THE CAR

In 1985 when my mother was sixty-seven years old, she wrote her self-published “book” which was simply a series of real stories from her life.  I have often turned to its pages to smile again at her memories of growing up in Kentucky, her life on the farm, and our move to Florida when I was eight years of age.  Here is one of her stories that I recently read again and thought perhaps you would enjoy it too.

THE CAR

One day Dad decided to buy a car.  Since the Model T was the only car for a poor man, he paid $150.00 for the car.  We were so proud of that car and felt like it was going to be a great improvement over the road wagon.  That remained to be seen.  I don’t know just what the Model T was made for, but it surely was not made for us.  It didn’t have the power to climb the hills with a load in it; in fact it would not even pull itself up the hill.  Many times we were out pushing the car up the hill when some neighbors would pass us up in their road wagon.  I always felt like they were laughing up their sleeve at us and our car.

The tires were so puny they could not clamber over the rocks and kept having blow-outs.  A patching kit was always in the car for the inner tubes and was continually taken out for patching.  One Sunday we went to Pilgrim to church and had 7 blow-outs before we got home.  The car was not long with us and we were back in the wagon.  Dad did not own another car for many years.