Saving the Best For Last
Carey Michael commented on the 1960 Family Portrait I added to the blog last week. He wondered what happened to his kindergarden photo that mom had inserted into the frame of the larger group. Well I happen to have that shot as well.
I also have the small collection of pins. medals, and awards that Eileen and Jack's outstanding progeny accumulated before leaving home. I have intended to bring them to one of the recent reunions and redistribute them to the appropriate owners, but forgot. I guess that you special people can claim them when you come to Arlington.
Carey also asked about the big green Bonneville wagon. I think it may have been a 1960 model. I found this example on line. When I came home from the Army in 1970, I bought a 1967 BMW 1600 sedan. Within a few months we decided to become a two car family. I found a beautiful 1965 Mustang convertible for $1500.00. I think that dad had a little pang of ragtop envy. He and Mr. Gideon found a pristine 1967 Firebird Convertible, with a straight six and dual overhead cams, like a Jaguar. I bet Brian got to take this out on dates! How sad that dad was commuting from Carmichaels to Corbin at the time and fell asleep one late night on Interstate 75. I understand that he went head-on into one of those tall rock cuts in Kentucky. He only suffered a broken nose but the sports car was a complete loss.
Comments
I looked online for those cars of Dad's (and Mom's) but it's hard to find the pictures that go with the memories. When you try and list them, Dad had a lot of cars! It's harder than you think to remember all these cars!
The cars I remember (all of these years are suspect cause I can't make them all jive):
- A small(for the 50's) Plymouth station wagon (1957) [used]
- Red and White Dodge from Baily's (1960) Mother learned to drive in this car! [new]
- Famous 1964 Green Bonneville Wagon [used]
- 1966 [Gold] Tempest Wagon [new]
- 1968 [Gold] Tempest [new] ( I learned to drive in this car. Greg put a crease in the fender within 2 days. Dad also had a 6 cylinder '63 [light blue] Work car Remember Kris?
- Red 69 Tempest
I'm sorry I can't do all this at this time. I 'll try and complete this later. I'll do the 70's and 80's later
I do remember the light blue work car - a 3 speed on the column. I asked to drive it once and he didn't realize that Robbie had taught me to drive a stick. He was quite upset to see me drive away.
Do you remember the yellow DKW? Now that was a work car - it wouldn't run unless he worked on it for quite a while. Didn't he get that from Shiftbower (sp)?
You are right Brian; there are a lot of cars to remember.
Kevin, didn't you and Teresa have a 56 or 57 Chevy when you lived in Carmichaels?
The picture of Carey is terrific. He did hate to wear those glasses. Speaking of kindergarten, was he the only one to attend kindergarten? I know that I did not, so that means the older 3 did not attend either. Barbara DeHaas went to kindergarten - a paid class that was somewhere - maybe in the projects? That doesn't make sense!
I do remember the DKW. This was also an enormous leap for dad. He bought it for $300.00 (?) in a dead engine condition. This was a German car! He rebuilt the engine in the garage right down to the crankshaft and bearings and piston and piston rings. I was living in Masontown at the time but I remember that the rebuilt engine would not run very well at first. Then someone told him he had too much back pressure in the exhaust system. He either changed the muffler or rodded it out and presto, it was fixed! He was so excited that he rallied his first assistant mechanic, Brian, and took off to see Shiffbauer in Masontown. The new engine had a catastrophic blowup on the Masontown bridge. It threw and rod and smashed the block. This pristine little car and months of work had to be towed to the big junkyard in the sky.
We came back to Carmichaels in 1968 with a 1956 Chevy two door coupe. This was a two tone, green and white. It looked pretty good for a $125.00 car, but suffered from a bit of cancer at the bottom edges. This was my first car. We saved for several months after we arrived in Eatontown NJ to be able to afford the car. Then it took another month or two before I could pay for the insurance (many, many evenings of buying KP at $5.00 a pop.)
About 20 years ago I was up to 55 cars. I was on on long flight and started to list the car, the year, and the purchace price. I don't know where that list went, but I think I will do this again when I retire. I must be up to about 70 cars by now. (Remember I have owned 4 or 5 cars at a time when the kids were still on the payroll.)
Kevin