Driving Down Memory Lane

Got a call from my brothers yesterday.

"What kind of car did you drive across country in?"

"'49 Plymouth (or was it a '47?), black." "Which way?"

"Both."

"Chevy, '50 Chevy (or was it a '52?), green."

"Were they 2 door or 4 door?"

"4 Door."

But wait, the Plymouth may have been 2 door, the Chevy was definitely 4 door, green and it was a '50. The Plymouth was definitely black, I didn't think they made any other color, although subsequent research shows that they apparently did.

Memories. That was a long time ago, and I became so distrusting of my memory that I called my children's mother to check to make sure that I had correctly remembered another fact, unconnected to the above.

Later, in the evening my nephew Peter sent me some "This is Your Life" links to the cars my parents owned during my youth. I say youth, because the first car Mom and Dad bought (Mom would not drive until years later) was that '50 Chevy, green." More about that later.

So, I have been thinking about those memories for the last 24 plus hours.

An aside. Its snowing here in Tonawanda, NY. Coming down pretty well right now, though they tell me it is to get worse. Nothing else to do until the Bills game is on, so I find myself remembering and writing. Up here in Buffalo when they talk about snow they talk about the blizzard of '77. I moved here after that storm, so when I think of a blizzard, I think of the blizzard of '52. We were living above the Sunday School building of The First Baptist Church in Portland, Maine. Portland got so snowed in that they had to borrow plows from Scarborough. Congress Street was piled high with snow. My Dad and I walked miles through the storm to make sure Aunt Ruth and Uncle Clarence were OK. They lived off of Back Bay. To get there you had to pass the B&M Bean plant, which always smelled great to me.

So, here's the story:

The blizzard comes into play because it was 1952. Most of the family belongings were shipped in crates and barrels through New York, the Panama Canal and then to the Philippines by ship.

Our ship was to leave from San Francisco in the fall of '52, but my family had no car and the train was too expensive for a family of four living on missionary salaries.

I can't remember the guy's name, or even much about him, just that he was heading west from Portland and was willing to share the ride with family of four. Must have been some kind of hero.

I remember it was a Plymouth. It was also black. It certainly was the shape of the '47 - '49 model, but when I look at the pictures of the 4 door it looks too long. Funny, you would think that I would remember crawling past the front seat of a 2 door. What I remember is that Len and I had about 1/3 of that back seat to share. He was smaller, so he was smooshed against the stuff that filled the other 2/3's of the seat while I was smooshed against the side of the car.

Neither the Mass Pike or the NY Thruway were finished in 1952, so we took Route 20 through western Massachusetts and upstate New York. I remember when we moved here to the Buffalo area that Route 20 through Geneva, Batavia and Pembroke had a kind of eerie familiarity to me 26 years later. I still drive on Route 20, especially when I am out with my camera and it still looks familiar.

I don't remember Buffalo, but I do remember that it was a long trip and we made slow time, when it came time to stop to sleep we would find some "cabins" and for a few dollars we would spend the night. Mom was in charge of food, so we had a lot of bologna sandwiches!

To Chicago and west another time.