My first Automobile

I suppose that cars are a lot like girls you have known throughout your life. Some were very beautiful and satisfying. Some were temporary until something better came along. Some cars were more memorable than others and some of the girls were very memorable as well! But that's another story!
I spotted my first car when I was coming home from Central Vocational High School in 1948 on Reading Road in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was only 17 years old and did not have a driver’s license; In fact I had never driven a car up to that day. But I had ridden in lots of them, how hard it can be. It had a 4 cylinder engine which doesn't provide a lot of power. It was a 2 door Model a Coup with a single seat up front and a rumble seat that opened to provide room for 2 more people (outside exposed to the weather) on a nice day. I looked at that car for weeks until I decided I had to have it. They wanted a hundred dollars for it which of course I didn't have but I had been saving for it for weeks. There was a little office on one of the side streets near the school and I used to go to after school and sweep and empty all the ashtrays and wastebaskets, If I did anything else I don't remember it, my pay was one dollar for about 2 hours work. I also cut grass the hard way, I did not own a lawn mower, and there was no grass where I lived, just concrete sidewalks. There was this one neighborhood that all the houses had a grass yard in front of their house and some even had grass in back but not all. AH! I remember it well; it was on Highland Avenue just below McMillan Street. I used to walk up and down the street and knock on doors and ask if I could cut their grass. Some laughed when they found out I did not have a mower. Lawns were few and far between and most of the ones I did get the people had the old fashioned reel type that cut the grass with spinning blade on a drum arrangement that was a hard earned 50c. I saved to the point which I had scraped up $25. (A small fortune in those days.) I went to the short little guy with a cigar stub stuck in his mouth and offered him a deal. I would give him $25 and get the rest to him within a month or so. I think I was a little surprised when he said OK. We drew up the papers and he never asked if I had a license or not. I told him I would get a license plate before I drove it anywhere but straight home. I was scared to death as I got behind the wheel and turned the key to start the engine. The motor sprang to life with a really pleasant chug-chug-chug sound and black smoke pouring out the exhaust. A toot on the horn bellowed out a loud ahh-ogg-ga! And off I went down the hill and heading for home about 25 miles away. We lived in English Woods which was a government housing project with subsidized rent. About two thirds of the way home I started to feel a loss of power as I was chugging up a hill until it was obvious to me I was not going to make it. I found a phone and called home and explained the situation and my brother-in-law agreed to come and help me. I think he had to take a bus as I don't think he owned a car at the time, I was a little scared to go any further alone. He was probably about 25 years old at the time and knew more about cars than I did. By the time he got there the car had cooled off and it started right up. It was very slow going even for him for the 2 or 3 miles to the house. I think the clutch was bad. I don't remember explaining to my Mom how come I had a car parked outside in the lot next to our house. But I think it must have been OK for the moment as I remember going out to work on the engine and was soon joined by 3 or 4 of my friends. I remember one of them telling me the timing must be off so we loosened the distributor cap and advanced the spark. I don't know what we did but it now sounded like a V8 racing engine. VROOOM-VROOOM it roared and we all piled in to go for a spin, it sounded powerful but it didn't drive that way. We had 3 guys inside and one on each running board, we would drive for about 100 feet and it would quit, every body got in back and pushed until we got it started again and we would go another 100 feet, We kept this up all day and never did figure out what was wrong. Once while going the street I had to stop suddenly and the two guys who were on the running boards went flying across the pavement. Unfortunately one of them cut his arm very bad on the fender as he sailed over it, he had to get stitches. I supposed we fooled around with it for a week or two and by then I wasn't sure what to do. My mother did though. She got on the phone the next morning and talked to the guy who sold it to me. She informed him that I was a minor and could not sign a legal contract to purchase, not only that he would have to explain to the police how come he let a 17 year old unlicensed kid drive away from his lot? She threatened to sue the pants off him if he did not come and get the car right away. He came that afternoon with a wrecker, not only that I got a $25 refund, I think it was hush money. Well, that was the only car I ever owned until after I got out of the Navy. The Navy was where I really learned to drive, (Self Taught) that’s my next story.