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Location: The Circle City. Sometimes NE of Bagdad.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired
My dad had some old car that had a luggage area, or an area similar to that, behind the front seat. We kids sat on empty paint cans in the empty area. When bucket seats became the norm, I always joked that my family had buckets seats a long time before people wanted them.
My 1st car was a 1939 Studebaker Business coupe that had that shelf that had a drop down curtain thing that hid anything you had stashed back there. Used to sneak friends into the drive in to save some money.
Our 1st born traveled many miles on our trips in a basket on that shelf.
My Step Dad won that car for $3.00 about 1957 and I had to pay him the $3.00 + $2.00 registration fee before he dave me the keys.
My dad was 30 in 1939 when WWII started but he married my mom in 1935. He was given a deferment from military service because he was working in the Texas shipyards when the War broke out. He was very deeply affected by the Great Depression and was never able to escape its effects on him. Also having been raised by his much older brother, who was not known for his kind nature, probably had some adverse effects on his as well. I think my dad expected the economy to collapse every day he lived but then he didn't talk much about his past. My mom and dad were married for 55 years until the death of my dad. Mother always kept some of her War ration stamps in an old luggage trunk along with the family photo so I have seen the actual stamps.
My now deceased MIL, who only married my FIL in 1950, told me the story of how she had to gather the "throw-a-way" potatoes from the local produce plant in order to have anything to eat during the Depression. My FIL was still on his family's west Texas farm and he had told me he was hardly aware that there was a depression I suppose it was because the family was raising their own food.
I wish now I had spoken more to my only grandfather who was living while I was around. He was a Texas gunsmith for many years but was in his 70s by the time I came on the scene. By the time I was old enough to care about his stories, he was gone. He was born in 1876 in the deep east Texas Pineywoods not far from where I grew up. If he would have been willing to talk about them, he would have had some very interesting tales about his early teenage years. I know this because some of the tales are documented in several books I have.
Hi HPR....... I think many folks who lived through the 30s depression never forgot it. My wife's mother is 90 years old, so even though quite young at that terrible time, still tends to hoard....... You know the drill, "don't throw that piece of string away...... it may come in handy sometime......"
My grandmother was middle aged during the war. My dad was her last child when she was 40 years old. The depression left deep marks on her, and also her other son being a prisoner of the Germans caused much distress. I lived with her for a while when I was 14 years old, so I did get to have conversations about her past life. But, of course I only listened half hearted. I wish I had asked her much more than I did.
One night I came back to her house from being out with my friends. She lived in a small row house. It was very primitive to me who was used to a more modern life. Her toilet was out back in a small outhouse, and a tin bath hung on a nail over the back door. I can still see her in my minds eye that night, I opened the front door, and pushed past the hanging curtain she had there. She was sat on a wooden chair near the coal fire. The lights were out to save electricity. She was using the light from the fire, and had a cup of tea in her hands.
For a change, instead of going straight to my bedroom, I sat next to her, and we got talking. Something had got her reminiscing in her mind, and she wanted to talk. I seem to remember I had come across a pile of postcards wrapped with an elastic band earlier that day. They were from her son while he was a prisoner of war. I noticed lots of writing on the cards had words covered in black marker. I assume the German censor had done that. Some of them made no sense at all because of the covered sentences.
That night I learned more about her than ever before, or after. She talked of her children that had died in infancy, and one at 21 years old. Also about the war, and the young American soldiers she invited in her home for a cup of tea. I remember her looking into the fire, and saying, "I wonder how many of them made it home to their mothers?"This was only just over 20 years after the war ended, so in her mind, was yesterday.
I always have regretted we didn't have more times like that. She was born in 1892, and could have told me so much about the world of her youth. I was just a kid, and more interested in my life, and how much longer I was going to be forced to live with this old lady........ I guess the saying youth is wasted on the young, is a true one huh?
Great story Dave! I agree with the general "innocence" of our generation. Aside from the improvements in medicine and technological advances of today I'd go back to the serenity of the 50's and 60's.
In elementary school...palm paddling with a ruler was a method of punishment. Jr High and High School were always the butt paddling. We took our licks and kept on ticking. No crying to mom or dad.
In Jr high my cycling buddy and me would skip school on occasion. We kept our motorcycles in a garage of a friends house across the street from the school. One day we skipped and went to the City's Museum. We thought of it as an educational outing. The school principal found out and we got "licks" ...at least i did. My buddy was better than I at worming his way out of trouble. He was always better at getting us into it too.
When I switched schools after the 10th grade it was because we had moved and I wanted to take Electronics shop. First year we had a really good and nice teacher. Unfortunately, he left after a few short months. His replacement was a disaster. The shop became a mad house as he would hide away in his corner office of the large shop area. When he mimeographed tests they were unreadable. Test questions could be answered in numerous ways. You had to guess which way he wanted it answered. 2 years wasted and we got him fired in our senior year.
My 1st car was a 1939 Studebaker Business coupe that had that shelf that had a drop down curtain thing that hid anything you had stashed back there. Used to sneak friends into the drive in to save some money.
Our 1st born traveled many miles on our trips in a basket on that shelf.
My Step Dad won that car for $3.00 about 1957 and I had to pay him the $3.00 + $2.00 registration fee before he dave me the keys.
Gas was .016/.017 c a ga back then.
Good stories everyone.
My grandfather, the gun smith I had mentioned, was a Studebaker man. Of course he remembered Studebaker from the 1920s when the cars were the hottest thing on the roads and tracks. His garage was separated from the house and was a single car slat-board wooden structure (corrugated tin roof if I remember correctly.) He seemed to always have a Studebaker sitting in there in the early 1960s. I can't recall the models.
The inside walls of that garage were covered in old Texas license plate sets. Texas used to give you a new plate set each year (front and back) so he had plenty. After he died, we even found a small hill of the old plates stacked outside in the rear of the building. I guess he had run out of wall space inside. At the time my parents had no idea that these old plates were worth anything but apparently someone must have as the plates quickly disappeared as did all his guns and knifes he had collected over the years.
Texas finally took my granddad's driver's license when he had a fender-bender near his house. I'm sure it broke his heart but it was definitely time. He had gotten so deaf he couldn't hear the car engine running. He lived to be 89 and worked in his gunshop to the end. He died in his bed one morning after telling my grandmother he was dying. She had come to get him up for breakfast. I was still in high school at the time.
My first car was actually a 1953 Chevy 4-door (a 215 ci, 6-cyl.) that had been painted with a paint brush. I think I gave $75 for the car at a car lot. I didn't drive that car very much so I count the '56 Ford as my first. I bought the Ford a couple of years later.
I've always wanted one of the Studebaker Golden Hawks of the mid to late 1950s. I've been talking to my wife about selling our old '24 DB coupe and buying a "driver." However, although the car still runs and is complete, it needs restoration so I don't think it's worth much. Then too what Dodge ever had a resale value?
I was born in 1938 and grew up in a beautiful small town. I've gone through several periods since then of having the strong sentiment of "Oh, how times have changed."
Maybe the fact that this sensation has happened several times is the reason that while I have lots of detailed memories of the past, I don't have much of what I can recognize as nostalgia. The past seems like a foreign country. I know I lived there, but it has become very difficult to conjure feelings about what it was like to live there.
Most of the past has ceased to carry an emotional charge, though it is interesting to look at sometimes.
Location: The Circle City. Sometimes NE of Bagdad.
24,569 posts, read 26,127,399 times
Reputation: 60031
Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired
My grandfather, the gun smith I had mentioned, was a Studebaker man. Of course he remembered Studebaker from the 1920s when the cars were the hottest thing on the roads and tracks. His garage was separated from the house and was a single car slat-board wooden structure (corrugated tin roof if I remember correctly.) He seemed to always have a Studebaker sitting in there in the early 1960s. I can't recall the models.
The inside walls of that garage were covered in old Texas license plate sets. Texas used to give you a new plate set each year (front and back) so he had plenty. After he died, we even found a small hill of the old plates stacked outside in the rear of the building. I guess he had run out of wall space inside. At the time my parents had no idea that these old plates were worth anything but apparently someone must have as the plates quickly disappeared as did all his guns and knifes he had collected over the years.
Texas finally took my granddad's driver's license when he had a fender-bender near his house. I'm sure it broke his heart but it was definitely time. He had gotten so deaf he couldn't hear the car engine running. He lived to be 89 and worked in his gunshop to the end. He died in his bed one morning after telling my grandmother he was dying. She had come to get him up for breakfast. I was still in high school at the time.
My first car was actually a 1953 Chevy 4-door (a 215 ci, 6-cyl.) that had been painted with a paint brush. I think I gave $75 for the car at a car lot. I didn't drive that car very much so I count the '56 Ford as my first. I bought the Ford a couple of years later.
I've always wanted one of the Studebaker Golden Hawks of the mid to late 1950s. I've been talking to my wife about selling our old '24 DB coupe and buying a "driver." However, although the car still runs and is complete, it needs restoration so I don't think it's worth much. Then too what Dodge ever had a resale value?
After my Dad returned home from WWII he had a job working for Studebaker in South Bend, IN. The house he lived in was right across the street from the factory and I used to watch the finished cars and trucks being loaded up to be transported to their final destination.
I remember decoder rings from something but I don't think Captain Midnight ever reached my small town. It may have been shown in Houston. I used to enjoy going to see relatives there. They had more than one tv channel.
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I think many folks who lived through the 30s depression never forgot it. My wife's mother is 90 years old, so even though quite young at that terrible time, still tends to hoard.......
You know the drill, "don't throw that piece of string away...... it may come in handy sometime......"
I agree with the general "innocence" of our generation. Aside from the improvements in medicine and technological advances of today I'd go back to the serenity of the 50's and 60's. 
