First Car

By the mid-sixties downtown Detroit had become a full fledged toilet and someone pulled the handle. It flushed the city and a shit-load of people flooded the suburbs. that's when the boys closed down the old station and bought a new Marathon "super" station in the burbs. It was magnificent! Modern. All glass, new pumps - a two hoister with real bathrooms which was a real step up from the toilet in the corner of the old garage. Everything changed including the caliber of customer. It was too far for Leroy to drive on fifty cents worth of premium.

Is fourteen too young to become a fully certified auto mechanic? I didn't think so, after all we had official new uniforms and a new tow truck! Along with new duties like changing oil, mounting tires and collecting money at the pumps. Our pay got bumped from fifty cents and hour to seventy-five! Tall cotton. My cousin Larry and I flipped coins to see who would wait on the next short-skirted teenage hottie who rolled up to the pumps. We took extra care in cleaning their windshields.

Some loyal downtown customers did drive out have their cars serviced. One in particular owned a two-toned light green 1954 Ford Crestliner that he bought brand new. The car was spotless and he told me he was thinking of trading it in. I foamed at the mouth. He sold me that car for $175.00! I was fifteen and did not have my drivers license yet. I was restricted to driving it around the gas station lot - only. Which I did a lot of including pulling it in the garage to change the oil and filter every week!

To me a green car is just wrong so my first act of hot rodding was to paint it flat black with spray cans. Remember this car was a cream-puff. Off with the hub caps. Out came the grill and front bumper. I jacked it up six inches and put lights in the front fender wells. And let's not forget the exhaust cut-outs and fuzzy rear view mirror muff.  I remember painting a name on the front fenders but I can't remember what it was. I probably added 1,000 miles to the speedo in the driveway before I got my license.

The day I turned sixteen I road tested in dad's 1963 Buick Wildcat! That car was strictly off limits until then. It was black with white bucket seats and the 401 V8 was a real burn-out machine. He never knew that. After work I jumped in the Ford picked up three buddies and drove around until three in the morning. That's when it happened.

I was in the process of dropping off my last passenger. A light rain began to fall. Bill asked if he could drive my car. I said, "Sure why not." Bill slid behind the wheel and off we went. Bill was a big guy for his age and he neglected to adjust the driver's seat. He tried to apply the brake while entering a left hand turn and his knee hit the steering column. As Ford began to slide sideways, I watched a telephone pole get larger through the passenger window. "Holy Shit!" Wham. The car T-boned into the pole, bounced off (Bill still had his foot on the gas) lurched forward, sliced through a guide wire and ran head on into a tree; motor still running.

"Get outta the goddamn car you idiot!" I yelled. "You almost killed us!" "Look at my car!" Turns out
Bill did not have a drivers license nor did he have any money to pay for the damage. I had to take the wrap for reckless driving and pay for the pole and the tree. As luck would have it we were only a few blocks from the gas station where I parked the smoking wreck. My insurance doubled, I had to pay a fine and my car was damn near a total loss.

I replaced the radiator, banged out some metal and sold it to a girl who worked at the hamburger stand across the street for $75. Nobody drove any of my cars until I got married and over the years all four of them wrecked my cars. Maybe it's just me.

I don't have any pictures of the cars from my teenage years. I was house-sitting for mother-in-law number two when she had her double-wide torched to collect insurance money and all of my photos went up in smoke. So did the marriage to wife number two shortly after that.