The fascination with cars

It was at the end of World War II that I became fascinated with cars.

During the war, auto manufacturers were busy making tanks and ammo carriers.

The public had to get along with some early 1945 models and people were lucky to find one. Those were the days when you could look at a car and know what make it was and the year it was manufactured.

It was still a few years before I was old enough to drive and make enough money to purchase a car. We didn’t have driving classes then. My dad wasn’t anxious to let us drive the family car.

My first experience with the family car was the 1948 senior prom.

Somehow, I talked my dad into letting me drive the family Ford to the prom. I dated a girl who lived right at the Idaho line, about a three-mile drive. I hadn’t yet learned how to drive. I only knew because I had a keen eye watching both my mom and dad drive. I don’t know why dad let take the car. The alternative was to drive me and my date to the prom. I had my struggles with the car and came close to hitting another car. But all is well that ends well. I don’t recall that I ever drove that car again.

My older sister never learned to drive. The local dealer drove it up to the house one day and handed Dad the keys and told him to drive it awhile and come down and he would make him a deal on it. The car was a 1940 Ford. That’s how business was done those days. A handshake was a contract, and a person’s word was good as gold.

It was only a few short years before I purchased my first car. I don’t recall how I learned to drive, or if I ever did. Luckily, I have escaped the perils of the road all these years. The car was a 1937 Plymouth coupe. It was not a great car, but a good one.

At school, cars were the fad. During lunch break, the kids would play tag — someone bumping you and you were “it.”

I remember one friend had a Buick convertible with a rumble seat, and another a Reo. It was good to have friends like that. In my own string of cars, I have had plenty of lemons. They started showi