Stories & Memories

My Favorite Holiday Automotive Gift

We were living in Burlingame, CA in 1945 when I believe I got this under/beside the Christmas Tree. I was 4 years old at the time. The story I remember is that, being it was during WWII, metal and rubber were at a premium, somehow my Dad was able to get the wood for my Jeep. The only metal used was the axles, steering column and pedal mechanism. According to the story, the wheels and steering wheel were turned from solid wood by a friend of my Dad's and that Dad built it for me. Of course, Dad is the same person who years later, liked to tell people he worked with that he was the second radio operator on the Titanic and dressed in womenÕs clothes so he could get in the life boat. His story held up until a wiser person transferred into the station where he worked and realized Dad would have been about 8 years old at that time. My Dad's fun was over and for all I know he may have found this Jeep as an old left over and put on a new coat of shiny silver paint and made up another story to fit the occasion. Wherever it came from didn't matter to me as I thought this was the best and the flashy silver paint made it go that much faster.

My unwilling passenger is Blacky, who was brought home shortly after I was born and laid under my carriage when I was a baby. He would live another 8 years and this is probably not the worst I put him though. At least he had enough sense to hang on.

As you can see by the front bumper I was not the best of drivers and this was an omen for what would come once I got my drivers license. I don't know what happened to my jeep but I remember that some of the bigger boys across the street sat on the back while we came down the small hill by the house and the rear axle was never quite straight after that. We moved to Los Altos about 1946 and My First Car didn't make the move with us.

My love of cars and old cars persists to this day. I haven't come a long way as my first car with a motor was a 1928 Model A Sport Coupe and our latest purchase is a 1932 Packard Rumble Seat Coupe, just 4 years newer. Both of these cars needed a lot of work when purchased. I hope to have the Packard running in 2008, about 51 years after I got the Model A running and 63 years after I got my New Jeep under the Christmas Tree.

From Steve-This is my claim to fame, I have finally been published. Not bad for a guy that took bone head english in college multiple times. Of course my English teacher didn't grade this for grammar and now we have spell check. Life just keeps getting better and better.
This story was published in the Dec. 13 issue of Old Cars Weekly.