autos – An Old Man's Thoughts, Memories, & Opinions

No, not the bright light in the sky with a tail; instead, my first car.

I turned sixteen that year. I had my new driver’s license. I no longer needed to mow yards in the summer to earn money. I had a job working on a local farm.

My father decided it was not safe for me to ride my motorcycle the seven or eight miles from my home to the farm. So, the motorcycle was sold. But the money was put into the bank along with left over money from several years of mowing yards in the spring, summer, and fall. It was to be used to buy a car.

Mowing yards in those days paid from two dollars to eight dollars per yard depending on their size. There was not much money in the bank even with the money from the motorcycle. This was not going to be a new car. Nor was it going to be a hot rod or even a sporty car, not even a pickup with a gun rack in the back window like some of my farm friends had. Think instead of a reliable, greatly used four door sedan. Still, it was going to be my car.

Shopping for the car took several weeks which seemed like years. First, my father talked to auto dealers he had purchased from previously. No luck there – they either had nothing suitable or the price was too high. Then came trips to other dealers, only on Saturdays when Dad was not working.

Finally, as a last result, we went to a nearby Mercury dealer and found the car that met Dad’s standards. A used Mercury Comet. I think it was four or five years old. It was not my first choice, but it was a car. There were at least three models of the Comet. The top of the line was the Caliente – not mine. Then there was the Cyclone, the sports car version – again, not mine. And, at last, there was the basic Comet – yes, mine.

Nothing fancy, no deluxe features, it had four doors, an AM radio, cloth bench seats, and an automatic transmission with the shifter on the column. It also had a six-cylinder inline engine, or a straight six. I probably could not have gotten in trouble with that car even if I tried.

The paint job was good, but describing the color is a bit difficult. It wasn’t blue nor was it green. Nor was it turquoise. Looking back, I suppose it could be best described as a dark aqua with some sort of frosted look.

The car did, however, get me back and forth to the farm where I worked and the six or seven blocks to school during the school year. The car was reliable with one exception. At times, unexpectedly and with no prior warning, the engine would simply quit. The poor thing must have simply been tired. After sitting for an hour or two, the engine could be restarted and would run like there had been no problem. I was lucky. When it did this, I was usually near home and could pull off the road to avoid accidents.

My cousin was not quite as lucky. He was about fourteen years older than me and came for a visit one winter. He borrowed my car to visit another relative for the day. As he was returning the engine decided it needed a rest about five miles from home. He managed to get the car out of the road but could not get it to restart. He also could not get a ride, so he had to walk the last few miles. After my mother arrived home from work, we drove to the Comet and, as expected, it started without problem and drove home with no other issues. He did not ask to borrow the Comet again.

Even with the occasional engine problems and the strange color, the Comet served me well until I graduated from high school. It was traded for a new car for me to attend college on the other side of the state and held its value, bringing a trade value almost equal to its cost to me. It was not a show car nor a sports car but I will always remember it as my first car – The Comet.

I’ve often thought about the differences between actually living in a small town and what we often see as small-town life on television or in movies. While I would not trade my small- town years for living in a large city, I wonder if those who spent their lives in larger cities realize how different rural lives are from their own. Over the next few days (or maybe weeks) I plan to share some thoughts on my early life in a small-town as well as what I know from experiences shared by my parents or others. Sometimes this will be the same as what we have seen or heard and at other times it will be far different.

Today I want to share a bit about travel, or moving around, to and from a small-town. In the first few years of my life there were four ways to travel from my hometown to other places – by train, by bus, by auto and walking.

The simplest to discuss are by train and by bus. They offered similar options. Travel by train was offered for the shortest period – if my memory is correct, passenger service was offered until I was about six or seven years old. There were two passenger trains daily, one northbound and one southbound and both trains passed through our town late at night or very early in the morning. While they offered transportation to larger cities with more connections, this was not always convenient and could not always get you to your destination.

Travel by bus was very similar. I remember two buses each day, again one going north and one going south. If your destination was not on their route, you had to make connections in other towns or cities with larger bus depots. And, just like train travel, not all destinations had bus service. Bus service to my town ended when I was in my teens.

Travel by auto was a bit different. There were two options in my hometown. The first was travel on a state highway, the same highway used by buses and paralleling the route of the railroads through most of its length. Most highways were paved or at least had a tar and gravel surface over the roadbed. In some locations shoulders were provided while in others ditches or tree rows came right to the edge of the roadway. Roads like that today would be considered very unsafe. And travel speed on these highways was often limited to about forty to forty-five miles per hour for any of a variety of reasons.

The second method of auto travel was over local graveled roads. These were mainly farm roads maintained by the county. They were occasionally graded, but any smoothness provided by grading was lost after a few days, especially if there was any rain. Speed here was also limited, both by the roughness of the road and for safety. While we only had one state highway passing through our town, we had more options in graveled roads – one going northwest from town, one going west, one going south, and, I believe, one going east. They had many connections allowing travel not only a route to local farms but also to other nearby small towns.

Of course, walking was always an option, along with hitchhiking which was relatively safe then. At the same time, it was also the slowest form of travel and did not provide an easy way to carry things you might need like food and water.

Looking back further into the past, travel was typically by wagon or horse over unimproved roads and trails. Personally, I have trouble even imagining how uncomfortable travel was. Slow speeds, steel or wooden wheels, rough surfaces – it could not get much worse. And a trip to or between towns might take hours or even a full day.

When I look at my hometown today things have changed a bit. Train service, for passengers, has long been gone. Bus travel is also an option that no longer exists. Traveling by auto is mostly the same although the roads are improved, and travel speeds are faster. Other than better shoes and less safety, walking is unchanged.

Even so, things in the small town are far different than the romanticized version that we see on television and in the movies.