[TimBer]

A couple years before my dad passed away I recorded some of his stories. My brother and I used to argue about the stories and get them confused with each other, so one Thanksgiving I got out my handheld recorder and we asked him to tell us. After he died, I transcribed the audio and put it in a little booklet. This is him talking about his first car:

A 1951 Ford was my very first car that I bought when I was 14 with money I saved from mowing lawns and I paid $50 for it. It was nice except for it didn’t run because it had an engine problem. It made a really loud noise. It was going to throw a rod. So, I had been looking for a long time and my Dad knew it was going to happen and he was all for it. He used to take me to look at cars on Sunday. I would go through the paper and look for cars I could afford and he would take me out to look at them. This was the nicest one we had seen anywhere. It had a nice paint job. I was 14 so this was 1962. Since I was born in ’48 that would work out. ’62 I was still in junior high school. I hadn’t graduated yet. I was in the ninth grade. We went to get it and of course it didn’t run so we towed it home with a chain, which my Dad and I used to do a lot. That was probably the first time. One of our cars would break down and we would always tow each other and we got real good at it. I remember my Dad towing us home. I was in the old Ford and I’ve got the window down and my arm up, steering with one hand and the radio was on. I was listening to Monster Mash. I thought I was pretty cool because I was driving. Even though my Dad was towing me I felt like I was driving. So we took that car home and took the engine out. My Uncle Vic did all the work on it, rebuilt it and made it real nice. I used to wash it even though I didn’t drive it. My Dad let me put it in the garage. I would roll it out and wash it then put it back in the garage. A couple weeks later it would be all dusty so I’d roll it out and wash it again. I had to keep mowing lawns and I would funnel money to Vic and he would buy parts. Pretty soon we had a whole engine to put back in it. Since I didn’t have money for insurance, I made a deal with my Dad that he could drive it, actually my Mom drove it. They retired their car and started driving my car. That way it would be on the road and I could ride in it. It wasn’t long – another six months or so until I would actually drive it. The day of my birthday I was at the DMV getting my license right after I got out of school.