After I got out of the Navy, I was looking around for a car when my brother-in-law offered to sell me a 1948 Hudson Hornet. I thought it was a really neat car.......... WOW! a Hornet, That suggested to me a real powerhouse of a car and I thought it was real "Snazzy" to use some slang from that era. It even had a windshield visor and rear fender skirts just like the photo above. After I bought it some of my friends were snickering behind my back. "Here comes the Turtle" Or "The Hunchback for Old Dames" and the upside down bathtub were among the names I remember, but those who did not have cars were quick to hitch a ride whenever we went somewhere. This was one of the first cars produced after World War II which featured modern styling. The Auto industry suspended auto production from 1942 through 1946 so most of the cars on the road when WWII ended were old and ready for the scrap heap. I had not even finished High School even though I studied in the Navy all the courses and completed my GED tests and passed them which entitled me to a diploma although I never really got one. I wish someone would have grabbed me by the neck and told me That the government would pay the tuition if I wanted to go to college. I really don't know why I made no effort to go. All my family and the friends I hung out with were people who worked 9 to 5 and lived from one paycheck to the next. I was no different. The closest thing we had to a college graduate were my 2 sisters Lillian and Loraine who took a 2 year Office & Secterial school at St. Xavier called "Commercial School". I landed a couple of menial jobs I was not satisfied with and quit each after a few weeks. I remember one where I was a Truck unloader and stock clerk for a company called General Sales, a wholesaler located on Court St. in Cincinnati Ohio who sold stuff to Mom and Pop stores. I hated that job so much I don't think I even called in and told them I was quitting, I just didn't show up for work one day, I never even went back for my check.I worked in a Hamburger Joint for awhile and then a transformer company winding electric coils. I must have been crazy to take that job as the hours were 11 pm to 7 am. I was really good at what they asked me to do. There was a union there and I learned to run a coil winding machine that would wind about 20 coils at a time on a long tube. I wont bore you with all the steps of manufacture but it was a quite extensive procedure. When I get involved in most things I usually concentrate so intensely that I don't notice anything else except the job at hand. Well it seems I was doing my job too well! The shop Forman said that all jobs in the plant had a time study which we had to match. He said if I set a new standard then all other workers would have to match it. He took me off the coil winding machine. The next job he gave me was on a spot welder, I had to take a metal housing (Which fit over the coils) attach it to a small mounting bar and then slip it on the spot welder which then welded the two parts together, it only took 1 minute to learn this job. WHAT HAS THIS TO DO WITH THE HUDSON?HOLD ON I'M GETTING THERE! I did each weld so fast that the bin I threw them in was filling fast. The shop foreman noticed this and warned me again, "Slow Down!" he said "Are you trying to set a record?" He reminded me of the time study again. Well! I tell you, I gave my notice within a week and returned to the world of people who slept at night. My next job was learning to repair calculating machines. The Marchant Calculating Machine Co, was a big deal in those days. They offered me on the job training which was great for them because the government paid half of my salary and Marchant paid the other half. I didn't know any better, I thought I was getting a good deal, at least it was more money than I had been making. They sent me away to a school in Pittsburgh for 3 months to learn to repair the machines. The car went with me. When I got out of there I could disassemble and rebuild a very complicated machine which had hundreds of moving parts. In those days there were no computers or electronic devices of any kind. This mechanical machine could add, subtract, divide and multiply and do diverse calculations such as square roots and other stuff I knew nothing about, I just knew how to fix them. Actually I rarely had to fix one of them. The closest office machine to one of these was called a comptometer machine which was a glorified Abacus. The Marchant Machines were like giant adding machines which sat on desks in most business's all over the world. At that time they were very essential to daily business. Most firms had contracts which called for maintenance and tune-up on a regular basis. That is what I did mostly. I would go to large companies such as P&G or General Electric and clean and oil the machines. It might take a week at each place because they had so many machines. Back to the car or should I say the end of the car? One day as I was going home from work I had to stop at a railroad crossing to let a freight train pass. While waiting I noticed a petite little redhead walking her dog on the side of the road, I will never forget that woman for the rest of my life even though I only saw her for seconds. She had on a white dress with red polka dots and a red straw hat which she was holding on with one hand while the dog was pulling her other one. The train passed and I accelerated across the tracks at the same time I was checking out the polka dot scenery to my right. I should have been looking where I was going because directly on the other side of the tracks were a line of cars stopped for a red light. What a stupid place for a traffic light, It was only 100 feet on the other side of the tracks. I expected to have a clear road ahead after the train passed, NOT SO! I plowed into the back of an Old Big Heavy Buick sedan. Wham! Bam! Thank You Mam!. My hood flew up bent in half from the crash, the engine quit, water was squirting up on the windshield from the radiator and one of the tires was flat and the rim was bent. This is the only accident I have had in my entire life that was my fault (I've only had 2 total) Here's the weird part of this scene, There was a policeman standing by the side of the road right near the accident. I had to groan when I saw him. He asked "Need a tow truck" I answered in the affirmative and he helped me to push my car to the side of the road. The amazing thing about this was that he never even gave me a ticket for the accident. "You already have enough problems!" was his only reply. In a few minutes the tow truck showed up and delivered me and my car to the sidewalk of my house located in Northside (Suburb of Cincinnati, Oh.) on Apple street. It sat there for a few days while I decided what to do next, Next was to find another car so I called the Auto Graveyard on Spring Grove avenue and they came to haul the old lady away. I suppose I should have shed a tear or said a prayer as she went to her final resting place.