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Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 80/123
COMING OF AGE AND LEARNING TO DRIVE
There was a black 1940 or 41 Plymouth in the family. This car was a
one bench seat business coupe, with a large trunk. When going
somewhere Vera and I had to stand back of the seat, a rather limited
space, but it was our own little space. When I was smaller I could
lie down on the back shelf over the forward part of the trunk, as I
got bigger I had to stand. Mama was very short so the seat was pulled
up real close to the steering wheel, that gave us more room to stand.
Nita was the first owner, then it was passed on to Carroll it finally
served its time in the Burnette family being owned by Curtis. Curtis
later traded it for a 48 Plymouth Convertible (Red) . Before he got
the old Plymouth, soon after returning from the war Curtis had bought
an old Chevrolet Coupe, he traded it of in ’49 for a ’48 Jeep. Of
course it had four wheel drive, and I would get Uncle Curtis
aggravated at me, I would show someone how by moving one of the shift
levers up one position it would not move when an attempt to drive
off. After the novelty of the thing wore off I soon quit doing it.
Not long after he bought it he was home and we over at Mrs. Mills,
the Walker Clan was there also, Mr. Albert Ferguson walked up and
said he needed help to get his car out a bog. Often on Sunday after
he and his wife would go to the Wheeler Landing and fish. It was
quite a task getting him out, we finally put together enough chains
and cables to get the jeep out of the water on dry land so it could
pull his car out. It did not have mud tires but passenger car tires,
not much traction. By now they had changed their minds about fishing
that particular afternoon. Mr. Ferguson owned a little store in Lake
City, we traded with him for meat, he had about the best in town and
he sold bananas for 10 cents a pound. Even in those days that was a
good price and they were always good.
Before long Uncle Curtis left the jeep for us to use, with the bad
roads we needed a way to travel. He then took the old black Plymouth
as his transportation. Soon after he left it with us Vera and I began
to learn to drive. Actually Uncle Carroll first began to help us
learn to drive, in the old black Plymouth, Vera was to get experience
first. When going or coming from Lake City he would let one of us sit
on his lap and take turns at steering and then giving it the gas. We
were not tall enough to do both at the same time. The Jeep was more
compact so it was easy to see all around. The gears were very stiff,
and the clutch was tight. Nevertheless we succeeded in learning to
drive. Living on a very light traffic road helped tremendously. I was
so short I had to have a box to sit on to see out of the windshield
for a good while. Sandbed roads are
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