4/5/10

I'll Bet You've Never Had a Car Like This One!

To describe my dad as unusual would have been an understatement. He was a Mr. Fix-It of sorts, especially when things didn’t need to be fixed.

Dad always wanted to build the proverbial better mouse-trap but his efforts were more like turning something regular and usual into something irregular and unusual, which he called creative usefulness.

In other words, he was really good at making things that didn’t work or didn’t look right. Some might call them disasters.

For example, way back yonder (for all of you non-southerners, this usage of “yonder” is a reference to time) we had a green Studebaker. (For all of you young folks, a Studebaker was a car.)

I don’t know what model our Studebaker was; I didn’t even know they came in models back then.  (Below is a picture of a 1966 Studebaker; I think ours was older.)
Nor do I know how many people had owned the car before we had it. Dad always got used cars; these were things he could customize or modify.

Or ruin.

The Studebaker was green with white – to which Dad added more white. This addition was not on purpose, though. One day, he was using a spray gun to paint something nearby, much too nearby, in fact. White paint droplets splattered all over the side of the Studebaker. From then on, the car was green and white with one side covered by irregular white polka dots across it.

The major customization, however, was one Dad performed on purpose. He had a need for an extra seat from a car. (That’s a whole ‘nother story.) So, he took the back seat out of the Studebaker for his other purpose.

From then on, when we rode in that car, we had to either stand or kneel in the back or simply sit on the floor where the seat had been.

No seat belts, no shoulder harnesses, no airbags, no child car-seats. No automatic anything.

And I guarantee you no one ever tried to steal that car!

Ah, those were the good ol’ days.

~                               ~                             ~                              ~                            ~

3 comments:

Sandee said...

We never had a Studebaker. Thank the good Lord. They were so very ugly. Dad was a Ford Fairlane kind of guy. They were much better looking.

We are from the same era, so I get all of this including the southern phrases.

Have a terrific day. :)

Syd said...

Sherry, at least it wasn't an Edsel! Glad that we all survived without being human catapults.

Sarge Charlie said...

I had a 1951 studebaker

 
This site was recently updated by oxymoron13@aol.com