My earliest recollection was when a friend of Dad's stopped by the summer of 1961 with a big Harley. He sat me on the gas tank and took me for a ride around the block. I was 11 at the time and vividly remember the sounds, the wind, the thrill of that ride. That was it: I had to get a motor scooter when I turned 15. Started saving paper route money that same summer. I'm still riding. Currently own a dozen bikes of various makes and styles and love them all.
Fall of 1962, Dad bought a 63 Dodge wagon with a 361 in it. The first thing he did was put it up on blocks and have me brush paint the entire underside with zinc chromate primer. Dad worked for the county and Sunday mornings after early church we'd hit all the county beaches to clean up the rest rooms for Sunday picnic types. They really were just out houses. (some of the stuff we cleaned up defied the laws of physics) Anyway, I loved going along because when we were done he'd take the car out on an isolated stretch of highway and open it up. That car seems to fly as far as I was concerned. Dad discovered if he cracked the tail gate window just about an inch he could get a couple more mph out of the car, although the fumes that got sucked inside always gave me a headache.
1964: Grandma bought a new 64 Chrysler Newport. It was a 383 A/T car. At that time one of her sons was still living at home with her. A real obnoxious know it all. He'd borrow the Chrysler all the time and take it out to see how much rubber he could leave on the road ways. He picked me up a couple times and took me along. It really was amazing how that car would burn the right rear tire. Grandma kept bitching about how hard that car was on tires.
That summer a buddie's older brother went in service and left his 56 Plymouth parked behind some pine trees in the back yard. We found the keys in his room. Late at night we'd push the car out of the yard, down the alley and go joy riding. The car had a V8 in it and to us it felt fast as heck. I remember pooling our money to put a couple dollars worth of gas in the thing. The challenge was to have the oldest looking of us all drive into the station and go in to pay, so that the cashier wouldn't question our being old enough to drive.
One night about 5 of us were in the car, pulled in to the local station. Someone else was driving. We pull up to the pumps and realize there's a squad car sitting next to the building. Everyone panics. We did manage to put the requisite $2.00 worth of gas in the car, but no one wanted to go in to pay. I figured we'd get busted for sure if we milled around anymore than we already had. I remembered Dad saying one time, 'just pretend like you know what you're doing'. I don't now remember what prompted him saying that, but it came to mind at the time. I took the money, went in and paid and walked back out to the car, jumped in and started it up while discreetly signaling everyone to hurry up and get into the car. Managed to drive away without being stopped.
Also that summer an Aunt had a 55 Chevy. She was a neat lady and Mom got along well with her. She'd drive over to go shopping with Mom and park the 55 out front. Those year Chevy's had the 'off' and 'lock' position for the ignition switch. Kathy didn't know the difference and always stopped at the off position. One time while they were gone I discovered this and was able to start the car up. Had a great time driving around the neighborhood for a couple hours. Knew enough to get back and park it so it would cool off some before she returned. I would ask Mom regularly when she and Kathy were going out again. Kathy couldn't figure out why her Chevy was going through so much gas. That one was a 265 car but had a power glide in it so it was something of a dog, but it was wheels!
Final story: that same summer me and a buddy both had paper routes. His Dad had a 53 Ford and Mike discovered where he kept the keys. We'd been talking about how neat it would be to have a car to do the early morning route, so Mike borrowed the keys at 4:00AM one morning. We pushed the car down the street a bit, started it up and used it to do both routes. We were done in record time! Spent the next hour driving all over heck. That became a regular process for us. Our folks were both wondering why the routes were taking more time than normal. That experience cemented it for us: we needed to get a car of our own. We pooled our money and bought a 54 Plymouth. Had a local delinquent who was old enough sign the papers and we were in business! Parked the car around the corner at the end of the block.
Pretty soon we were driving around evenings, mornings, any time it was dark out. Lasted about a month. My buddy loaned the car to another kid, who drove it to his house to get something he'd forgotten at home. His Dad saw him driving the car and called the cops. The proverbial **** hit the fan at that point. End of car.
