The first thing out of his mouth was “I didn’t pull you over for no plates but for going though a red light. Do you guys have enough to pay the fine?” We had met one of Chicago’s finest “honest” cops looking for a few bucks by hitting on some sailors from the training station up the road. Well we had about 4 bucks between us so he disgustedly told us to get out of there. Nice to have such upstanding honest cops to protect us.

I was stationed at the New London Sub Base, (actually in Groton, Ct just across the river) as my first duty station out of Electronics Technician School in 1958. At first I lived in the barracks on the base and went home to Norwich, Ct on the weekends (12 miles up river from the Sub Base). That became a real drag quickly. No home cooked food and I had to make my bunk as soon as I got out of it. I looked around for a car and a ‘dealer’ in Preston, Ct had a 1951 Ford Crown Victoria hardtop convertible 2 door at a very reasonable price. So I purchased it. Nice, top of the line automobile. I drove that car for about 2 months when it developed a shimmy in the front end. A friend put it up on the lift and told me that the steering box was broken loose from the frame! Bad news! My dad knew the dealer so ‘discussed’ the deal with him. It turned out that he only had a junk dealer’s license and could not legally sell cars. I got my money back and they got the car back. This dealer also owned an orchard so dad had dealings with him. Dad said that he cheated on selling apples too. Apparently the car had been in an accident and been sloppily repaired. No wonder I got it at such a cheap price. I learned that price doesn’t mean everything and to really trust ‘used car dealers’. I went car shopping again.

The next car was the most memorable one. The local Ford dealer had a 1954 Mercury Monterey convertible, canary yellow with tan leather upholstery, three speed standard shift with over drive. Another very nice car with lots of trimming. It had a 256 ci 161 hp flathead V8 and I quickly replaced the muffler with a Hollywood glass pack muffler that gave a nice rumble to it! I traveled all over Southeastern Connecticut and even to Burlington, Vt in this car.

My first ‘incident’ with the car was pulling up onto Rt 184 the main road from RI to New London across the Gold Star Memorial Bridge which crossed the Thames River between New London and Groton. I pulled up on to the 4 lane highway and a car started to pass me in the left lane so I gunned it. With the motor blatting thru my glass pack I thought I was something! However, right behind us was the local Groton cop! As I pulled ahead of the car on my left the cop turned on his siren and light. I got a ticket for passing on the right and thought I was lucky not to get nailed for racing and speeding. I paid the $50 willingly.

My second incident taught me a very significant lesson. I had been at a dance on the other side of town and was coming through downtown Norwich at about 1 AM. I was a little fast and noticed a cop going the other way. I gunned it and beat feet home. Thinking I had got off scot free I parked the car in the drive way and was walking into the house when the cop pulled into the driveway behind me. He opened the door and leaned across it and said, “Allan! Don’t do that again!” got back into the cruiser and took off. I stood there stunned! I did not know him and he couldn’t have seen who I was. However, that canary yellow Mercury convertible was the only one in Connecticut and they knew the car and knew who owned it. If you own a distinctive car it will get noticed. Especially by the cops! Lesson learned!

I got the bug for a new car when I saw a 1961 Triumph TR3 2 seat sports car. I made the deal to trade the Mercury and took off for a weekend in upstate NY. While there a friend had a 1955 Mercury 4 door sedan that I thought was about an even swap and he wanted my car. We swapped pink slips and I traded the 55 for the TR3. The dealer was a little put out as he could have made more money on the convertible but wanted to sell the TR3 so it was a done deal.

The TR3 is the sexiest car I have owned. I had a ball with this little car zipping around curves etc. Vauxhall Road Extension winds and twists as a back road from New London to Waterford and I got pretty good at “heel and toe” shifting and driving. That is a technique where you stomp on the brake going into the turn with your toe and push the gas with your heel to down shift and match the engine rpm with the lower gear and accelerate out of the corner rapidly speeding up through the 4 speed transmission gears. Very exciting!

I let my dad drive the car on a back road when another car approached us from the front. Dad pulled to the right sharply then overcorrected to the left and back to the right again. The car zigzagged about three times until I grabbed the wheel to straighten it out. Dad sure was not used to that quick positive steering that almost moved by thought rather than deliberate action like the big Ford he owned.

The TR3 had a tonneau cover that covered that passenger seat, leather and plastic side windows that were removable and a canvas top for a combination of configurations. I stored these items into the ‘boot’ (trunk to the uninitiated) which had little room for anything else. If I needed to haul anything it had to fit behind my seat in the little cubby there. Really only a 2 passenger car meant for short hauls. I did go on a few dates when I owned this car but it was in her car. No room in the back seat for….

One night a friend and I went out to have a couple of beers and had a few too many. I knew that I was not in a condition to drive so I asked Tom to drive. He said “I used to own a Jaguar. Let me take it through the curves.” My judgment was a little damp so I acceded. Big mistake! We barely made it through the first curve by 3 feet and slid off into a ditch. I ended up on my fanny out the door in a mud puddle while still hanging onto the chicken bar (a grab handle on the dash on the passenger side and no seat belts.) To this day I do not know why that car did not roll over on top of me and kill me. I have an idea now that the Lord had future plans for me and preserved me from my stupidity. The wire wheels were caked with mud and Tom had busted the windshield with his head. We pulled out the fenders, hosed out the wheels and replaced the windshield and I started looking for another car.

A place like Costco in VA Beach had a deal with the local Ford dealer so I checked it out and ordered a 1962 Ford Hardtop convertible, chestnut brown with a cream top, three speed on the column (I had plans to replace it with a 4 speed on the floor) and a 390 V8. They found a car like it but had to paint the top. I nixed the deal. The salesman said “Take my car for the weekend to see if you like it.” It was a 1962 Ford Galaxie convertible. So off I went to Virginia Beach with the car looking for girls. I told the dealer that I would buy it if I picked up a girl with it. Would I ever admit I couldn’t pick up a girl? Well I did pick up a girl but it was several months later and I married her which is another entire story. We kept the car until it became a necessity to transport a son and later a daughter so it got traded for a 1965 Volvo 122 S Station wagon. Big Change.

The day I got home to Norwich with the 62 convertible Dad offered me a deal. Mom and Dad were on their way to Arizona for a County Agents convention and wanted to trade cars for the duration. I said sure no problem. I guess that they had a good time as when they got back Dad told me that Mom got sunburned on the thighs as they were driving along with the top down and she had her skirt pulled way up. Learned her lesson quickly that the sun is stronger in Arizona and that the top really did provide protection.

We took this car on the ferry to Long Island to attend the races at Bridgehampton,. The ferry was full so if I wanted to go I had to load it in the back of an empty trailer truck. If not, then I could wait for the next ferry. I put the top down so I could get out of the car and drove it in. 2 inches to spare on each side and got out over the trunk. We had a great time at the races that day but decided that we would take the long way back through NYC. No more trailer truck parking for me.

While I was dating Eleanor she lived in Andover, Mass and I spent a lot of weekends there. Monday mornings were tough driving back as it was before the Interstates were built and it was a long way home. I used to put the top down in the winter so the wind could keep me awake at 3 AM.

I have had many cars since then but these were the most memorable ones. It sure is fun to remember those good old times.