The last drive of my Model A and my first driver's license.

My Aunt Margery lived in Berkeley. I thought that I could get a job in the Bay Area and stay with her.

I drove up Highway 99 from Pomona through Bakersfield, Fresno, and Modesto. I was to travel this route many times over the rest of my life. No motels for me. I can remember sleeping on the ground alongside my car. It might have been before motels. (I think it was.)

Fifty years later when I would visit my son Mike and his family in Modesto there were stretches along Highway 99 that looked the same as when I went on this trip. The State had large Oleander bushes along the road and as a sight barrier in the center of the highway. Are they the same bushes?

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At Manteca I turned west. The total trip was 400 and some miles.

South of Oakland I was pulled over by the police. I was following the car ahead of me too close. It was night time. The policeman soon discovered that I did not have a driver's license. That was the end of my driving that day!

I called my Aunt Margery. Several of her brothers (my Knowlton uncles) lived in the area. They came and escorted me to Aunt Margery's house.

I had to appear in court before a judge. I thought that I got one of the most appropriate sentences ever. I was to go to driver's school (every Monday evening for six weeks) and get a driver's license. No fine! So I got my first driver's license in Berkeley, California. How come I just did not get one in Pomona?

I worked several months in Emeryville at the Doughnut Corporation of America.

On the way home the timing gear in my Model A broke. I was in Fresno. I sold the car for $10 and hitch hiked home to Pomona.