MTFCA Forum

What could possibly go wrong?

We cannot have wrinkled clothes when we arrive now can we? If you build one Steve, make sure it gets a few coats of lead based paint so it looks good.
Funny how we look at things today. Its a wonder any of us are alive.

Better ride is on the rear window ledge....didn't we all do this..??

Oh yeah, Dan T, I remember doing that in my dad's '41 Chevy sedan when I was about three or four! I also remember my little brother and I standing behind the front seat for an hour or more on longer trips. The things we did, and survived. Glad to see you here again. This place needs good people like you posting to help show the way to a few yet that need good examples set.

Thank you Steve J!

I still have a chunk of front tooth missing from smacking the dashboard of a 54 Ford wagon when dad had to hit the brakes, I was standing in the back seat with my brothers. Seat belts Hah. Jim

I was sitting on the nice smooth metal engine cover in a 61 ford econoline van between my parents when dad hit the brakes. Nice star on the windshield from my head. Now that should explain alot!

Road many a miles sitting on the engine cover in the econoline! Growing up you could have called it the shot gun seat, us 3 older kids raced to see who would get it! Or in the back of the 54 ranch wagon, waving or doing kid stuff at everyone behind us, no seats of course.

It was 216 miles from our house in San Jose Califunny up to Laytonville Califunny where my dad owned and operated an early cable TV system. Easy to remember the mileage, his '51 Chevy pickup had the famous 216 Babbitt beater engine in it. One time, he, a fellow that worked for him, and I went up to Laytonville to do some work on that system. The cab was filled with expensive equipment that shouldn't be left in the cold and damp of the pickup box. So the employee and I rode the entire distance in the back of the open pickup. I think I was 14 at the time.

Frankly, I think kids are way too soft these days.

"The things we did and survived". 99% of the time because nothing happened !

Mama wouldn't let me ride up in the back window, but riding in the back of Daddy's truck was the norm in warm weather. Oh, and we drank out of the water hose too.

My dad was an insurance adjuster, he put a seat belt in the T back seat for me... and I had to wear one in the modern car.
I inevitably unhooked it and ended up with my chin on the back of the front seat in the T. I had to watch how the pedals worked.

Mom had someone pull out in front of the VW bug, in traffic, someone waved somebody out.
Even with the lap belt (I believe that's all it had), I still hit my head on the handle above the glove box...I fell out out the pop up camper when I was a little kid also.
Never effected me a bit, Dallas !!

Steve, that reminds me of all the great things our folks did to keep us healthy and happy.

When I was a little kid I was riding in the back seat of my folk's 1940 Chevrolet sedan (suicide doors). My mother put on the brakes at an intersection and I hung onto the door handle to keep from sliding off the seat. Of course that opened the door and I wound up out on the pavement.

I don't actually remember this sequence of events. All I remember is standing up and watching the car going away from me and thinking that my mother didn't know I was gone. The next thing I remember was all the surrounding cars at a full stop and my mother running back to get me. Steve J, you'd know the street: Beverly Glen Blvd. As it turned out, we were on our way to a doctor appointment. The doctor checked the scrapes on my hands & knees and gave me a tetanus shot. I think he checked my head and found nothing.

This was about 1946. You can bet that I put seat belts in my first car. By the time I had kids of my own I made "buckle up" a mandatory move before I would start the motor.

JP_noonan wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 22, 2019 2:40 pm

Steve, that reminds me of all the great things our folks did to keep us healthy and happy.

John,
Why waste money on a babysitter ??!!

What are you sayin Dallas? Dad bought a 59 Chevy El Camino. 9 in our family, 6 kids and a dog. Four of us would stand behind the seat and Mom and Dad and the twins were in the seat and, Tuffy,our dog was on the floor. We did fine

This was another great memory from my youth, remember the rear facing third row seats? They were especially great with the rear window rolled down.

we had that rear facing seat in a 66 Rambler station wagon. none of us 6 kids wanted to sit there as we had several miles of gravel roads to get anywhere. The dust in that seat was so thick you couldn't breath. Nobody thought of opening the rear window! that would triple the dust!!

Noel, then you and your family must have been doing it totally wrong. As my beloved Grandma used to say "You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die".

Well I like ice cream in the back of the truck... it never hurt me.....

Daddy used to stop at the ice house and pick up all his employees who lived down in the 'not so good' part of town. They'd walk up to the ice house and Daddy would take them on to work, then back to the ice house in the evening. They, being grown men, would sit on the upper rail of the pick-up bed. Me, being little, had to sit on the tire well.

I notice in the OP that Mommy and Daddy are in the back seat, Who's driving?

ECONOLINE THAT WORD SPARKS A MEMORY FROM MY PAST,I THINK THE YEAR WAS 1960, THE YEAR THE ECONOLINE TRUCKS CAME OUT,I WAS WORKING AT A FORD DEALERSHIP, THE SHOP WAS GIVEN THE BRAND NEW YELLOW ECONOLINE PICK UP,WEEKLY WE WOULD MAKE A TRIP TO HANOVER NH FROM LEBANON, NOW THIS TRUCK HAD A MID ENGINE WITH THE STEEL DOG HOUSE, THERE WAS ROOM FOR FOUR MEN, TWO SETTING ON SAID DOG HOUSE THE DRIVER[ME] PASSENGER , THIS WAS ITS MAIDEN VOYAGE, ALL WAS GOING SMOOTH, TILL THE LIGHT TURNED RED , I WAS GOING RIGHT ALONG YACKING OR WHAT EVER ,JUMPED ON THE BINDERS AND STOOD THIS LITTLE YELLOW BEAST ON THE BUMPER,TO GET IT BACK ON THE REAR WHEELS WE HAD TO DOFF A FEW BODY'S FORDS FIX?? A 600 POUND STEEL BLOCK PUT UNDER THE GAS TANK. I SEE THAT RIG AROUND FOR YEARS AFTER, AND FIRST THOUGHT WAS THAT DAY. ONE OF THOSE MEMORIES THAT WILL NEVER GO AWAY, TILL A WORD TRIGGERS THE MIND .SOUND UNREAL"?I SWEAR THIS TOOK PLACE. RICHARD G.

I'll be 50 in a few days...younger than most here. But I still remember the following with the fondness that the haze of time creates:

- the amazing rear facing seats in my parent's big station wagon
- fighting with my brother over who got the gigantic rear window ledge on long trips in my parent's 68 Impala. You could lay there and look at the clouds.
- standing in the middle of the front bench seat and my mom or dad putting their arm out to hold me at a stop light
- riding in the bed of the truck (when it was our only vehicle) with my brother on long trips. We had raincoats for when it rained.
- my parent's 68 Impala, with no AC...in south Texas....in the summertime....with the black vinyl interior.
- the car seat that my brother, me and my little sister all used. It was a simple metal tube thing with a slightly padded seat. It hooked over the back of the front seat and had a toy steering wheel made out of metal.
- my dad's hippie van...1974 Chevy....will shag carpeting on the floors, walls and ceiling. In the summer in Texas, the carpet would off-gas something so awful that your eyes would sting and breathing was difficult.

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure how we survived.

Riding in the back of a pickup - homemade haircut been there done that .I learned to drive that pickup when I was big enough to see over the dash and operate the pedals but wasn't allowed on the road til I was at least fourteen . Some way I survived !

RalphS wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 23, 2019 2:43 pm

Riding in the back of a pickup - homemade haircut been there done that .I learned to drive that pickup when I was big enough to see over the dash and operate the pedals but wasn't allowed on the road til I was at least fourteen . Some way I survived !

On one family trip in the late 70's from Harlingen, TX to Boerne, TX (roughly 6 hour trip in those days) my brother and I rode the whole trip in the back of our family's only vehicle....a Chevy pickup.

In the middle of the King Ranch, we came across a very recent accident involving another family with kids in the back of a truck. It had overturned and thrown several kids out. It was an awful scene that I'll never forget. One little hispanic girl had the skin scraped off of most of her back and one arm. There were injured people everywhere, crying and carrying on.

After that trip, my dad bought another car and we quit riding in the truck bed. I think it really spooked my dad.

Back when I was old enough to drive but not old enough to get a license (about 14 years old) I was always the driver of the old 50 Ford pickup that we could use to got to the river when me and my cousins went swimming. The river was about 4 miles from the house down a steep county road that went from the top of the mountain ridge down into the river valley. In the hills of Arkansas that means a steep winding barely maintained road. We had finished our swimming trip and it was time to go home. Me and the two girl cousins were in the cab. Three of the boy cousins that were about my age were sitting on the tailgate. The rest of the younger cousins were sitting in the bed. Best I remember there were about 8 or nine of us (all under age) in the truck. Now to get out of the river bottom up that loose gravel road you had to "get a run at it" So up the hill I went , giving it all the old Ford had. About half way up the hill there was a big "hump" in the road where a boulder too big to remove when they built the road was just "kinda smoothed out" with gravel. Well when I went over that hump, the truck bounced, and the three cousins sitting on the tailgate were launched into the air, and I drove out, from under them. I remember seeing them in the rear view mirror launch into the air, and then land in the dirt road, flat on their a$$ in the same position as they were sitting on the tailgate. Well I couldn't stop or I would have had to back all the way down the hill to ever get started again. So I just kept on going. The three "highly pi$$ed" cousins had to walk almost a 1/4 mile to the top of the hill where I was waiting for them. I agree with "how did we survive" Today they would put my Mom and Dad, aunts and uncles, in jail for letting us do that. But back then, that's just how it was .....

Life back around 1950 when next door neighbors kid fell out of their 1936 Plymouth going around a curve.
Guess what the old man cracked him side the head for being stupid.....lesson learned for playing with door
handles......