By Moe Loveless
This road story in a 55 Ford that happened a "few years ago" when I was 18 or 19 (editors note: Moe divulged the decade but we'll let you guess). My buddy's father got transferred to Mesquite Texas, a suburb of Dallas, so the whole family moved there. The following summer my cousin, Al Irwin, and I decided to truck on down to the big state and visit him.
About 6 months earlier I had laid down some bread for a '55 Ford Victoria, 2 door hardtop, 272 c.i. with a Fordomatic. I had installed cruiser skirts, hollywood mufflers, and a whip antenna, and became so cool I couldn't wear a hat for about a year. This would be our ride to the Lone Star state.
Not being seasoned travellers, we requested our birth certificates from Ottawa, so as not to have a rough time at the border. On a Friday morning in July, they had not arrived yet and we couldn't wait any longer, so we set out from Stouffville looking forward to the adventure. We got as far as Agincourt (15 miles into the trip) when the fuel pump packed it in. While waiting for the fuel pump to be replaced at Louis Ross' Garage, I called home and found out that our birth certificates had arrived - back to Stouffville, picked up the certificates and headed out again. We crossed the border that evening at Detroit and immediately got a flat tire. With the tire fixed and a motel located, we crashed, and the next morning motored on.
On the highway between Cincinnati and Louisville, we were drifting along at about 80 m.p.h when I heard a siren, a quick check in the rearview revealed a flashing cherry-top coming up fast. We thought we were dead. He went passed us like we were standing still, so we stopped to change our pants. We found out later there was no speed limit on that highway and several others in the States (not to many of these around now).
The next day coming into St. Louis, we noticed the steering drifting a little. Luck was with us however as we found a good mechanic and he replaced the Idler arm. When finished, he said "OK boys, lets take her for a shake down". So, with him driving we backed out on the street, he dropped her into drive and we took off. He was a pipe smoker and unfortunately had left his pipe on the crack between the hood and the right front fender. At about 35 m.p.h, he noticed his pipe, hit the brakes a little to fast, the pipe slid off and we ran over it. Poor guy wasn't too jovial after that.
With good steering now, we headed south and decided to try the back roads through Oklahoma. We stopped in a typical little western town, had breakfast in a saloon with the sheriff, and met an old guy who had never heard of Canada. Across the street, the owner of an antique shop told us he had seen Canadian money once - some kids were playing with it in the street. Apparently, some owner of another shop got paid in Canadian money, thought she got ripped off any gave it to the kids to play with. While in that store, we were checking out a Colt 45, the owner said "this is how she works boys", cocked it and blew a hole through the back wall, damn near had to change are pants again!
While searching for Bill's place in Mesquite,Texas (my buddy Bill McGinis), a state trooper pulled us over as, apparently, whip antenna's were illegal in Texas. We told him it was hooked to the radio, but he didn't believe us and did a search. He got more upset when he thought our plates were last year's. Ontario plates that year were white on blue (remember those days - new plates every year) and Texas plates were the opposite. Finally after checking the origin of the plates a little closer, he settled down and became reasonably friendly. We told him Bill's address and he told us to follow him and he delivered us to Bill's front door. While in Texas, Bill had phoned his girlfriend back in Stouffville and proposed, she said yes and he gave us the engagement ring to present to Lorna upon our return. Our week in Texas is another story, and since this is about cars, I'll proceed to the return trip.
We took a southern route for our trip home through Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, and as we approached Charleston, the generator decided not to generate any more. We found a garage that looked about the same as the one in the "Dukes of Hazard" that Kooter operated. They had a '55 Chevy in the back, set up for the Drags, that we checked out. Really nice people, but man were they slow. It took them 7 hours to change the generator! (and almost all of our cash)
About an hour or so after leaving Charleston, we stopped to count our bucks and decided we only had enough for gas, so we decided to drive straight through. At 1:00 in the morning, we got lost in Cleveland and pulled along side a couple in a '57 Ford ragtop, told the fella our problem and he said "follow me, I have to drop my girl off, and then I'll take you to the highway leading to Buffalo". So, we followed him to his girl's place, they jump into the back seat of the ragtop and the car rocks around for about 20 min. with us sitting behind them in the '55 feeling kind of stupid. Finally, he took her to the door and then led us out of town waving goodbye.
We stopped at a truck stop and tried to sleep for a couple of hours, but couldn't, thinking we would get picked up at the border for diamond smuggling. I put the ring in my back pocket and we crossed the border without incident and arrived back in Stouffville about 9:00 am Sunday morning with less than $3.00 in cash between us. All in all a good trip and memorable experience.
"Man, I wish I still had that car"