Weekly Scribblings - My Army Time Car
My old Mercury
A Jimmy Dean 1950 Mercury two door. It was a lovely car when I got it free and clear. No more car payments for me.
When I was drafted into the U.S. Army with car payments on a bought-new 1956 Ford Sunliner convertible my car payments were more than my government paycheck. Those payments were fine when I worked in the watch factory but no more.
Before I left to go into boot camp a 'kindly' used car dealer made the swap with me. He would sell my car and keep the proceeds while I would drive away in the six-year-old Mercury. Fine deal for me.
The car was fast like most every car I've ever owned. Pretty too, fit for this young fellow, who was sort of like the actor, James Dean who had a similar 1949 Mercury. To me he was a real "Rebel without a Cause" like the movie in which he starred.
The car served me well but five years later my car things had slowed almost to a stop. Mostly because it wasn't fast anymore, it moved forward only, and then not very fast.
Two gears refused to go like I liked, Reverse and First Gear had given up. With a wife who didn't work and now four kids (the firstborn were twins) I couldn't afford to buy a new one on Army pay.
My kindly father came to the rescue and traded with me for his tired but running well ten-year-old Ford. My brother-in-law drove it down to Texas, a thousand miles, and drove the forward moving only now-so-sad car up to my dad.
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- Poem and Photo Copyright, Jimmiehov 2021 and 2020, All Rights Reserved .
- I am linked with Rosemary at The Weekly Scribblings #92 where she is hosting. (https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2021/10/weekly-scribblings-92-forward-movement.html).
- Rosemary has given us a directional prompt, to "write something on the theme of forward movement, in whatever way you choose to interpret that". I wrote "prose" with 274 words including the title. My only problem is that I am not sure it is the type, car and personal stuff, prose suitable for posting here.
- The picture is me with the 1950 Mercury taken at the foot of Mt. Franklin which another and I would soon be climbing. After enjoying the summit and its town of El Paso views we would ride back down in the cable car.
[photo courtesy of the authors cited below]
- "The 1949 Mercury Eight Coupe that Jim Stark aka James Dean drove in Rebel Without A Cause has been kept safe and sound all these years at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. The vehicle collection in the that mostly belongs to late casino owner William F. Harrah . . . " ( https://www.hotcars.com/heres-what-happened-to-james-deans-1949-mercury-from-rebel-without-a-cause/ )
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Labels: Cars, Jim's Life, Prose, Story, Weekly Scribbling 21
posted by Jim @ 10/20/2021 08:26:00 AM
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