 2006-04
In spring many a fancy turns to cars - and we, at Seniors CHOICE, are no different. Not the new cars, which are all very well in their way, but the cars we loved when we were younger. Check your papers and magazines, look on the internet, scan the Seniors CHOICE events, and you will find car shows celebrating our four wheeled friend whatever age, shape or size. Classic cars and hot rods, restored Corvettes (always a great favourite) alongside restored Mustangs and the magical Model Ts. I've always loved the little Nash Metropolitan, but only if it is red and white. There is something wonderfully appealing about the old cars with their wooden dashboards, running boards and rumble seats, and trunks that really were trunks. One of the really fun shows, and one of the earliest, is the Show and Shine in Summerland on the Victoria Day weekend. If you have never been to this then I really recommend it, and be sure to take your camera.
Joel's column certainly brought back memories of learning to drive for me, and I hope for you as well. We spent hours driving the gravel washboard of the Commonage Road, which seemed a lot longer then. Now it is fast becoming a four lane paved highway in support of Predator Ridge, but then it was a two lane winding cow path that connected the Vernon Army Camp, which really was much bigger then, with the dot on the map that was Okanagan Centre. A great place to learn to drive as there was no traffic to speak of and you couldn't go very fast because you'd kick up gravel and dust.
Dust was a summer problem, of course, along with no air conditioning. In the winter the challenges were different, no windshield washer fluid back then. Many will remember driving along the slushy roads until the windshield wipers could no longer cope with the sand and dirt that was thrown up and you had to stop at the nearest clean snow bank and grab a handful of snow to wash down your windshield. That would usually work for a few miles, and then you had to repeat it. Of course, if you were driving an old Beetle, chances are the windshield wipers didn't work anyway, and you had to reach out and move the driver's side wiper blade by hand. Chances are the heater didn't work, either. A VW Beetle from the classic years will run forever, but not necessarily well, and not all parts at once. Still, if you ever drove one you loved it and felt like you were really a 'driver' - it took work to make that car go, but what a sense of accomplishment!
We felt pretty tough and resourceful then, until one of the older folks would start to talk about driving on the prairies in the Dirty 30s. We heard stories of the grasshopper plagues that made our little triumphs seem simple stuff. Swarms of locust that were so big you could hear them coming long before they got to your place. If you tried to drive to town along the gravel roads your tires soon became slick with crushed insects, until you felt like you were driving on ice. You couldn't see through the windshield, and turning on the wiper blades was not an option. We were tough, but they were tougher.
Still, we had our moments. The driver's test always included parallel parking on a hill. It wasn't the parking itself that was the problem so much as not stalling out with all the clutching and gear shifting you had to do - and no power steering to help you turn those wheels into the curb. If you stalled at a red light or a stop sign, you failed. We had to signal our turns by putting our arm out the window (very quickly in the winter time) and no seat belts, of course. Dimmer switch was on the floor, and in a slightly different spot in every car. I don't think many of us would want to repeat those years, but they were fun at the time and are still fun to look back on.
Send us your early memories of learning to drive the family car, or of the first old 'beater' you bought for $50 and promptly took apart - and we'll share them with our readers. If anyone out there owns a red and white Nash, send us a picture. And remember, whether you kept that old car or just kept the memories, there is a full summer of 'show and shines' to look forward to. You may just find that someone has restored that old car that you treasured. At the very least, you will find good folks to swap car stories with.
- Pat Archibald, Editor - |
