Fondness for a family motoring icon

Let’s leave town on a permanent vacation,
Lock up the house, pack up the station wagon.
— “Outta Here” song lyrics by Kenny Chesney

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“Station wagon—where did that come from,” a friend laughed loudly, talking about her new sport utility vehicle approaching the size of a World War II Sherman Tank.

Station wagons disappeared from dealership model lineups in the mid-1990s. But, for those of us whose first driver’s license predated man’s landing on the moon, there’s usually a lingering fondness for the one-time icon of family motoring.

Two things likely paved the road south for true station wagons. One is the demise of “full-sized” cruiser automobiles that served as the station wagon’s platform. Caprices. Roadmasters. Galaxies. The other was the introduction of minivans and the gussied-up domestication of truck-based work vehicles.

The term “station wagon” originated in the early 1920s during the age of train travel. A wooden wagon body mated to an automobile chassis served to transport people and freight to and from train stations. Hence, “station wagon.” The wood look remained in fashion through the last true station wagons of the 90s, long after metal was the better suited method of manufacturing. The last of the “woody wagons” utilized decorative vinyl to obtain the popular faux wood look.

Old station wagons are cool today. I’ve long harbored a secret lust for a ’55 Ford Country Squire wagon. Black with a red interior.

“My father had a station wagon,” my friend said, recalling where her words came from. “I backed it into a pole and bent the bumper when I started driving. Didn’t think he would notice right away,” she laughed. “I was wrong.”

“We also had one,” I replied. “A 1958 Ford Country Country Sedan. Beige and white. And huge. Dad traded in a ’56 Chevy sedan when he brought the Ford wagon home in about 1960. Mom made frequent after-school trips in those days from Mount Pleasant to Granny’s house in Pittsburg, checking on Dad’s parents.

One memorable day, Mom and Granny were engaged in one of their spirited conversations, I’m guessing over one of my grandmother’s critiques on child-rearing. My grandmother, bless her heart, could ruffle Mom’s feathers in a heartbeat. She really meant well, it was just in her personality to be everyone’s life coach.

Nearing tears over their discussion and deciding it was time to go home, Mom loaded us in the wagon and gave ‘er the gas heading south on Cypress Street. As the motor revved up and the car gained speed, Mom took the column-mounted shift lever and threw it up into the “second gear position.”

Now, that would have have been just fine had she still been driving the recently traded-off Chevy. It was a standard shift. What Mom forgot in her aggravated emotional state was that the wagon was the first car Dad bought with an automatic transmission.

For anyone never having experienced this automotive faux pas, it’s something you long remember. Shifting an automatic transmission car from “D” to “P” at about 20-25 miles per hour and still accelerating produces a conglomeration of noises. The loud and ugly grinding kind coming from under the car. Almost always accompanied by violent lunges when the rear tires start bouncing up and down on the pavement.

Inside the big station wagon, three wide-eyed children flew off the seats and onto the floor. The seat belt craze was still a relatively new fad as a seldom purchased extra cost option. In brief silence after the car screeched to an abrupt and unexpected stop, my mother uttered one of her rarely used vocabulary words usually called on in extreme frustration. Words we kids were sternly forbidden to repeat.

In that moment of silence in the middle of the street, Mom folded her arms on the steering wheel and the tears came. Soft sobs soon became subtle, muffled laughter. Mom had that quality about her.

She carefully moved the shift lever back into “D.” Luckily, the big behemoth continued under its own power. We arrived home without further incidents or subsequent strange noises.

For the next couple of years, the reliable wagon transported everything from camping gear to groceries and Christmas trees to Cub Scouts. It also took us on memorable family vacations including one in the summer of 1960 when we lodged at the Rose Motel in Mena, Arkansas.

Still a year or two away from buying our first television, I was enamored watching the black-and-white set in the motel room. Gazing at the news of John F. Kennedy being tagged by the Democratic Party to appear on the ballot in November against Republican nominee Richard Nixon.

My fondness for old station wagons remains to this day. Maybe one day I’ll find that ’55 Ford Country Squire wagon I’ve been longing for. Perhaps I’ll even offer my friend a ride for old time’s sake.

But I don’t think I’ll let her drive—not if backing up is required.

—Leon Aldridge

(Image above — 1958 Ford Ford Motor Company original advertising piece that today, not only boldly portrays an iconic American automotive vehicle, but also subtly reminds of a long lost lifestyle in the U.S.)

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Still trying to remember where …

“Take care of all of your memories, For you cannot relive them.”
— Song lyrics by Bob Dylan and The Band

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Memories. I write about them often. Because at this age, I have a lot of memories to keep up with. And possibly because that’s all I can remember.

Most amazing are moments remembered when I forget everything else. My phone. My keys. My checkbook. It will come to me in a minute, but while we’re waiting, let me share a conversation with a good friend not long ago. We talked about what we remembered as new South Ward Elementary students in Mount Pleasant. Back when Fred Flintstone was still in Bedrock kindergarten .

By chance or destiny, we arrived in northeast Texas just a few years apart; coming from opposite directions. The reminiscing was fun. But what we agreed was really the amazing part was how much we remembered about grade school.

My first-grade year was 1954 at Crockett, Texas. The small white frame structure my parents rented sat in the middle of an empty field next to the only nearby residence. Two houses not far from downtown with a long, shared dirt driveway, surrounded by woods on three sides.

We didn’t have a television, or a telephone. What we did have was the sound of rain falling on a tin roof, the smell of Mom’s morning glories covering the trellis on the front porch, and late-night crackers and milk with Dad. It was his favorite bedtime snack.

A green Studebaker was transportation for our one-car family until the fateful Sunday afternoon when Dad and the neighbor, Mr. Hooks, went fishing. Old timbers on a country bridge failed, sending them off into a dry creek bed below.

The crumpled car and my father in bandages are scary memories. He and Mr. Hooks were banged up and bruised, but otherwise, all right.

My youngest sister, Sylvia, was born in Crockett. I remember Dad showing off our newborn sibling at the hospital’s back door, where middle sister Leslie and I waited in the car. Mom in a bathrobe, ws standing behind Dad. Both beaming with smiles.

My father worked for the long gone five-and-ten-cent store chain, Perry Brothers. Small wooden crates in which china dishes were received at the store served many uses, from garage storage to creative kid’s activities. One pinnacle of playtime was the day I launched one in the creek behind our house to see if it would float.

It did.

Basking in that delightful discovery, I then talked Leslie into boarding it to see if it would still float.

It didn’t.

Thank goodness the creek was shallow.

The bungled boating caper, plus the time I talked Leslie into jumping off the roof, certain that a bed sheet was a good parachute, probably accounts for less-than-good memories of parental punishment. Mom seldom administered any, deferring that chore to Dad. But her warnings were stern enough. “You just wait until your father gets home!”

Dad was good to take me to town following his lunch break on summertime Saturdays. Clutching a quarter and a dime, I walked to the nearby theater where the two coins were ample funding for a double-feature matinee plus popcorn and a Coke.

The last of 1954 summer movies was the beginning of first grade in the basement of an old brick school building.

The quintessential teacher, whose name I don’t remember, wore gray hair up in a bun and lace-up, high-heeled shoes. We wrote 1+1=2 on black chalkboards over which hung examples of cursive writing and the obligatory portrait of George Washington. The unfinished one that renders the appearance of clouds at the bottom.

First grade was my first and last playground fight. It went down near the front steps of the old schoolhouse. I don’t remember what it was about or who won it.

I do remember thinking that I didn’t particularly enjoy it and made a mental note to never get into another exchange of fisticuffs if I could help it.

First-grade classes moved into new classrooms after the Christmas break, from the basement into the modern mid-1950s structure with lots of glass and open spaces. That’s where we stood in line for the Salk polio vaccine. It’s also where a spring tornado turned the sky black, dark as night, as we huddled behind the new green chalkboards.

We left Crockett with our memories in 1955, arriving in Seymour where we lived until 1959 when we moved to Mount Pleasant where we stated long enough to call it home. It was the last relocation my parents would make.

I could tell you about our arrival in Seymour. It was about the same time that a young entertainer named Elvis performed at the Seymour High School gymnasium.

But that’s a different memory for a different day.

Right now, I’m still trying to remember where I laid my keys five minutes ago.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, , The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

We were just there for the fun

“Life is about the adventures you take and the memories you make.” 
— Katie Grissom, author

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News that Jimmy Mason in Mount Pleasant had passed away reached Center a couple of days ago.

Everybody in town knew Jimmy. Soft-spoken, kind-hearted, and ready to help anyone he came in contact with, he never gave anyone the option of not liking him.

He was also the hardware store guy. Third generation. The Mason Family Hardware store was a reliable resource for nails to nuts and bolts, and gift items to garden supplies. They were located on the north side of the downtown store when I was a youngster in Mount Pleasant. By the time Jimmy retired in 2022, the iconic store was on North Jefferson in the old Safeway building.

After I left Titus County, I stopped in to say “hello” every chance I got when I was back in town. Because Jimmy and I shared a friendship and a couple of common memories related to airplanes. One easily classified as an adventure I’ve recounted before. One worth telling many times.

I was a brand-new licensed pilot in 1974 with less than 100 hours in my logbook. Jimmy was a student pilot working on his license. We shared a common instructor in Grady Firmin, who instigated this adventure turned good memory.

“Let’s go to the CAF air show down in Harlingen,” Grady offered during hanger flying conversation one evening. For decades, the Commemorative Air Force has produced one of the best air shows in the country that celebrates vintage warbirds.

 A plan was forged for flying to the southernmost Texas border, packing bags and bedrolls for camping under the wings. I was designated pilot-in-command for reasons lost to time. Student pilot Jimmy filled the right seat. Grady, the Vietnam veteran combat pilot and military instructor with Huey gunship experience in his logbook, took the back seat. Jimmy and I looked at each other and shrugged. “OK,” we agreed.

Ready for an evening departure with a planned stopover in Corpus Christi, Grady said, “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I objected.

“Yeah,” Jimmy added, “We haven’t done a weight and balance check with all this baggage and full fuel.”

Grady countered, “Give it ten degrees of flaps, run up full power and release the brakes. If it doesn’t rotate by mid-field, stop and we’ll throw some stuff out and try again.”

Jimmy and I also agreed that we never met a Vietnam vet pilot that wasn’t fearless or fun.

The plane groaned a time or two, hesitated, and lifted off. We were on our way south as sunlight slipped below the right wingtip. In my book, sunsets and sunrises viewed from a mile high or more are the best.

With Jimmy’s navigation, we found the Corpus airport a few hours later, and we were on the runway.

The next morning, I prefilghted the plane and Jimmy went to grab a sectional to get us to Harlingen. Navigation then was with paper “sectionals.” Think aviation version of a Texaco road map.

“They’re sold out,” Jimmy reported. “No problem, though,” He added. “Someone suggested we fly the coastline south until we don’t understand the radio language. Then fly back about 30 miles and we should be pretty close.’”

“He was kidding … I think,” Jimmy laughed.

Airborne again, a welcome stretch of early morning serenity along coastline viewed from low altitudes was soon disrupted by hundreds of other planes swarming the area, all headed for Harlingen.

We tuned to the assigned frequency for air show traffic where a recording repeated, “enter holding pattern over Combes, maintain 500-foot vertical spacing, listen for the last digit of your N number to breakout, switch to tower frequency and enter left downwind for 36 left maintaining one-mile spacing.”

We circled until we had the instructions memorized. Then Jimmy heard it. “Our turn.” In the pattern at Harlingen, we were about to land; a good thing because fuel was low. That’s when the tower instructed, “Green Cessna on final, go around—too close to aircraft ahead.”

“Forget it,” Grady said from the back seat, “Go!” I looked at Jimmy, he looked at me, and we agreed, “OK.” Keying the mic, I replied, “Harlingen tower, green Cessna, negative go around. Insufficient fuel.”

We breathed a sigh of relief when the plane’s tires reconnected with terra-firma issuing a reassuring chirp. We were on the ground.

Two days of memories later, we headed home. After one late-night landing for fuel at a sleepy Bryan, Texas airport, we made our final touch down at Mount Pleasant around midnight with no clue regarding the value those memories made with friends would hold in the years to come.

Because Jimmy, Grady, and I … we were just there for the fun.

The soundtrack of our lives

“Music is probably the one real magic I have encountered in my life. It’s pure and it’s real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things.”
— Tom Petty (1950 – 2017) American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. 

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Leadville, Colorado, came to mind. 1976. Or was it ’77? Me, Oscar Elliott, and others from Mount Pleasant. We were in the middle of a motorcycle sabbatical through the Rockies.

The same trip where we topped Monarch Pass and crossed the Continental Divide. Elevation 11,312 feet. Which was the first time I rode a motorcycle over the Continental Divide. And the first time I rode one on snow-covered roads. With snow still steadily falling.  

The song playing on my Pandora today brought back those memories. The same tune was playing on the jukebox in the bar at the back of that restaurant where we we ate supper that night in Leadville. The one next to the motel where we were staying the morning we woke up to find the city and our bikes covered in snow. The song was “The Y’all Comeback Saloon” by the Oak Ridge Boys.

Funny how music works that way.

As a kid, it amazed and amused me when my Uncle Bill, mom’s little brother, told stories about how he and his Navy buddies spent time listening to music. “When a song came on the radio,” he told me with a smile, “the objective was to describe the car we owned at the time, the exact place where we were when we heard the song, and the name of the girl we were with when we heard it. Any additional information was optional at the storyteller’s discretion.”

As a writer and journalist introduced to the news business through the art of photography, the adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” makes a great deal of sense to me. But it’s also apparent that any wordsmith worth the paper their thesaurus is printed on can likewise argue for a thousand words expressing as much as one photo.

As a lifelong music lover, however, I will concede the power of both words and images to the magic of music when it comes to shaking memories loose in the lost caverns of our past.

My mother introduced me to that musical enchantment with a collection of 78 r.p.m. records from her Kentucky high school days. I remember Saturdays, her playing records and singing along with them as she completed weekly house cleaning rituals. Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Patty Page, Eddie Arnold, and Hank Williams, Sr.

As a grade-schooler in the 1950s, that genetic appreciation for music led me to saving my weekly 25¢ allowance to spend on records at Richardson’s White’s Auto Store in Mount Pleasant. Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Fats Domino.

High school and college band memories from the 60s are infused with John Phillip Sousa marches. “King Cotton ” and “The Washington Post” performed at goodness knows how many football games.

At the same time, my car radio was always tuned to KLIF in Dallas during the day. Making radio music memories at night cruising the streets or watching the moon rise over the city lake required tuning to WNOE in New Orleans.

Viet Nam era music by The Box Tops, Creedence Clearwater Revival, or Country Joe and the Fish still remind of the PA systems at drag strips filling pauses in racing action. Music for changing spark plugs at Interstate 20 Raceway in Tyler on Saturday night one weekend, and the next, listening for the next round of class call to the Dallas International Motor Speedway staging lanes.

Even work memories are bookmarked by music. Let me hear “Crazy” by Patsy Cline, and I’ll tell you about the night Johnny Garner and I sprayed a late-night paint job on a big truck at Sandlin’s Body Shop in Mount Pleasant with the radio keeping us awake.

And should I hear George Strait’s “Does Fort Worth Cross Your Mind,” you might have to endure my memories of good times with a dear friend 30-plus years ago at Joe T. Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant.

Long-time American Bandstand host Dick Clark, whose name is synonymous with music, is credited with saying, “Music is the soundtrack of our lives.”

Maybe that’s why mom always appeared as though she was in a different world, lost in time while vacuuming or folding laundry.

It might also be why you can catch me at home on any given evening after work. Sitting and strumming a few chords on a guitar. Singing. Smiling. Remembering that time that me and …

—Leon Aldridge

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© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

Unleashing my inner cowboy

He wears some mighty fancy boots.
And a two-hundred-dollar Stetson.
By the way he dresses up,
You might think he’s a Texan.
But, he’s all hat and no cattle.
— Song lyrics recorded in 1992 by Wylie and the Wild West Show

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There’s a new subculture in the world of “adventure travel.”

Fox News reported last week how the popular TV show ‘Yellowstone’ and its spin-offs, ‘1923,’ and 1883,” are prompting tourists to invade Montana, Wyoming, and even Fort Worth to experience “open spaces of the great outdoors.”

The latest spike in this avenue of travel, according to the story, was credited to the upcoming debut of “1923’s” second season on February 23

They’re calling this phenomenon “cowboy core.” The story cites Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker crediting the trend for increases in Cow Town visitors, adding, “… it’s good for the economy.”

A travel advisor quoted in the article said that “dude ranches” are the draw for viewers seeking the “American frontier” experience. “It looks so magical and majestic. The best way to unleash your inner cowboy is on a dude ranch.”

Inner cowboy was the last thing on my mind when I discovered dude ranches some 30-plus years ago in Bandera County, Texas. For me at the time, a dude ranch was simply a place to live while in the throes of house hunting, having relocated there to manage newspaper operations in Boerne, Bandera, Fort Stockton, and Gonzales.

Three weeks spent at “The Lightning Dude Ranch” turned out to be fun mixed with neccesity. However, finding my inner “drug store cowboy” would be a more fitting description. I would say “all hat and no cattle,” but I never got around to owning a cowboy hat.

Bandera’s reported 2020 census was 829, varying little from what it was when I lived there. Community legend allows that the census is taken in somewhat of a Groundhog Day fashion. I heard it told more than once at the O.S.T. Restaurant in downtown Bandera, that once a year at census time, someone stands on the courthouse steps and counts only souls that can be seen.

The self-proclaimed “Cowboy Capital of Texas,” Bandera actually offers more than just dude ranches. In addition to genuine working cattle ranches, there are places like the aforementioned O.S.T. restaurant with a great chicken-fried steak and a John Wayne room, the legendary Arkey Blue’s Silver Dollar honky tonk where Hank Williams carved his name on the bar top, and several fantastic barbecue joints. My personal favorite being B-Daddy’s.

Lightning Dude Ranch’s colorful  owner and host then was Sybil Broyles. She dressed in cowboy western flair and hosted nightly after-dinner campfire get-togethers. That’s where I learned she was also the ex-wife of William (Bill) Broyles, co-founder and original editor of Texas Monthly magazine in 1973.

Broyles graciously entertained my journalistic curiosity about her well-known ex. In addition to Texas Monthly, Bill Broyles served as Newsweek’s editor from 1982 to 1984. Leaving journalism for screenwriting, he created the television series China Beach and Twin Peaks. During his career, he wrote for films like Apollo 13, Cast Away, Planet of the Apes, Unfaithful, and The Polar Express. His work on Apollo 13 earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Living at Lightning’s was my second horseback riding experience, for which I earned no awards. Neither did I earn any for my first horseback ride as a youngster when, to everyone’s surprise, the steed decided to jump a gate. By the time someone got me off, I vowed never to get on another one. Not even the mechanical variety at the supermarket.

Before the trail ride at Lightning’s with my kids almost 40 years later, I shared my childhood experience with ranch hands. They graciously assigned me to an older mare guaranteeing no problems with the gentlest horse they had.

“She never moves any faster than a slow walk,” said one. “You drop the reins, and she’ll bring you slowly back to the barn.”

We were doing fine until the trail went down one side of a dry creek bed and up the other. The old mare eased down but lunged up the other side in a surprise gallop and headed home.

“We never expected that surprise,” the ranch hand apologized.

“I couldn’t have been more surprised myself,” I replied.

Cowboy core aside, three weeks at Lightning’s left me with many memories.

One, my kids didn’t want to leave Lightning’s. “Forget about a house,” my daughter pleaded. “We want to live here.”

Two, that was my last horse-riding attempt.

Third, my inner cowboy today includes a passion for cowboy boots, a trait acquired in the Hill Country, where business attire included boots, starched Wranglers, and dress shirts.

I’ll add that my record of never owning a cowboy hat remains intact. And the closest you’ll ever see me approaching a cow will be with a fork at a good steak house.  

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025.

The best part of the experience lingers

“To attract men, I wear a perfume called ‘New Car Interior.’”

– American comedian Rita Rudner.

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That new car smell. It’s intoxicating. Should be considered a controlled substance.

It tempted me last week, but I’m in this long-term relationship with a 2009 Chevy Tahoe. We’re celebrating 237,000 miles together this month. And to borrow love song lyrics from The Carpenters, “So many roads to choose, and yes, we’ve only just begun.”

New car dealerships are fun though. Everyone I saw at the luxury brand car store last week was wearing a sports coat and tie. And they was just the mechanics. A coffee pot is a standard fixture at most auto dealership customer lounges. But the upscale lounge at this one approached a soda fountain, coffee shop, and short-order bistro.

I was along for the ride and a day of shopping and dining in the big city. But this dealership even offered to pick up my friend’s car at home (70 miles away), leave a loaner, and return the car once the work was done.

You miss out on little perks like that when a 16-year-old Tahoe that’s traveled the equivalent of nine and a half times around the world calls your driveway “home.” My trusty steed comes with unique challenges, but I know what I’m dealing with.

The dealership loaner with a window sticker approaching what I paid for my house came with a steep learning curve and no idea what to do with it. Things like a small shift lever on the console that anyone driving a car dating back three presidential administrations would assume operated like any other shifter to determine direction of travel.

Think again. “Drive” required an ever so slight and delicate nudge to the left. A similar tender touch back rendered reverse travel. “Hey, we’ve got this,” I thought. “Park with this joy stick must be forward.” Wrong. Park was a completely separate button.

Once underway, 20 minutes later, the newest ultra-luxury car from dealership row began offering more chiming reminders than you could shake a non-shifting gear shift stick at. One, we presumed, was for any car coming too close. Another for any car in front and a third for … approaching vehicles of a different color, or that car trying to grab that good parking spot in front of TJ Maxx before you do?

Not to be outdone, my old Tahoe sounds an alarm when backing too close to an object. Like a car, a tree, a post, litter on the street, or the neighbor’s mailbox. And it will send alerts to the dash when I take off with a door open, a seat belt not fastened, almost out of gas, emergency brake on … and similar trivial emergencies.

The luxury loaner handled those situations in a completely different manner. The emergency brake? Just pretend it doesn’t have one. You can’t do anything about it anyway. It sets automatically when you find and touch the park button, and it releases once you figure out which way to nudge the faux shift lever to accidentally engage the drive position.

Shopping done, packages piled in the back, and you’re ready to roll? Don’t get in a hurry. The car absolutely refuses to start until everyone is seated, buckled in, wind-blown hair adjusted, makeup fixed, attitudes adjusted, and all doors closed and locked. Period.

This one was also a hybrid. The motor would quit running at every red light, then restart with a small lurch when the accelerator was applied. Reminded me of my old ’51 Chevy in high school. It was way ahead of its time. Sometimes quitting at red lights as well. The only difference was that it didn’t restart until I got out and tweaked the carburetor.

My biggest takeaway from the last week? This was the first car that told me what it would do or not. And just how it would do it. Or not. No amount of begging, pleading, or threats changed any operational procedure.  It was the car’s way or no way.

It made me laugh, though. Thinking about my father. Dad scoffed at any car with convenience or fanciness. In an era when cars came in only two or three models, he chose options with his checkbook. The cheapest model with a six-cylinder engine, standard shift transmission, power nothing, and no air conditioning. His idea of luxury was splurging for the extra cost AM radio. About $35 back then. Yes sir! First class all the way.

Dad was quick to point out that the extra cost options meant expensive repairs when something malfunctioned. It was a big day when, mostly at Mom’s insistence, Dad bought his first air-conditioned car. Oh, it was still the base model Chevrolet Biscayne, six-cylinder engine, standard shift transmission, power nothing with a radio. But it had factory air. He used it sparingly, however. “Takes extra gas to run that power stuff,” he cautioned.

Dad wouldn’t know what to do with a car that told him what to do, or did anything for him. I’m not sure I handled it that well myself. But, the best part of last week’s luxury car experience lingers in one aspect.

That intoxicating new car interior smell.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

She isn’t going anywhere

“Early morning sunlight cascaded from lofty windows in the old downtown Center icehouse. They bounced gracefully off timeless curves outlining an aging body. For an old girl, she was still a beauty in the dim light and in my heart.”
— Leon Aldridge, 1993

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I wrote those words 31 years ago last September. “Liz,” my grandparents’ 1957 Ford, will have been a member of the Aldridge family for 69 years come this November. She’s lived 44 of those years with me, and I have no intentions of her going anywhere so long as I’m still drawing a breath.  

My father’s mother dubbed her two-tone green ’57 Ford “Liz.” The two-door sedan became the beginning of my sporadic dabbling in old cars. Others followed. A couple of vintage Thunderbirds and a 1965 Malibu SS to start. Then some 60s vintage convertibles. But Liz never objected to being neglected while others were driven.

Tail-finned, rag-topped, white-walled, and chrome-plated glamour queens dazzled. Multi-carburetor, dual-exhaust, tire-smoking muscle cars amazed. But Liz remained. One might have surmised she actually enjoyed the peace and quiet of retirement alongside a variety of garage mates.

I still remember brushing my fingers lightly through her thin coating of dust that morning, sending particles swirling and twinkling in the morning sunlight. I opened the driver’s door and enjoyed the aroma. Old car interiors offer unique smells, often revealing age, make, or background.

The seat springs groaned lightly beneath my weight. ‘Not bad for an all-original car,’ I thought. I scanned the metal and chrome dash, then gazed across the expanse of the big green hood. I touched the ignition switch, but on this morning, I let Liz rest, choosing peaceful silence in the warehouse over that of her V-8 motor.

Liz was born at the Garland, Texas, Ford assembly plant in the fall of 1956 and was titled in my grandfather’s name in November at Travis Battles Ford dealership in Pittsburg, Texas. For a quarter of a century, she lived in a white frame garage at the corner of Cypress and Madison Streets and ran errands to town, to work, to visit. On many of those trips, I was a youngster in the back seat, watching my grandmother drive and listening to my grandfather caution her. “Watch out sister. There’s a stop sign ahead.”

When age and illness confined him to a bed, Liz sat in the garage while my grandmother stayed home to care for the man she loved. When he died just days before Christmas in 1967, Dad and I went to the garage to “awaken” Liz. She had traveled only 17,000 miles in her ten years. A new battery and fresh gas brought her back to life.

Granny and Liz were back on the street, going places neither had dreamed of in a while. The old Ford with the little old lady peeping over the steering wheel was once again a common sight around town.

Granny eventually gave in to the desire for the luxury of power steering, an automatic transmission, and air conditioning. “You still want Liz,” she called one day to ask.

“You know I do,” I replied. Liz was soon headed for a new home in Center. As I drove her south that Saturday in May, late evening Spring breezes smelled of freshly mowed grass through open windows. Memories flowed. Driving lessons with my grandfather on shifting a “three-on-the-tree.” Cruising the Kilgore College campus when Liz subbed for one of my ailing hot rods. Smiles when names came to mind while recalling dates when Liz provided transportation.

Once home, a gentle push on her door brought the usual solid ‘click’ as it closed and latched with ease.

As that early morning remembered a few years ago was ending, I walked a few steps, stopped and looked back at Liz sitting majestically in the corner. Bidding me goodbye with a gleam in her chrome. She knew it would be a while before I came calling again. She also knew I would return to recall secrets the old car and I knew about each other.

Liz comes to mind again now with my decision to thin the herd. Too many to care for at this point in life. But Liz knows she’s family, and when her more glamorous and valuable garage mates have moved on, she will remain.

She also knows she will be the last one to leave the ball when the lights are turned off for the last time.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Here I sit reviewing finances

“I can’t understand, where my money went,
Well, I’m not broke, but I’m badly bent.”
— Bluegrass song lyrics by Fred F. Carter Jr. (1933 –2010), American guitarist, singer, producer, and composer.

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It’s January. Christmas is behind us. The new year is well underway, and here I sit reviewing finances. Leftover Christmas bills. Through the roof homeowner insurance that has doubled in the last three years. Car insurance that is accelerating faster than new car prices. And that doesn’t even include those ever-increasing real estate taxes we paid this week.

I know costs increase and prices go up, but it would really help matters if incomes increased as quickly as expenses. What my good friend and mentor in the newspaper business, Jim Chionsini, used to say at budget time is true: “If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep becomes your downfall.”

And, none of these financial concerns address the fact that as soon as we’ve hopefully cleared the first-of-the-year major hurdles, April 15 and the IRS will be staring us squarely in the pocketbook.

On a brighter note, there’s a social media reel going around featuring an adorable little guy with an infectious laugh who is apparently reading a math question from a workbook. “Jaden has a one-dollar bill, one quarter and two pennies,” he reads slowly. “How much money does he have?” After a short hesitation, the little guy looks up and laughs loudly, “Jaden broke!”

There have been times when we’ve all probably been broke, but just not saavy enough to know it. You know, those times when we look back on life and wonder, “How did I ever do that?”

In college, I worked full-time for an auto dealership body shop where my employer fortunately allowed flexibility in my 40 give-or-take hours to accommodate a commuting schedule to East Texas State University. Finagling classes scheduled all on A days or B days allowed me to work on the other days in Mount Pleasant, plus some hours when the shop wasn’t open, like nights until 10 p.m. and some Saturdays.

Although earning a four-year degree took me five years, I did it. Graduated with a double-major degree in psychology and art. But that’s not the whole story. During the same five years, I also bought and supported two vehicles, one daily driver and one “weekend warrior” race car that friend and mechanic Oscar Elliott and I campaigned on drag strips from Texas to Oklahoma to Louisiana.

How did I do all that? I have no idea. Good money management? You don’t know me very well, do you? Good economic times? Well, if it was, I had no clue. I didn’t even have a budget — you know, one of those plans that keeps you from having too much month left at the end of your money. Like the story the preacher shared in his sermon last Sunday about a couple enduring hard times, struggling to make ends meet.

Seems that after agreeing on a workable budget, the wife was at the mall shopping when she saw a gorgeous dress and fell in love. Rationalizing her feelings, she thought, “I really need a new dress.” But then she remembered the budget.

“It won’t hurt to just try it on,” she decided. And that’s all it took. The dress went home with her.

Arriving home, she proudly showed it to her husband, who could not believe his eyes. “You bought a new dress,” he asked in disbelief? “After all of our planning and discussion about finances and how to make ends meet, you bought a new dress?”

“I’m really sorry,” she said remorsefully. “I couldn’t help myself. I was in Dillard’s and the devil made me do it.”

“The devil,” her husband couldn’t help but laugh. “Didn’t you remember the scripture in Matthew chapter 16 when the Lord said, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.'”

“Well, I did that,” she replied sheepishly. “And the devil told me that it looked good on me all the way around.”

So here I sit when I should be writing a column, trying to fine-tune my budget and work my way through finances for the new year. I just want to cry out, “Get thee behind me, checkbook.”

Instead, I’m staring at a stack of bills and recalling that cute youngster joking about Jaden’s money problem. I can just hear him now.   

“Leon, he’s broke, too.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

Car problems, common sense and computers

“If your doctor’s last name is Google, it’s time to get a second opinion.”
— Toni Bernhard, author of “How to live with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide.”

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It was past dark thirty. We were still 15 miles from home, driving and passing the time doing what we all ultimately do sometime in life. Talking about the weather, aches and pains, and doctor’s appointments. Reassuring each other that age has nothing to do with any of it.

“What’s this,” I asked when amber warning lights interrupted the peaceful glow of dim green dash lights.

“I don’t know,” my friend said. It was her car, but I was driving.

Processing the situation, I tried offering assurance. “An amber check engine light, it’s not red. That’s good. Just means get your car checked at your first opportunity. We’re OK.”

I was trying to reassure her, but it sounded good to me too. It’s funny how issues that seem minor in the light of day trigger a higher level of concern at night. Depending on how late at night and how many miles to home the GPS is reporting.

She was searching the owner’s manual for clues. Anything about a warning light with a tiny car symbol looking like a drunk driver swerving all over the road.

Stopping for a minute in the light of a convenience store afforded us time to convince each other that the odds were good for making it home without further incidents. After all, it was only 10 miles from where we stopped.

As I drove, I thought about diagnosing car problems back in the day of keeping my first car running. Getting me to classes, to my after-school job, and cruising the Mount Pleasant main drag between the Dairy Queen on the north side and Bobby Joe’s on the south side.

The sign on top of what we called Bobby Joe’s read Dairy Mart or something similar. Nobody remembers that name. One of our classmate’s family owned it, so we referred to it as Bobby Joe’s. And keeping your car running to get there Friday and Saturday night was a priority.

But auto maintenance was easy then. Just keep gas, oil, and tire pressure levels in range and listen for weird noises. Noises, not computers, provided the best clues regarding the nature of any problems under the hood, and any level of confidence in keeping your ride on the road.

Being young and fearless also added to one’s confidence level back in the day. A 60-mile road trip to the drag races in a worn-out but presentable 55 Chevy with a warmed-over Corvette motor that I had owned all of about two weeks? No worries. Never mind that I knew nothing about the car for which I had paid the princely sum of $250 … other than it sounded good and was wicked fast.

I had learned that the gas gauge and the dash lights didn’t work. No problem, though. I filled the tank with 29-cents a gallon high test, and we headed south for Interstate 20 Raceway.

The daylight trip down was uneventful. On the way home about 10:30, neighbor and my friend Ronald Rust asked, “How fast you think we’re going?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Can’t see the speedometer. Ronald leaned down, nose close to the dash. The only light glowing was the red high-beam indicator. “What’s the top number on the speedometer,” he asked?

“Hunderd’ and ten … I think.”

“Must be doin’ 115 then. I can’t see the needle.”

“Naw,” I scoffed. The car sounded good. But darkness began creating noises in my mind, so I backed off the accelerator. Still don’t think we were going that fast.

But a little common sense and paying attention to what you heard made car care relatively easy in those days. Now, mechanical contrivances controlled by a myriad of computers and electronics can defy common sense.

For instance, YouTube videos the next day offered head-scratching remedies for the warning lights we encountered with my friend’s car. The drunk driver warning light reportedly indicated a problem in how the computer distributes power to the wheels. The warning could be, according to the video, caused by improper pressure in the tires, potholes in the road, or a faulty gas cap.

Faulty gas cap! Seriously? Yep, that’s somehow in the same computer circuit as air pressure and potholes. But wait, we had in fact refueled about 30 miles previous to the warning lights coming on.

By the time I watched the video the next day, the warning lights had gone away as quickly as they had appeared. Still gone as I conclude this missive. A trip to the dealership is planned however. My friend never misses a date on the maintenance schedule. She’s going for a professional second opinion with computer codes.

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” she mused, “if we could be like cars.”

I wasn’t connecting the dots.

“You, know. For aches, pains, and illnesses, just show up at the doctor’s office. Let them plug you in, check your computer codes, make a technical repair or replace a faulty part, and you’re good for another 10,000 miles.”

I think she may be on to something.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

You haven’t seen my math grades

“The true purpose of the arts education is not necessarily to create more professional dancers or artists. It’s to create more complete human beings who are critical thinkers, who have curious minds, who can lead productive lives.”
— Kelly Pollock, Executive Director Center of Creative Arts

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“Why is algebra required in school? Nobody uses it in everyday life.”

That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that question. But hearing it again a few days ago, I jokingly quipped, “You haven’t seen my math grades, or you wouldn’t be asking me.”

Truthfully, educating the mind to become a well-rounded or “complete human being” requires more than “book learning,” as my grandfather called it. His testimony can be entered into the record with credibility. He went to work at the age of 13 to help support his family and enjoyed a rewarding career.

Achieving a productive life requires curiosity about life beyond one’s chosen field.

For example, consider the story of a good friend and former colleague. He was an outstanding high school athlete and honor roll student when one of his classroom teachers confronted him.

“Why are you wasting your time on football instead of concentrating on something that will help you in the real world?”

If he shared his response that day, I’ve since forgotten it. But I will not soon forget his statement to that teacher a few years later. After graduating from a major university on a full-ride football scholarship where he was an honor student and an outstanding athlete who helped his team reach a post-season bowl game.

Visiting his hometown high school after college, he found the teacher who downplayed his sports participation a few years earlier by insinuating that athletics had no value in the “real-world.” He shared with that teacher what he considered one of the more valuable lessons he had learned at the university. That, “the value of sports is not a question of its direct application to ‘real life’ knowledge, but what it adds to becoming a productive member of society. Sports teaches goals, objectives, teamwork, strategy, planning, and success—all skills needed to effectively use an education in the real world.”

“Oh, and it paid for my education,” he added.

For what it’s worth, he is today the CEO of an international corporation and a staunch supporter of athletics in public schools.

My educational highway was a little bumpier stretch of road. I graduated not “cum laude,” but more like, “Lawdy, how come.” My job titles have more closely resembled something I once saw scripted on an executive coffee mug. “I’m in charge. My specialty is creating problems you didn’t know you had.”

And, where my friend was a football player, I was a band nerd. I didn’t wear a number, and you wouldn’t find my name in the program, but I made appearances in two Cotton Bowl games plus a couple of Dallas Cowboy and Houston Oiler exhibition games. Performing with the band at halftime, broadening my horizons, satisfying my curiosity, and developing an appreciation for arts and skills outside of my chosen field of study.

Did any of that enhance my career opportunities as much as the academic qualifications on my transcript?

Probably not. But like many forms of the arts and extracurricular activities, it helped even a bashful band nerd become a somewhat more complete human. One capable of thinking and communicating effectively to lead a more productive life while applying my “book learning.”

Band did give me an appreciation for music beyond the rock and roll I listened to on the radio back then. It also left me with a lifelong desire to become more involved in music and the arts, and an inspiration to learn how to play musical instruments. It afforded me a broader appreciation for all kinds of music, not the least of which has been leading congregational singing at church—something I’ve done all my adult life.

Best of all, perhaps, band gave me lasting memories of life experiences and friends. Hands down, the fondest memories of my school years.

As for algebra? While I admit we use it daily in ways we don’t even realize, in case you missed this earlier … you haven’t seen my grades in math.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.