(Youth 5) My first car. Carpenter at March Field.

My first car was a 1930 Ford Model A. I do not have a picture of it but it looked like this.

I was around 14 and did not know how to drive. I owned a car before I knew how to drive. Seems weird. Of course I did not have a driver's license. I had a friend drive it to the backyard of the house where I had a rented room. I drove back and forth in the yard and up and down the alley until I could drive down the road.

The car was ten years old. It had probably cost around $400 when new. I paid $35 for it. I later sold it for $10 after the timing gear failed in Fresno. It was in good operating condition when I got it. I put a lot of miles on it.  I can remember driving daily to a job at March Field in Riverside. A friend and I had jobs as carpenters in the building of March Field. 

I can remember going to a Carpenter Union Hiring Hall. My friend and I told the man that we had worked as carpenters for a year or two. I doubt that he believed us. It was a lie. He gave us union cards that said we were third year apprentices. We were told to report to the job at March Field. March Field is an air base in Riverside, California. I can remember working on a barracks building.

One morning when we were driving to work I looked through the floor boards at my feet and saw fire! We pulled over and threw dirt on the fire and put it out. A spark had ignited some grease. We then replaced the floor boards and drove on to work. Those were the days! Cars with boards for floors. A new car would have a mat over the boards. That was not good, the mat would obscure the view of any fires under the car.

An interesting quirk of the car was that occasionally the headlights would smoke when I put on the brakes and came to a stop. Pretty fancy, huh?