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My 50 Ford
The Pumpkin
My 50 Ford was my first licensed vehicle. It had two flat tires the day I purchased it. But, it was my pride and joy. It had a personality of it's own. For those days it was great on gas. Some might say it burned less gas than oil.
It was the fifties and the really sharp cars were chopped, channeled, lowered, and had hot engines. They also had fender skirts and chrome Spinner hubcaps. With my resources, I settled for removal of the center of my grill and Baby Moon hubcaps.
One Halloween I placed a pumpkin in the open grill. I then wired a tail light bulb inside the pumpkin and back to a switch on the dash. On a moonlit night I would turn off my lights, flip the pumpkin switch on, and sometimes when going down hill turn off the engine and coast. If you saw me coming you didn't notice the shadow of the black car only the lighted pumpkin. This was known as “Super Cool”.
One night when turning on the pumpkin light a dog appeared. He froze in his tracks, and before I could react, I clipped him. I never used the pumpkin again. (The following Christmas, a lighted Santa face took its place.)
The Wolf Whistle
I purchased a "Wolf Whistle" from an auto mail order company. It was advertised as producing the whistle to attract the attention of girls, with a sound louder than any human could produce. I connected it to the Ford.
As usual the Ford was unique. Apparently the vacuum that powered the whistle was substandard in the Ford. As one friend would say, it was more like a police siren than a whistle.
In Endicott, NY there was a place called "Round Top". Word had it that Charlie Johnson of Endicott Johnson Shoes fame had purchased that hill for young lovers to have a place to "make out". It was private property and the local police did not appear to visit there without a valid reason.
Well, I had the black Ford and I had a passable siren, so, I purchased a CB whip antenna for my rear bumper. Yep. It didn't seem to matter that the Ford was too old, when I hit that phony siren, the young lovers scrambled to their cars like bees to a hive.
When we were bored, we often visited "Round Top" Good thing we lived in Binghamton.
The Limburger Cheese
It was football weather. It was most likely a Saturday afternoon. Central High was playing North High. It was the duty of those who owned vehicles to distribute food to the opposing school, like eggs or soft squishy vegetables. I was there. After depositing some food to the needy North High School walls, we departed for Long Eddy. We visited and "Hung Out" and I dropped a friend at his girlfriends.
Later when returning to Binghamton, it started. A smell like something you cannot imagine. Not just Limburger cheese, but Limburger cheese heated to the temperature of an engine manifold transmitted inside via the heating system plus every crack and cranny in the firewall. It was bad. We suffered all the way home.
Once home the cheese was removed. It did not diminish the intensity of the smell at all. With heater off and windows open it was better, but still terrible. I still had friends, but few in my car. Weeks went by. The ford was used to and from work only and then, only with windows open. One night on the way home, I hit a skunk. Yea, a skunk can even overpower a piece of Limburger cheese.
The skunk smell finally disappeared. It took the Limburger cheese odor with it. For the past 44 years I have told this story blaming the ex-boyfriend my friend's girlfriend. By chance, last fall, I met that friend and his girl find (now wife). They told me the cheese was from those fellows from North High, returning some food of their own.Further note: In my 60's with the advent of the internet, I hooked up with "Big Jim Dofton" from Philly. (one of those great pinsetter friends.) One of the first comments he made was. "Remember your old 50 Ford?"
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