The names of two we never heard of cars I guess we feel Better with Ford or Pontiac (maybe even Edsel) Myself having to be to young to have a real close association with cars in the thirties One thing I do remember was that every body seemed to have car trouble. We had about 12 cars on that street, maybe 4 more in garages. My dad used to guess the temperature by the number of cars with their hoods up.
It seemed colder the crick froze over sometimes all the way to the bay. I remember myself I was out on the crick when you could see the bottom mud
The cracks were 5 or 6 ft. That must have been in
1940s. I remember there was a chart in the door of most cars showing the percentage of water to kerosene to use as antifreeze there were other liquids like alcohol or Dad said he knew a few from the gas station that would put cheap whiskey in there radiators (I think my ford runs best on four Rose) He couldn’t keep the car going strait it weaved back and forth. May be the heaters were inadequate for most of the more airy and not sealed that well. Undoubtedly the number one problem with cars in the 30s and b before that was the poor quality of tires Any trip of 25 miles or more would quire 1 or 2 tire changes, We (mom and kids) had part of the problem solved, We called tire changing time Our Picnic time. It depended on how far we were going. Riverhead was about 25 miles each way so that meant 2 Picnics. Our longest trips back then was 120 miles road trip. We had 4 flats on one of those trips. You have to realize that all those tires had inner tubes and they would have to be patched also. Dad was the tire-changing king of the highway.
Just Getting to School
My father always hated school, as it seemed half the high school as well, as soon as most of them reached 16 he or she was out of there. The truant officers had their hands full; some of the officers had acquired bicycles to go after kids not on foot. Gradually some of the students were getting automobiles making things even more difficult. My farther around this time got his first motorcycle at14 but he couldn’t take that to school. You were probably wondering why my grandfather would have allowed such a thing (he wouldn’t). Dear old dad new that would make my Grandfather Blow his stack for sure. Anyway dad and his "mob" Kept there cycles at a house on the other side of town. This house was called a "Safe House" apparently The owner of this house lived upstairs and he kept up To 20 Illegal cycles down stairs they paid him enough plus supplying him with booze. Dad was not Part of any of the (Mobs). Some of these truant kids started gangs of 5 to 10 kids. Dad had a few friends he sort of hung with until one of his (friends) Mr. X acquired a 22 pistol he sold another t o another of our small group. It’s amazing that a little gun would change a person from just a face that you really did not even notice to some one you suddenly did notice. In this case the ruler of this no gang. Insisted that the other 3 buy a pistol from him (so they could do what).
This Mr. X said “He would shoot the other 3 of them if they did not buy one. “
They were at the end of the Greenport dump at the time. This Mr. X told us them they had 10 seconds to run. They didn’t run but walked away. It was a good thing it was winter all 3 of them had heavy coats on, when three shots pop-pop-pop rang out two of them hit my dad one about 6 inches below the collar and one in the center of his coat. None of them ran, then two more shots and a misfire. They were about 35 ft away by that time. None of the 22 bullets made it through the coats. I am sure these two characters didn’t know how serious it could have been.
For a year or so my father’s "Indian” motorcycle went to school "sometimes" until he was 16 although he had to hid it along way. After leaving school he found several jobs. He had a great mechanic ability electronic ability, however he never applied himself to these abilities. But, he did a lot of home-based radio repair and later short wave and T.V. Most of his talents went to house building and interior finishing.
The Kissel 1918.
Dad’s first car was a 1918 Kissel. There are cars and cars some you can’t think of anything interesting or any thing exciting about it. Some of them are just plane boring. But even the boring ones somehow come to life if something unusual happens to them. My father liked cars especially unusual ones. Most of my father’s car stories were hard to come by. The rest of the family never got to hear his stories, I came by them only by being in the right place at the right time. He was secretive about his past life and I doubt if he thought any body else new or cared about his exploits. All these stories are true and to my knowledge as far as I know he never told any of these to anybody outside the family.
Dad bought this car in 1922. The Kissel Car Co. was officially set up in 1906 the cars sold well 10 years after it became established they could be supplied with four, six, or twelve cylinder engines. They were reliable and reasonably cheap. In 1918 the company entered the sport car market-They introduced the Kissel Kar Silver Special Speedster. In 1918 The Kissel Gold Bug was on display at the New York Motor Show. They introduced other larger cars The "White Eagle" But their cars became two expensive for the world wide economic crisis. And there cars became hard to sell in 1929 only 931 were sold they went out of
Business in 1930…I m not sure, but the car he had
He liked it because it was red with yellow wire wheels. Kissel started making the sporty models in 1918 so we assumed it was the sport model. He bought the car soon after leaving school.
The Kissel and My Mom
A friend of his told Him that he knew where 3 girls lived in town that were still going to school maybe they could somehow get a chance to talk to them. Knowing my father he probably said what for..
So dad & Joe decided to take a ride over where these girls are supposed hang out. They found the place all right it was a two story house right on the corner. It was a big house and it had a wrap around porch in the front and a single porch in the back. The guys chugged past noticing there were only two girls.
“I wonder were the third girl is?” said Joe,
Lets go around the block again but they still are not sure what to do. The 5th or 6th time around the 3rd girl arrived. By this time for some reason they were laughing harder than ever. The next time around they seemed to be more anxious or overly excited. Now this just getting ridiculous two of the girls were at the porch railing the third one was by the road. The two girls on the porch were just about going crazy they kept jumping and yelling some thing but the car was so noisy the guys couldn’t hear anything. This was the last time they were afraid they had excited them so much they couldn’t resist us. They thought they had better leave before they exploded. This time though the 3rd girl stepped out in the dirt road and the Kissel had very little brakes but luckily what little brakes they had could handle doing ten or fifteen miles an hour. Russ (my Dad) hit the brakes, and the Kissel fell over a bit. Your wheel fell off. Both of them in the car were dumfounded. We just could not believe that it, we had only been turning left all that time.
The girl exclaimed your wheel rolled down through the next 4 yards it went thru a couple gardens and took a clothes line with it. The 3 girls were nice to help them find the wheel. They had no idea where it could end up. It was all down hill and it looked like the wheel might end up down town. Dad was embarrassed to say the least. When they found the wheel on the front step of a church was that a premonition or something else.
All three girls helped with getting the wheel back on.
Dad had always thought women were pretty useless around cars, however these three girls changed his mind on that score. The girl that stepped out in the road was Mildred (my Mom) who became Dads (Russell) wife a few months later.
Dad had several cars before I was born. The first one was a 1929 model A 4 dr black he bought it secondhand in 1933 it cost him $350. Dad bought another second hand Ford a 1931 model A 4dr black he did not care for either one. I’m not sure but one of the Fords would have to be driven backwards up any steep hill such as Kenny’s Road in Southold LI.
#2 A mile in a minute with me in it.
After the Fords Dad was looking for something flashier he got a good deal on a 1926 Buick This was a two-tone 4 dr convertible with side curtains. Russell just couldn’t resist the car. The price, the prestige, of owning a Buick and it had a lot of room as our family had grown to 6. This car when new cost over $2300.
The previous owner said the car would do an honest 70 miles an hour he had no idea about how fast the Kissel was probably 60 the two Fords would not touch 55. It was only about a month after Dad bought this car that my three Uncles and a few other people that just had to get into this Buick story. All of them wanted to see if Dads Buick would do 70mph. The problem was finding a road that was long enough and fairly strait. My father settled on a road in East Marion N.Y. The road was the life savings stations road. It would start at the Sound turn around and run about 2 1/2 miles to Rte 25. It was a totally stupid idea it really didn’t prove anything. Except to show how many dimwits can you get in one place to see something other even dumber dimwits would enjoy?
My father didn’t have to prove anything he knew the car would go faster then 70 mph. every body there wanted to go but we couldn’t fit 20 people in the Buick. The Rte 25 end was mostly a farm with several barns and two houses none of which was on the road. If the owner of this farm knew what we were doing I’m sure they would have called the Sheriff. The thought the less they know the better.
They finally decided who was going there were 7 in the end that insisted they wanted to go. Dad thought with the extra weight about 900 lb it would never reach 70 even down hill. They took it slow to the turn around with 7 people jammed in the car 4 in the back seat. They all were having a hard time seeing the dashboard and with no lights on the dash it was hard for Dad to see.
They did a leisurely 45 to the turn around. H turned the old Buick around the engine seemed to be rumbling and the exhaust muffler something seemed louder for some reason.
He said “Everybody hold on, here we go.”
It took all of a 1/4 mile to reach 45, Dad shifted to high at 45 then he really burned up the road. By the 1/2-mile point he was tooling along at nearly
55. Dad had never had it over 60. When he hit 60 the side curtains began to pop and slap. The front end had never been aligned and the wheels were beginning to wobble, he was not worried about that. However the strange grumbling getting louder from under the car concerned him, then a loud bang and a thump from the rear.
“Just as some one in the back seat.” He said “I think we lost something the muffler no doubt as I could see in the vibrating rear view mirror pieces of what once was the Buicks muffler bouncing behind the car.” It looked like the pieces were trying to catch up with us. Everybody seemed to have lost interest in the speedometer. The speed of 75 was the last time he glanced at the speed. One of the side curtains broke loose and whipped back catching on the rear bumper for a few seconds. The end of the road was a little more than a 1/4 mile or about 1500 ft he was going faster than he figured and he knew the brakes were not to good. Dad was just on the edge of the road when he turned the steering wheel to get 1/2 of the car on the farm soil. Dad knew the car would sink in the soft dirt and help them stop. He turned the wheel "turned the wheel"- turned the wheel” The front wheels had separated from the steering wheel. He could do nothing but push the brake through the floor. He applied the parking brake that was not much help. The burning brakes kept hem from knowing were they were going. The car was about 400 ft from the end. They had lost control it sure was not in his hands. They hit 2 10-inch apple trees which both jammed themselves pretty good under the front of the Buick. Took a few smaller trees and a white fence before it stopped. If it wasn’t for those two apple trees slowing them down they would have went across the main road into a barn. No one had even thought of looking at the speed in the end. Dad was pretty sure it was 75. The were lucky those trees were just the right size to stop them, if they were much bigger and didn’t move they would probably have been killed.
The Buick (except the bumper grill and radiator and 1one tire, and the steering connection,) was back on the road within a week. The owner of the farm was away for the weekend. That was lucky for them as they all spent 4 hours to clean up the mess. One of my uncle’s friends had a wrecker and he extracted the apple trees from the Buick. They contacted the owner and explained that their steering mechanism came apart and had no control of the car. The farms owner got back to them and said not to worry about it they were just glad no one got hurt.
