Original oil painting by: Grandfather’s wife
The following was written by my late wife Elaine. She wrote a long book, a diary really, from which this is one passage:
Dave had traded the wrecked ’36 Chevrolet on a nice used 1946 blue-green Desoto, and that’s the car we used for going to Pennsylvania. The second, newer two-tone maroon and gray Desoto was the one we used for our honeymoon.
We camped in a tent at Bear Lake in Michigan
With these cars, Dave and I enjoyed going for “rides” … just fun rides, sometimes for some “parking.” (But we were very good.)
Early goals for my future were to get married, have two children, and be a stay-at-home mom; my hopes and dreams did not include college. My parents always said that “girls don’t need educations” and that young people who went to college would “lose their God.”
The high school I chose to go to, rather than a neighborhood school, was Commerce High School, downtown, to learn secretarial skills: shorthand (the Gregg system), typing, office machines, bookkeeping, etc. so I could get a good job, and mastering these skills came easily to me.
Dave went to Cass Technical High School where he studied Commercial Art, and it was just half a block from my high school. Many years later, Commerce and Cass were both demolished because they were in the path of a proposed new highway. Because Commerce drew students from all areas of Detroit, and since many of us students worked half a day during our senior year, “school spirit” was missing, and there were no class reunions.
To be continued…
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About the Author: RD Blakeslee is a nonagenarian in West Virginia who built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here.
Photos: Courtesy of the Blakeslee Family
Elaine’s parents, Alfred and Muriel, married in the 1920s and did not own an automobile until the 1950s. They travelled everywhere, two children in tow, on public busses, trolley cars and trains. The prosperity of America’s Golden Age finally caught up with them and they purchased a Nash Airflight.
Dave was amused at Alfred’s “adventures”, engaging the clutch.
LOL Thanks for sharing. I loved the “sometimes just for parking. (But we were very good.)”.
I tell ladies that I don’t believe in kissing. Kissing spreads germs. I sure had fun spreading germs when I was younger. (I didn’t go any farther than that. I was very good in behavior.). lol
Bill, your behavior was typical of well-raised kids back in the day. Nice to hear of it from another old timer. It won’t be heard much, anyplace else.
Mr. Dave, if Alfred has bought a Nash Rambler, he could have outrun Cadillacs. lol We might be the only two that remember that song.
Nash Ramblers outrun Cadillacs in second gear, no less! I remember.
Growing up, my Dad had (used) ’57 and ’60 AMC Rambler wagons after the ’53 Chevy wore out. I had hoped to get the parked ’57 when I began to drive, but Dad bartered it for welding up the rusted front end on the ’60. And the high school drafting teacher had a tiny Nash Metropolitan. But I digress . . . .
“Dave was amused at Alfred’s “adventures”, engaging the clutch.”
At the funeral for my wife’s mother or uncle, an elderly employee was lining up the family’s cars in the establishment’s parking lot.
My wife warned him about our car, “It’s a standard.” The old man just smiled. So I looked at him and joked, “It’s got Synchromesh.”
When I was growing up, my dad owned a ’68 AMC Rambler station wagon. My folks put curtains on the back side windows; as little kids, my sister and I used to love traveling in the back of that car on our annual cross-country trips. We had a great set-up back there, with a pillow and some blankets – and no seat belts, of course. Totally illegal now, but those were the days.
(Speaking of no seat belts, my dad used to occasionally load all of the neighborhood kids into the back of his pick-up truck and take us to get ice cream. Try that today and the cops would haul you off to jail!)
These days, if you say, “It had 3 on the tree”, people look at you like your speaking Klingon.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with automobiles, guys!
Mine are here: https://lenpenzo.com/blog/id52362-grandfather-says-a-look-back-at-the-29-cars-ive-owned-during-my-life.html
My most-remembered were the 1950 era Saabs. Ingenious simplicity, Three on the tree, front-wheel drive with great handling but underpowered with a three-cylinder, two stoke-cycle engine.
it was built as a unibody, heavier than a VW bug, the dominant car in its class back then. Both had top speeds of 72 MPH and we used to say they did zero-to-sixty in one afternoon.
The Saabs could not climb a grade steeper than about 12 % in first gear, so they were furnished with a very low reverse gear and the owner’s manual instructed the driver to turn around and back up steep hills!
When we were teenagers, my sister’s first car was an old Ford Falcon (I think it was a ’63) with three on the tree. It was old, but it ran well and was built like a tank! I think the doors alone weighed more than some of today’s cars in their entirety.
Len, did it have a choke? A lot of them back then still had a choke.
I don’t recall if the Rambler had a choke, Bill. But my very first car, a ’71 Datsun 510 did indeed have a choke. (And I used it often on very cold mornings!)
Mr. Dave, do any of your current vehicles look like “sharks with indigestion”? lol
No, Bill, My only car now is a 2015 Subaru Forrester and it’s styling is pretty conservative.