Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet

 

Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet

T he aging process during the formative years seems to take forever, but in reality, it's just a blip on the radar screen. In the year 1953, as a small child I viewed the world from the back seat of my father's Hudson and just a decade later, I was peering through the windshield of my own car! In the first example, I was 7 and in the second example....17. Baseball, hot dogs and apple pie came easily in those years. The Chevrolet? Well....As Elvis so eloquently sang "I smell T-r-o-u-b-l-e. And like any other red-blooded American male, I guess I created my share.

In those days, the cost of auto insurance was beyond the means of most young drivers, and so it was with me. The answer lie in the loop hole..., insure it in Dad's name! But that meant I would have to behave. Nah!

My first car, a '56 Chevy, was nosed and decked and had a V-8! That was about all I knew when I bought it from my old life-long friend, Richie Conklin. Dad had warned me about buying an oil burner and I assured him that I was way too smart for that. This car was way cool, but oh man, did it burn oil; so bad, I had to change the spark plugs every day, not to mention how much oil I had to carry with me! Blue smoke? I think the EPA was created in the wake of this smokin' chokin' automobile. This scenario became the catalyst for a home-style ring job that eventually led to an engine swap, using a motor I bought from another life-long friend. I was tenacious to the learning curve once I had made the commitment. The result of all this hard work made this car a powerhouse to be respected among street rodders.

No early age car tale would be complete without a war story.....There we were at the Bayview/Woodbine Avenue light, heading east on Main St at 1:00 AM. We had been at Gunther's tipping a few (too many), the street was clear and the motor running just right. What could be more fun than ripping up Main St. at that hour, with no diagonally parked vehicles to slow me down? I let the clutch fly and all those horses came to life as I shifted through the gears.

Sure enough, Northport's finest witnessed this whole caper and lit me up as I shifted into mach 2. I pulled over by Mars Cup Company (formerly Stiles Chevrolet) and the officer proceeded to give me the sermon including the license and registration requirement. Now this car was nosed, decked, had a big chrome Sun Tach on the dashboard, and the painted "endless dashboard pin stripe" with my girl friend's name in the middle. His next question was "is this your car?" to which I replied "no sir, it belongs to my father".

He wanted to hear the mufflers and made me stand on it real hard. He wrote me up that night for loud mufflers, the lesser of at least umpteen infractions which could have kept me in jail until my 20th high school reunion and on a bicycle until I was 50. Why he did that I still don't know but that would never happen today. Maybe that officer remembered what it was like to be 17. In any case, it was one of those early "driving lessons" that are all part of growing up.

Having a car at 17 has little to do with transportation and much to do with macho. Like most of my peers, I was much less important than I thought I was. The car served as a "big gun" in the hands of a "little cowpoke" who like everyone else at that age was searching for place to fit in, a reason to be recognized. I was lucky to have never "shot myself in the foot" (or worse), but in reality, not all alums were so fortunate. So, to their memory, I dedicate this piece.