My early car-owning years were spent nursing and cursing a succession of mainly Detroit Iron, every single one of them about one bearing, differential, transmission, or rod away from the wrecking yard gates. I was the last steward in their short lives and the person most responsible for their quick and ultimate demise.
My first car was a 1953 Packard Clipper with a straight eight cylinder engine. . .it was a washed out flat yellow color. Unlike this automobile, it never actually motated on its own power under my stewardship. I bought it from Art Pommer, a wall-eyed high school science teacher, for $15 and promised to "fix it up." One of my friends towed it to my house, where it sat in the parking strip under three enormous locust treets for two years.
My friends and I made perfunctory attempts to start it: cleaned the fuel filter, poured in fresh gasoline (@ twenty-nine cents a gallon), changed the spark plugs, bought some starter fluid. Someone "found" a used battery. The Clipper never responded to our ministrations, which was just as well, since we were only fifteen, unlicensed, and would surely have gone cruising had we actually succeeded in firing her up. God had a plan. It became our de facto clubhouse. I may be wrong, but I think one of my first meetings with "Kev" ( a frequent contributor to All This Is That) occurred in this very vehicle.
[tomorrow, Part II]
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