Mid-Missouri-Memory: A Car

Many people take cars for granted as grown people, but it was not that way when we were young, and could only dream of driving a big sleek automobile. Today few kids go past the age of 16 without getting that driver's permit, that allows them to hit the road behind the wheel. But in those years before our roads were filled bumper to bumper with cars it was not that way. I in fact did not get a driver's license until well after my 21st birthday. Since that time however I have had love affairs with many cars and pickups, be they shiny or rusty I loved them all. Maybe that is why I wrote this particular "Mid-Missouri-Memory."

              A Car

A car is a wonderful thing, and as a man of mature years, I can still say that even as I curse the powers that be whenever I fill my gas tank. I love cars, but not in the same way, I did when I was young. In those pre-driving days when I could only dream of driving with the top down, they were a magical flying carpet that I guided mainly from the back seats of other peoples cars, or in my daydreams. The distinctive smell of naughahyde was sweet perfume to me in those days-a new car smell that my friends and I sought out as often as we could, in the showrooms of the local car dealerships, that populated downtown Sedalia when we were kids.
To actually ride in a car when I was a young boy was a real treat, and a rare one too. It was not the way it is today when everyone owns a car, and can jump in and out of it every few hours for a ride of a block or two. There were in fact more families on my block in the forties and fifties who did not own a car, than owned one. When I look at the congested roadways we drive on today, I get nostalgic for the less crowded roads of the 40s,50s and 60s.
I have written before about the distinct differences between the old car makes and models, which made it easy for us kids to recognize them as they drove by. Today there are so many different kinds of cars that it is nearly impossible to know them all. The cars of today also look too much alike. It is hard to tell what make or model a car is unless you are close enough to read its name. That fact has ruined a perfectly good game us kids used to play. In that game we would sit on the curb to watch the cars go by, and see who could guess what kind of car was coming up the street first. I still play the game with myself sometime, when I see an older model car coming down the street I think I recognize-that happens less and less as the years go by, because only collectors drive those models now.
I am glad there are still some car enthusiasts who love those cars from my youth as much as I do. They are the ones who display the cars at Eddies Drive Inn and other locations around Sedalia. Many people think of those cars as old, or vintage, but to me they are as new as when they sat in those show rooms when I was a kid, and as stylish, as when they were driven down Ohio all those years ago. As I stick my head inside one of those restored cars, it takes me back to those back seat driving days all those years ago. I close my eyes and sniff the naughahyde, and for a second or two I am riding past the Crown Drug Store, on Ohio once more, as my friends and I take the drag.