Tag: life

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.

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.

Still wishing for that slower time

“It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”
— Actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932 – 2011)

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“I’m going up to W.R. DeWoody’s Western Auto,” I remember my grandfather announcing one summer day in the early 1960s.

Summertime was fun time for a kid at my father’s parent’s house in Pittsburg. Sleeping late. Home-cooked breakfast. Playing in the tree-filled yard. Afternoons sailing homemade boats in the city park pond.

“What for,” Grandmother quizzed, pouring another cup of coffee.

“See if they have a mower part,” was his short response.

“Why don’t you call,” she retorted. “We got a telephone now.” The recently acquired black dial-operated device connected to the wall by a cord sat mostly ignored. Sometimes, even when it rang and my grandparents argued over who was going to get up and answer it.

“I’m not going to answer that thing,” I heard Granddaddy say often. “I can’t think of anybody I want to talk to right now.”

The number was University 8-3721. I think. All that was required for a local call, however, were the last four digits. The University 8 was used only to give the operator when dialing “0” to place a long-distance call. Which my grandparents rarely did because it cost an extra 20 cents. If you kept your conversation under three minutes.

“I’d rather see who I’m talking to,” my grandfather said, responding to the “why don’t you call” question. “Looking at who I’m talking to cuts down on confusion, builds relationships, and teaches patience. Ain’t got time to talk to nobody I can’t look in the eyes.”

Granddaddy was on to something more than lawnmower parts.

The rush between Thanksgiving and Christmas makes me yearn for that slower time. When people had patience. Except for kids looking forward to Christmas.

From an adult’s perspective, time speeds up every year. But a child is born into the world counting the days until Christmas.

Once counted as a virtue, patience appears to be diminishing as the number of loose nuts behind steering wheels keep increasing. Like the story I heard last week about a driver being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy street. When the traffic light ahead turned yellow, the driver in front of her stopped as the light turned red. As he should have.

The tailgater was enraged. Horn honking and hollering at the driver ahead. She was still in mid-rant when a police officer walked up and asked her to get out of the car and put her hands behind her head. She was taken to the station and held for questioning before the police officer told her she was free to go.

“We’re very sorry for the mistake,” he said.  “I saw you honking your horn, gesturing at the driver ahead, and cussing a blue streak. Then I saw the ‘What would Jesus Do’ license frame, the ‘Follow me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome Christian fish symbol and naturally assumed you had stolen the car.   

I laughed, but that recalled an incident my mother encountered years ago. Back when I was a kid counting the days until Christmas. South Jefferson Street in my hometown of Mount Pleasant differed from the busy, booming street it is now. There was no bypass loop then. No shopping Center with a parking lot full of cars. Just three businesses facing the street. The Dairy Bar, a tractor dealership, and Larry Talley’s small neighborhood grocery … without gas pumps. Because there was no such thing then as self-service gasoline.

Mom drove her green-and-white ’54 Chevy under the railroad overpass and slowed at the corner at Boatner’s Furniture. The light was turning yellow as she approached, and being the careful driver my mother was, she stopped just as the light changed to red.

Everything was fine until a honking horn blared behind her. A lady emerged from the car and walked to Mom’s car window while hollering about a carton of broken eggs. A conversation ensued between them about whether yellow means slow down and stop or “floor it and run the red light.”

The discussion was short-lived. The light turned green, and other horn honkers egged them both to get on down the road.

I’m a few years down the road myself since that incident. Christmas is coming again, and I’m, once more, wishing for that slower time. When people had more patience. Took time to relax. Weren’t joined at the hip to a telephone.

My capacity for waiting is better, but I still ask God to grant me patience.

I just ask Him to grant it now … please.

—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.