Cars With Running Boards And Other Things

[JustUs4All]

Lordy yes, Floor vents and wing glass. I wondered what we were going to do without them. There was a hood scoop on the 47 panel truck and the first time it got opened in the spring it let go all the dust and trash it had stored up over the winter. LOL

There was also the little heater under the dash that you had to open the doors to. The only regulator on ours was a valve under the hood.

 

[Artfuldodger]

The only running board story I remember was at the drive-ins and the car hops but that was before my time.

 

[Artfuldodger]

Lordy yes, Floor vents and wing glass. I wondered what we were going to do without them. There was a hood scoop on the 47 panel truck and the first time it got opened in the spring it let go all the dust and trash it had stored up over the winter. LOL

There was also the little heater under the dash that you had to open the doors to. The only regulator on ours was a valve under the hood.

I do remember all that trash the first time you used it in the spring. My 75 Dodge truck had only one I think. My 65 Dodge Dart has the two actual doors that opened.

 

[Artfuldodger]

What about the air vents on this Mercury Turnpike Cruiser?

 

[Artfuldodger]

Plus you could let the whole back glass down.

 

[Redbow]

Hillbilly Stalker that is a great post about your Dad's old cars I am glad some folks have saved a few of the old cars I wish I had a few. Yes floor vents and wing glasses in cars something I really miss. I remember the fender skirt era quite a few people in the area I was raised in had fender skirts and continental kits. I liked fender skirts but never cared for the continental kits at all. The curb feelers I had completely forgotten about. Many folks in our town when I was a boy had them on their cars. Good stuff.

 

[Hillbilly stalker]

I remember when air conditioners in cars first came out…..older people wouldn’t run them. They claimed A/C would make you lazy, I used to laugh at that, not any more. I reckon when a fellow gets a little longer in the tooth he understands better.

 

[JustUs4All]

One of my Dad's favorite school stories:

He attended a one room school house for his early education then went to an elementary school in a rural part of the County In the 9th grade, the students from this school were consolidated with the students from the much larger school in the County Seat and they all finished high school together, the 11th grade was it back then.

The principal had failed to take into account that the city kid was a city kid who did city kid chores and dad was a farm kid who had been milking cows for several years by then. Dad said that he spent the rest of the day asking that fellow to take a knee and watching him do it. The later became good friends.

 

[Redbow]

I can remember dinner on the ground at Churches and the gnats and flies. Plus where did that food sit until after Church?lol. I can remember a lot of visiting preachers coming to eat with us.
My Great Grandfather was a preacher. Daddy said a lot of men would stay outside by the wagons when Church started but Grandad would go round them up for the service. I think they only had Church one a month.
I can remember a few outhouses, wells, and water dippers on the porch. I also remember my granny having those quilting parties and me crawling under the quilt frame to get to the kitchen. That sure was a sore sight for a young boy to have to see.

I remember those Church outings as a kid also Artfuldodger we had the same problems with flies and gnats. Yes some of the visiting preachers came and ate with us as well as our pastor at the time. I think preachers have eaten more fried chicken than any other people on this Earth. Probably a big pot roast or some boiled backbone was a welcome relief to a preacher and his Wife at times rather than fried chicken again.

Yes we had a well and a bucket with a dipper for drinking our water and an outhouse. I am glad to know that southern families in other states often lived their lives especially the farm families about the same way we did back in those bygone days here in NC.

Remembering those old days of gold but few pleasures sure does my heart good, and remembering many of the people who lived during those times that I knew and have now passed on is so good for my soul.

I thank you all who have answered and replied to my post. How I would love to get together with many of you folks down Georgia way and just sit and talk about those days face to face, and maybe cut a sweet ripe watermelon or two and have a good ole churn of home made ice cream to top it off.

 

[Son]

Oldest vehicle owned was a 1940 Olds with suicide doors and running boards. Then I moved up to a 47 Plymouth, then to a 1956 Jeep pickup and so on. Dad had a 38 Chevy, Grandparents had a Model A. I never saw a car with air conditioning until the late 1950's. Some of those old flat head motors were wide open at 55 mph. Wish some of these smart elecs of today would have to go through such, might teach em something.

 

[doublebarrel]

I had a 38 ford pickup with mechanical brakes and lots of old vehicles you could crank the windshield open and shoot young rabbits after a late afternoon shower sitting on side of dirt roads. BB

 

[JustUs4All]

Back in the day pickups had front fenders for sitting on for rabbit shooting. LOL

 

[Redbow]

Back in the day pickups had front fenders for sitting on for rabbit shooting. LOL

A friend of mine got thrown off on a dirt road one afternoon doing that when the driver slammed on brakes. He got skinned up and bruised pretty badly. The Rabbit got away.

 

[JDwall]

Yes I do remember the dimmer switches on the floor of cars

I got so confused when they moved them to the steering column. I kept getting my feet caught in the steering wheel!

 

[ucfireman]

My granddad had a VW bug and we would ride the running boards down the driveway, and if we were real lucky get a ride around the neighborhood.
Good times, miss them old bugs, ugly but awesome.

Preaching occurred every second Sunday at the little church my Grandparents attended. The traveling preacher was invited to Sunday dinner usually at the home of one of the Deacons. The lot often fell to my Grandparents and invariably a chicken was subdued by a neck wringing, My Grandmother cut up a chicken so as to have a pulley-bone, 2 breasts, 2 thighs, 2 drumsticks, 2 wings, and a back. She always took the back for her piece. It had the least meat and I always felt a little sorry for her until I learned that it was also the but it was the very best meat on the chicken

I like nostalgic threads.
My momma cut the chicken the same way. I don't remember seeing a cut up or parts of chicken for sale at the store until way later. It was always a whole chicken cut up/ And momma would cut the wings into 4 pieces and me and my brother would fight for the "peg leg" as we called the "drumette".
She always ate the back too, and on the turkey.

A lot of folks on here well remember, and probably miss, the headlight dimmer switch on the left floorboard of cars.

Fewer will remember the starter switch on the right side of the floorboard and the odd angle one's foot had to be held in to mash the starter and hold the accrlerator pedal partly down at the same time.

I remember the floor dimmers, had a few that had them, never the starter on the floor and never had the pleasure to drive a 3 on the tree.

What about the air vents on this Mercury Turnpike Cruiser?
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Love seeing the odd ball things they did on the cars and trucks back then. Those are what I look for at car shows instead of the corvettes and mustangs.

I got so confused when they moved them to the steering column. I kept getting my feet caught in the steering wheel!

That used to be a joke about Alabamians, I had forgot about it.

 

[JustUs4All]

I had a Super Beetle in orange back in the day. I liked everything except Summertime driving in traffic with no air conditioning. I was impressed the first time I sat in one, pushed the driver's sear back and could barely reach the pedals. LOL

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Well, let's see. I'm a '73 model but I still remember floor mounted dimmer switches, three on the tree shifters (my grandmother had a '70 Nova without power steering, the clutch and brake pedals were tough for eighteen year old me to push, I have no idea how she did it), wing vent windows, trunks large enough to stack ten bodies in headfirst, etc.

My great grandmother still had and still used (for her canned veggies and such) a springhouse. It (not surprisingly) had a little spring running through it, there was a gourd hanging on the wall if you wanted a drink of the water. I still remember the taste of that water on a hot summer afternoon, it was so sweet and cold.

My grandfather letting me drive him around at 12 (my parents would have killed him, lol, it was our secret), so many other things. Life is very different these days.

 

[GeorgiaGlockMan]

Several of my family members were that way. My Stepdad was a builder in his early life a man very gifted with his hands some lumber a few nails and a saw. He did not have very much education but he could figure board feet for a house or just a addition in no time flat and was a pretty good business man. I remember men when I was a boy that said they chewed tobacco in school.

Had a football coach history teacher, coach watson, that would let us chew in his home-room class until some tattle tale told the next door class' teacher.

After that, he was still ok with it along as you didn't need a spit cup.

Maybe that was a while ago. Wore a buck 110 folder in a case almost every day of HS and had a shotgun in the trunk most days. Back when an Remington 1100 was a new model. Principal asked me several times one year to see it after school (with 100s of kids and teachers watching) till he got his own.

 

[westcobbdog]

Redbow you ought to submit that to the magazine Reminisce. Good stuff

or Georgia Backroads

 

[Redbow]

Had a football coach history teacher, coach watson, that would let us chew in his home-room class until some tattle tale told the next door class' teacher.

After that, he was still ok with it along as you didn't need a spit cup.

Maybe that was a while ago. Wore a buck 110 folder in a case almost every day of HS and had a shotgun in the trunk most days. Back when an Remington 1100 was a new model. Principal asked me several times one year to see it after school (with 100s of kids and teachers watching) till he got his own.

Lots of us boys carried pocket knives when I was going to school decades ago. Our history teacher Mr. Creech now long deceased was a ww2 veteran. We were talking about military guns one day in class and one of the students a friend of mine said his Dad had an old Japanese military rifle from ww2. Mr. Creech asked my friend if he would bring the gun to school and let the class see it. My friend brought that Jap gun the next day it was a 7.7 caliber bolt action Japanese infantry rifle. My Friends Dad got the rifle after a battle in the South Pacific. I can't imagine anyone showing a firearm or even bringing one to school to show in todays society.]

I had a neighbor years ago he also had one of those Jap 7.7 rifles. He let me shoot the thing one afternoon it kicked kinda like a Mule. I asked my neighbor where he got the gun from. He looked at me and said I took it off the Japanese soldier that I killed. He also served with the Army in the South Pacific.