My libidic instincts got the better of me when I was a young man. I guess the urge to breed is mankind's guarantee of species propagation. And I fell for it.
Becoming a father before my twentieth birthday wasn't really all that bad. I've loved every one of the children I helped bring into the world more than life itself. What really sucked back then was all my buddies acting like I had the plague after I got married. All my "good" friends were gone with the wind. Hardly ever even got a call from them.
I guess from their perspective I had moved to the Twilight Zone. One week partying like a rock star and the next week washing diapers and hanging them out on the line in the backyard of a 60 buck a month trailer house. Life changed pretty fast.
I did have one good friend, Dave, with the same affliction I had, a baby and a pregnant wife at home. Dave and I became our own support group. We were both working dead-end jobs, barely making our bills and our 'good time' buddies had deserted us. We helped each other out a lot. That's what friends do.
Dave had a kick-ass old car that he had been given by his grandfather, a 1941 Studebaker Champion. It was an old warrior with its share of rust and dings, but it ran like...uh..a Champion. I loved that old car as much as he did and helped him keep it running smooth. It was a 4 door sedan with 'suicide' doors where the rear passenger doors were hinged toward the rear of the car. The back seat could hold a load of anything you could stuff in there. That made our Saturday runs to the laundry-matic a snap.
Back then I had a sweet old aunt that had given me a hand-me-down baby crib for my oldest son, God bless her. With one baby on the floor and another on the way in a one-bedroom trailer, a baby crib was going to make life a little easier for me. I asked Dave if her could help me haul the crib with his Studebaker. He agreed.
That weekend Dave showed up early and we trotted out to my aunt's place to pick up the crib. We were compelled to sit and have coffee and chat. If she wasn't kin, I call her nosey. But she was my aunt and really meant well. We were out of there soon enough. We stuffed the partially disassembled baby bed in the back of the Studebaker and headed home.
Being a couple of work mules that wore bridles all week long, Dave and I felt we were due a "kitchen pass" and thought we'd tool around a little bit before we went home. Back in our single days we use to frequent a little greasy spoon diner called "Bunny's" that had a to-die-for onion fried burger. We pooled our pocket change and decided to treat ourselves to some.
Bunny's was a little diner that had four or five booths and about that many stools at the counter. One door with a little plate glass on either side faced the street with parking around the side. We slipped in and order our burgers. They were just as good as we had remembered.
Just about the time we got our burgers we heard a fire truck. As it got louder and closer everybody in the diner started looking out the window, wondering where the fire was located. Dave and I could care less. We did take a little notice however when the fire truck sounded like it pulled up right next to the diner and stopped.
I remember Dave stopped chewing his burger like he'd been shot when the cook came out from the kitchen and announced "somebody's old green four door was on fire". We looked at each other in disbelief. Nah, couldn't be.....We rushed out the door with everybody else to see what was on fire.
Sure enough, Dave's fine old Studebaker had flames roaring out every hole where glass had been just moments earlier. I've never seen a car burn so quick. The firemen hollered at everybody to back up just in time when the gas tank blew. It was the hottest fire I've ever seen. As most of the folks went back inside Dave and I stood quiet and watched his old car and my baby bed turn to cinders. Flames leave no survivors. It was sad.
After the fire was out the firemen were crawling all over the pile of crispy metal. They dragged what was left of the car seats out in parking lot and just hosed the whole mess down with thousands of gallons of water. I remember thinking a burning car has its own special smell. One of the firemen came up to Dave and asked if it was his car. He took Dave over to the mess and started showing him what had, in all likelihood, caused the fire.
As was common back in the day there was an ash tray with an electric lighter on the back side of the front seats. A lighter that would heat up when you pushed it in..then when it was hot enough to light a cigarette, it would "pop" out...
Unless there was something like a baby bed holding the lighter and keeping it from popping out...
We had apparently pushed the bed up against the lighter when we loaded it. I guess it never blew a fuse. Instead it just cooked and cooked until it was hot enough to burst into flames...while we were stuffing our faces full of Bunny's onion burgers...
I felt bad. I'm sure Dave felt worse. He had lost his only set of wheels. To make matters worse, the car wouldn't even roll. The fire had flattened and melted the wheels. Somehow he was going to have to get the smoldering carcass hauled off. His day turned sour in a heartbeat.
That turned out to be a good year though. We talked Bill that ran the gas station into letting us use his flatbed winch truck. We gave the Studebaker a final resting spot at the old sand pits. Not long after that Dave and I both were awarded new babies. He went to work with his wife's father pouring concrete and made a good living for himself and his family. I was elevated from instrument man to party chief. We moved from the trailer park to a rent house with a yard where my boys could play.
I hated to see that old car go, even though it wasn't mine. I remember thinking Dave might hold me a little responsible for the fire since it was my baby bed. He later set me straight and we chalked it up to an unfortunate accident.
That's what friends do. B-)
Another good one, thanks for sharing. :good:
Great story.
Really good.
Oh Mr.Cash, Kent paints pictures of the eye. You paint pictures of the mind! carry on!
My, oh my, we do have so much in common. The day I married the first Mrs. Cow I was precisely one month short of my 18th birthday and she was 3-1/2 months short of her 16th birthday. We fooled everyone, though, because her pregnancy had to be a minimum of two years and eight months in length as the neighbors counted the months on their fingers awaiting our baby.
When #1 arrived we were in desperate need of everything, including food and supplies for ourselves. My parents showed up a few days after the delivery and we hit every rummage sale in town looking for vital baby supplies. I remember the crib cost $20 and my mother paid for that. But, the most outstanding purchase was a baby swing for a dollar or less. It was a few months before we put the swing to use. And, that was when we learned why the price was so low. We would put the little darling in the swing and crank the crank so many turns then give the swing a gentle push to get it started. The spring would keep it swinging for what seemed like a really long time. Plenty long enough to get the baby asleep most times. The problem was with the spring. Just as it had reached the end of its chore it would suddenly go BBBBOOOOIIIINNNNGGG!!!! Needless to say, that ended the nap. It probably introduced some basic psychological scars at the same time.
Paden, I love the inclusion of the car photo. A dear friend of mine learned an early lesson about suicide doors---the hard way. Her grandparents had a car very similar to the one in the photo. She was only two or three at the time and was in the backseat entirely alone. Somehow she managed to unlatch the door and WHAM! she was hanging off the door as it flew open ejecting her into the grassy ditch after a bounce or two off of the gravel county road. Fortunately they were driving at a speed just barely fast enough to make the door swing open so that her injuries were minor.
