Automobile Games and High School Students

High School students have always played "auto games." Here are some that I remember from my High School and College days. They all involve automobiles in one form or fashion.

Fire Drill. This game is best played if other cars are around. You are driving around and come to a stop light. Someone yells "Firedrill." Every one jumps out of the car and run around the car jumping back into the same door that you got out of. Better run fast or the car may pull off without you.

Fountain Wading. You need fountains for this one; however New Orleans always had plenty of fountains. You come to a fountain and every one jumps out, removes there shoes and goes dancing in the fountain. Then back to the car for more fun.

TeePeeing or Wrapping. You get toilet paper (preferable from a service station) and wrap someone's house. This is best done by a mass attack involving 20 or so people. It can be done quickly this way and the house can be completely covered. It is even more fun if you do it just before it rains. Run fast or you might be caught by irate fathers who are tired of having their house wrapped every weekend.

Spotlighting. You get a spot light and shine it on couples that are parking. May sure you do it fast and that your car is very fast or there may be dire consequences. Stories are told about large football players that run after cars with tire tools. These, stories, add a sense of danger and even make this game more fun.

Fraternity Kidnapping. You kidnap an upperclassman. Groups of their classmates chase you at high rates of speed and try to make you pay for the kidnapping. This should be done in college only by the fool hardy.

Bridge Painting. You get outrageous colors of paint and paint a bridge. This one is very dangerous lest you get caught by the police and experience jail time for defacing public property.

Well, it is certainly a good thing that HarleyDad did not do any of these type of things in his youth.

Sure!

HarleyDad

Some burned bras; some drove pink T-Birds. Our women drove the T-Birds.  

Mame's Pink Ford T-Bird

HarleyDad is fairly certain he has chased off all women from his blog by cleverly discussing
automobiles .

So as an act of contrition, I present Aunt Mame's Pink T-Bird. My Aunt Mame is now in her 80's; however she was ,and is, an independent woman. She never married and pretty much lived life on her own terms. Aunt Mame was one of the first women to graduate from Big T's Law School, and later on also picked up a Louisiana law degree. I believe that when she graduated she was one of the first women to ever graduate from Big T's law school. Back in those days women in law firms with law degrees could be paralegals. Partnerships were not open to women in those days. So Aunt Mame joined Big E. Oil Company and became a "landman."

Aunt Mame was good at golf and good at tennis. One day she went to see the movie Aunt Mame starring Rosaline Russell, and strongly identified with that character.

Like HarleyDad, Aunt Mame had a sports car in her heart. I still remember it the first time that I saw it. It was outrageously pink. You noticed this baby when it went down the road. These were in the days before the Mary Kay Cadillacs. But like them the pink T-Bird made a statement. It said: "I am a woman, and I am proud of it. I do what I like."

In those days, the T-Bird was a small car. It later would morph into a larger car.

So here is to Mame and all the other women who expressed themselves and made a statement through the thoroughly outrageous, beautiful pink T-Bird.

The 67 Rambler Ambassador is in the Background. Could that be brokerbelle in the swimming pool. We did not have a garage so I just parked it by the pool!. 

1967 Rambler Ambassador

Well it was time to move up. HarleyDad had earned his masters degree and actually had a job in Big D., Texlandia as a university professor. No more modest Rambler. Brokerbelle located a 1967 Rambler Ambassador. The Ambassador was the luxury Rambler. It was large, plush and rode smoothly. It was also a gas hog. But then you can't have everything and gasoline was still relatively cheap. Besides with the car, Brokerbelle also negotiated about 100 gallons of free gas in order to get us started.

Most cars have something about them that are really great. In the Ambassador's case, it was the dashboard lights. Yes, the Ambassador had the greatest dashboard lights of all time. Everything on the dashboard was lighted. The lights were a wonderful green. At night you felt that you had crawled into a wonderful spaceship and were flying off to wonderful adventures. The airconditioner worked well also.

After about three years we sold the Ambassador to buy a trouble free car to take with us to law school. Yes, you got it --it was the Accursed Mid-Year Maverick.

The Ambassador had one other small defect when we sold it. This defect promoted a religious outlook on life, causing you to hum "Nearer My God to Thee" and promoted instant prayer-just add traffic. Peversely, our Ambassador would occasionally stall out just as you pulling into freeway traffic. This is something you have to experience personally and written descriptions do not do it justice. Just as you needed that power to pull into traffic, you did not have it. No one could say exactly why this could happen, and it was an intermittant problem. I concluded that the auto was a death trap waiting to happen.

I would not be sorry I sold this car -at least until I got the next one, which really taught me what pain could be like.

However, those green lights on the Ambassador were beautiful, and since that time neither of us have seen any dashboard lights that would rival it!

HarleyDad

Communion

In our church in Outer Ozarklandia, we begin the New Year by taking communion. It is a good way to begin the year. It sets priorities. Christianity not only turns the world on its head; it also turns Maslov's hierarchy of needs on its head.

I am moved by our prayer of confession and reprint it here for you:

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your name. Amen.

It is a beautiful confession. We begin 2005 as penitents.

2005 Prayer

Restoration

O God, restore to us aright relationship to you

so that we might renew a right relationship with others.

Restore to us hope,

that we might encourage others.

Renew our energy

that we might accomplish Your will.

Refresh us with your Word,

that we might speak your words to others.

Annoint us with your Spirit

so that our service might not be dead-but alive.

Give us a cheerful endurance,

that we might persevere joyfully.

Grant us your mercy

that we might comfort others in 2005.

HarleyDad

2005-Nothing Has Changed

It is 2005.

Nothing has changed. We are still instructed to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. These are the two Great Commandments.

No change.

HarleyDad

A fairly reliable car. You might describe it as "pedestrian." 

1965 Rambler

The year was 1967. It was time to settledown. I got married to Brokerbelle. As in the case of many young marrieds money was scarce. Further Brokerbelle had a car payment, and I did not. So I sold my beautiful Triumph Spitfire and assumed the payments on the Rambler.

But wait! That is not hardly fair. You see I was not working. Not much anyway. I was bound for graduate school and the heady income of a college professor. More about that in a future blog. So I did not assume any payments really. Brokerbelle had a job and she kept working.

Meanwhile I was at the top of my class with majors in Greek and History and a minor in religion. You can imagine how attractive I was to employers. "Let's see you can read ancient Greek, no ancient Greek around here."

For the next two years this Greek major went to graduate school where he got another useless degree-a masters in Medieval History and a minor in Latin. Wow! I bet my job prospects would improve now.

Brokerbelle was a highly skilled secretary (a timed typing test of 110 words per minute and short hand over 100 words per minute). She was so good that one time at the University of Texas a professor stated that he did not believe anyone was that good and demanded to see the tests.) She was good at her job. Really good. I went to school and supplemented our modest income by making filings with the State of Louisiana, working in service stations, and inspecting fire hydrants for the local water company (which by the way was a pretty good job).

So suffice it to say, I assumed no payments, Brokerbelle made the payments and put food on the table and I supplemented as best I could-which upon reflection was none too good.

I had become a victim of reality. I was now a married man and living upon my wife's modest resources .

So Rambler it was, and a brown rambler at that. The Rambler was a good car and provided the transportation we needed. It was not a "car from hell"--but plain, serviceable and it got us places.

Now, I could fall in love with Brokerbelle; however I was never able to fall in love with Ramblers.

Since that time I find that some people do love Ramblers and that there are even webpages devoted to them.

Well we are all different, but a webpage for Ramblers is one of the mysteries of life.

The automotive road ahead was not to be a pleasant one. Ahead of me would be another Rambler and the car from Hell, the accursed Maverick. So I was to enter an Automotive Purgatorio where by my muse, Henry Ford, would lead me a spiralling descent into automotive nightmares reminiscent of the paintings of Heironimus Bosch. Through this upcoming period I would be a college professor for two years (the AAUP liberal gowns did not fit HarleyDad very well) and then the law school experience, flavored with tons of poverty and accompanied by the Maverick (the car from hell) which I wore like the albatross worn by the Ancient Mariner.

HarleyDad and Brokerbelle would eventually be saved from this automotive Purgatorio by the humble Corolla.

HarleyDad (showing a sudden attack of erudition, which hopefully will quickly pass.)

Here is the Modern Studebaker Look. My parents had this one in a maroon and grey color. Woops! Lost the wonderful Studebaker nose. Sleek styling. Ultra Cool! 

Side View of this Two Door Beauty 

Check it out! Check it out! an ad for the beauty from 1950. Get ready Second Half of the 20th Century.

Behold the glorious nose of the 1950 Studebaker! Does that nose make a statement of what! Cyrano de Bergerac would be jealous of such a nose!! 

"S" stands for Studebaker

I dream of my early youth. Does the "S" stand for Superman the hero of all young boys back in the post WW II days. The heroes of the comic book world back in those days were three guys and one gal. They were Superman, Batman, and Aquaman (these all sprang from the old "Captain Marvel" comic books). For the girls, there was "Wonder Woman." That was before all the new Superheroes like Plastic Man.

But the "S" in my dreams does not stand for Superman but for Studebaker, the superhero of Automobiles.

Some of my first memories are of the Studebaker. Now my parents for many years have claimed that I have had gasoline cholic. See my blog on December 24 entitled "A Blog that Only a Mother Can Love" where my father makes reference to this phenomenon. In short, I cried each night and would not go to sleep until I had a ride in a vehicle. (Today, I find that I can sleep on trains, plains and automobiles. But I can also sleep anywhere else.) The truth of the matter is that I fell in love with my folks' Studebaker when I was very young and would not go to sleep without a ride in it. Therefore just taking me for a ride today will not cure my sleep problems-unless it is a ride in a Studebaker.

There are various Studebakers in my memory including a 1949 Studebaker, a 1950 Sudebaker, a 1952 Studebaker and a 1953 or 1954 Studebaker. They are like counting sheep, they parade through my dreams. One is maroon, one is green, one is gray and maroon. Most have the wonderful Studebaker nose. They are wonders of auto engineering, advanced in design and harbingers of a wonderful automobile future. They are simple and unairconditioned. You ride with the windows down on hot days and with the windows up in cool days. They have heaters. The backseat is flat, it is a bench back seat. They are cool. And that wonderful nose. No wonder the 1950 was known as "The Rocket."

Some Studebaker links are:

The Studebaker Museum

The Sudebaker Drivers Club

The Antique Studebaker Club

The Home of the Studebaker Clubs

Studebakers were the cars of my dreams when I was a young child. They are also the cars of my dreams now. The Studebaker was an honest car. It was not for the rich. It was priced for the ordinary man. But it was an automobile of hope. One that looked forward to a new and modern world. The Allied Victory in the Second World War had saved much of civilization from tyranny. There was a new positive feeling in the United States and a promise of a better and more prosperous time. The Sudebaker looked forward and seized this hope. It was the car for tomorrow.

The Swede

It was the summer after my first year of College. I was working out in the Gulf of Mexico as an Ordinary Seaman in order to help fund modestly my college expenses. I worked on an LST that in essence was a drilling tender. The old LST would dock up to a oil rig. On the boat was an assortment of characters including roustabouts, roughnecks, seamen and one green college student. The LST was like a small village with one purpose-to serve the drilling rig.

HarleyDad was fairly cocky. He thought he was pretty smart. He had graduated from an elite High School of high I.Q. students and was in the honors program of a reputable Texas college. He had completed one year of German, one year of Greek (which he had determined would be his major) and had about five years of latin under his belt. He was a fair chess player and that particular summer was reading Russian literature: Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Pushkin and the like.

Yes, HarleyDad thought he was pretty smart. At least he did until he met the Swede.

Now the Swede did not have any formal education. The Swede was an Able Body seaman and a master electrician. The Swede, who not surprisingly came from Sweden, had run away and had become a seaman when he was a teenager. Over the coming months I got to know Swede better.

The Swede had been all over the world. I had only travelled domestically. Instead of the three or four languages that I knew, the Swede was fluent in eight or nine languages. The Swede and I would play chess from time to time, with him often beating me.

We would discuss theology. Interestingly enough the Swede, also kept up a running correspondence on theology (and chess games) with several of the professors at New Orleans Baptist Seminary in New Orleans.

One day the discussion between Swede and I turned to a book by Fyodor Dostoevsky called The Brothers Karamazov. As fate would have it, the Swede and I were both reading this book at the same time. There was one difference however, I was reading it in English and he was reading it in Russian.

I learned a lot of things working offshore that summer; however one of the most valuable things that I learned was that you do not have to have a formal education in order to be well educated. The Swede was one of the smartest and best educated people I ever met. He had a love of learning far exceeding what I experienced from my college professors. There are some pretty smart people who do not have the "educational credentials." Likewise that are some well degreed people that are not that smart.

You take people as you find them. Don't be too impressed with their credentials. As I would go on in life, I would find many people who had the credentials but were not nearly as smart as some "average people." At the same time, I found a number of people in Academia, and in the religious profession that had "Paper Doctorates" from high sounding educational institutions that did not require any real work. Some of these people love to be called "Doctor" and are esteemed "leaders" in their communities. Matthew 23:8,9 says regarding the Pharisees they loved "respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men and the places of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues." The Chinese call these people "paper tigers."

It is hard to imagine Jesus as being addressed as Doctor Jesus. Now what seminary did you come from Jesus? Or Dr. John the Baptist. His seminary was the wilderness. Jesus was like Swede. He did not have the title, only the knowledge. Jesus amazed the scribes and teachers when he went to Jerusalem at 12 for his Bar Mitzvah and discussed the Scriptures with them and they were amazed. He read the Scriptures publicly in the Synagogues on the Sabbath. He wrote in the sand. He asked his followers on numerous occasions "Haven't you read in the Scriptures...." or "Don't you know what the Scriptures say. Jesus knew the written word of God. He was skilled in the Law and the Prophets. He had the substance-not the degree.

It is not what you have that makes you a man or a woman. It is not your degrees. It is what you are that counts. Do you have a heart that seeks to know. To know knowledge, to know wisdom, to know truth and to know God. Or do you just have degrees, money or position in the community.

The Swede had a more profound influence on me and my education than any professor I would encounter in undergraduate school, graduate school, or law school. You see, I have the degrees, but have learned that I am not so smart after all.

Dutch

It was sometime before I entered First Grade that I was befriended by Dutch. Dutch was an old man working as a church janitor in a small East Texas town. My folks were faithful members at their Baptist church and spent a fair amount of time there. Dutch would let me follow him around and "help" out as only a pre-schooler can. Dutch at one time had been a sailor, and how a sailor from Holland ever ended up in East Texas I will never know.

My family figured I was probably spending too much time with Dutch as I begin to speak with a Netherlands accent. Dutch was a kind man and very tolerant of a young boy who wanted to get into everything and had a million questions.

Dutch had a hobby. It was building model ships. He also built ships in a bottle.

Some of my earliest memories were of wonderful model ships and ships in a bottle built by the "Old Salt" from the Netherlands.

As I grew older, I had a curiousity and taste for things international. I became interested in languages, worked with international students when I taught, worked on an international law journal, and later worked and travelled all over the world.

I suspect that some of my interest in things international was sparked by a kind and patient church janitor who worked on model ships in a bottle.

In the movie Citizen Kane, a very rich man thought of his early sled named Rosebud as he lay dying. I think that if I had a "Rosebud" it might just be a ship in a bottle.

The Mighty Indestructible Corolla that thought it was the Energizer Bunny!

Toyota Corolla -The Energizer Bunny

It was time to buy another car. HarleyDad had been offered his first job after law school. He had been through 3 years of Ford Maverick hell.

Sometimes good things come in non-assuming packages. HarleyDad, a sadder but wiser car owner, decides to investigate reliability rather than auto "sizzle." So off to the Toyota dealer we go and find a Toyota we can afford. As a test from On High, it is in a "brown" color-perhaps my all time hated colors for cars.

So HarleyDad, who was born for sportscars and Harleys, has a non-descript small Toyota. Don't disparage small things. If my Maverick was a car from hell, then the Toyota was a car from heaven. The Toyota ran on one quarter of the Maverick's gas. It was small and you could park it anywhere. And it never broke. It must have thought it was the "Energizer bunny." It ran and ran and ran. I believe I kept this car for five years and the only time I ever replaced anything, it was the waterpump which went out on the fourth or fifth year I had it. Tires and batteries were cheap.

I had seen the light. Like many of my countrymen, I had experienced the quality revolution that Japan was forcing on the U.S. by making cars that actually worked and did not have to be repaired at the drop of a hat.

All the metric tools I purchased to work on this car (I had become my own mechanic thanks to the Maverick) just lay in the garage. (By the way, work in a garage is a wonderful think; I had tried it outside in freezing weather while in law school, and it was not a pretty experience.)

After Brokerbelle and our two children were through with the Corolla, we gave it to Brokerbelle's mother who also used it for a number of years without problems. She only had one problem with the car-she hated the color and she painted it red. Finally Brokerbelle's mother and I agreed on somethings so the Corolla even brought unity into the family.

The 1973 Corolla was an unassuming, even an humble automobile, but it had the Christian virtures of being faithful and perseverent. It was much more about being good than looking good.

When I look back and contrast the Corolla with my Maverick, there are many lessons to be learned. The Corolla taught me to love a car that did what it was supposed to do and did it well--it ran, kept on running and did it economically and faithfully. Here's to the 1973 Toyota.

HarleyDad

Guess what you can do with this Lighter. You got it! Fill it with a clean urine sample from a friend.