[My Friend's 1934 Ford Coupe*]
I'm Outa Here
Walking down their course graveled lane
Suitcase in her hand, face troubled
She stopped there where we were working
Working on our thirty-four Ford
I was under/beneath the car
I clearly heard her say to him
You love that blankety car more
than you love me--take this old car
I'm leaving you and won't be back
_ _ _
.
When a kid drops out of college there are a lot of pastime things to do. I had three jobs**, for fun I had a steady girlfriend, dated a few others, and learned cars from Bill, an ex professional race car. driver, who was a quality control inspector in our plant. From what I learned I was able to hop my two-year-old Ford Tudor passenger car up so fast that in street racing it would beat the other modern automobiles.***
We had a race car, it was very fast, one that would almost always win the Saturday night "'B' Feature Race." We, with Bill driving most times, had to hold it back so that in the heat races it would not qualify for the "'A' Feature". If we raced in that "A" Feature another car with a Chrysler Hemi engine would most often win in a Plymouth coupe.*
Sometimes I got to drive, mostly after we blew our engine and it was more than our sponsor would pay for a new one. So the sponsor dropped us and we got another. This sponsor wanted us to have a Chevy and he furnished us with a 1937 Chevrolet with a hopped up GMC truck engine.
That was what I was driving when a front wheel broke at the far corner. I went over the dirt embankment and into a dried up salt lake. I was not hurt and we had the car going again the next week.
So, ... when Mrs. Bill came out that day, she hardly stopped walking while telling her Hub that she was leaving. Bill didn't cry that I knew of, cry as I later was to do when my first wife left me for one of her young students (they married and divorced, both within a year).
I never saw Mrs. Bill again, I hope she was happier with a fresh start. Bill recovered very fast and had a steady soon again and that blossomed into marriage
That was another short chapter in my life, his steady had a sister who liked me lots.
_ _ _
-> Photos and Poem Copyright, Jimmiehov 2008 and 2021.
-> I am linked with Magaly Guerrero at
-> Notes:
* For more about our racing effort and this car, click here . Our car looked like the coupe above with the fenders cut back to about three inches, the running boards and headlights removed for safety, and stronger bumpers. Our racing car number, 88, was painted on the doors and on the trunk lid.
** My three jobs were 40 hours in a watch factory, working part time at a Car Park Garage, and Saturday nights stuffing the ads into the Sunday Lincoln Journal comics. Eleven years later I went back to school and was awarded three degrees by going ten more years mostly night school while working.
*** Unlike the youth today, I didn't continue stoplight racing for over half a block, except out on the new Interstate Highway which was soon to open.
-> On the first Weekly Scribblings of the new year (Jan 6 2021), Magaly will invite us to revisit our Weekly Scribblings selection, and write new poetry or prose using one of our 2020 prompts. Please add the title (and link, if you can) of your chosen prompt to your post. Don’t feel like searching? No problem. Here are some nice choices:
1. Weekly Scribblings #43: Found Poems and Erasures
2. Weekly Scribblings #40: Walking Away
3. Weekly Scribblings #35: The Joy of Rest
4. Weekly Scribblings #31: What Makes You Smile?
5. Weekly Scribblings #28: Seeing Things
6. Weekly Scribblings #25: Well, That Was Unexpected
7. Weekly Scribblings #22: It Takes a Bit of Discipline
8. Weekly Scribblings #10: Early Bird or Night Owl?
9. Weekly Scribblings #9: Contagion
Labels: Cars, Poem, Story, Story Poem, True, Weekly Scribbling
