Introduction
Life is full of coincidences and odd connections. Or, maybe what I perceive as connections
aren't connected at all and just mental ramblings in my mind. Whatever the case, let me tell you about my
first car and my Uncle Jimmy.
Now, obtaining one's first automobile is a huge event in a
person's life. Overnight, there are so
many changes including new responsibilities, both personal and financial. New freedoms and opportunities also emerge. The possibilities are endless and let's not
forget the elevation of one's social status and a potentially huge boost in
self-esteem. I'll bet that every boy has
a ton of photos of his first car.
Artistic images taken following wax jobs offering multiple angles of
viewing that catch the shiny reflections plus photos taken by friends that
include the proud owner in the frame. Or
maybe not.
Chapter 1 ~ Meet Uncle
Jimmy
In every extended family there is an Uncle Jimmy. That one oddball relative who has been a
disappointment all his life. Always in
some kind of trouble and whispered about at family gatherings. Rumors abound of him getting beaten up or of being
thrown in jail for one nefarious deed or another, but he was always the friendly
uncle who was awkwardly outgoing, especially around children. Though seldom seen, he would show up without
notice and when he did parents would tell their kids to hide their piggy banks. When he left there was always something
missing.
There aren't any pictures of Uncle Jimmy in anyone's photo
albums. Only group photos with his face
scratched out or heavy black paper scrapbook pages with empty corner mounts
where pictures of Jimmy used to be.
Chapter 2 ~ Boeing Beaters
In the 1950's - 1960's there was code among certain Boeing
workers where cars for commuting purposes were sold, one employee to another,
for $25.00. These $25.00 cars could be
of any vintage and in almost any condition.
It was understood that they were to be used for commuting only. Family transportation was discouraged. They could have plenty wrong with them but
they needed to run and the brakes needed to work. It wasn't desirable but it was acceptable if
the only way to get them to run was to start them on compression. It was expected that the tires would be worn,
maybe even bald, but the cords could not be visible. Some of these Boeing Beaters had been passed
around numerous times for $25 and it was easy to find one through word-of-mouth
or on the bulletin board in an employee cafeteria. My Dad went through several of these beaters
and some that I recall include a couple of Ford Model A's. Since his automotive
tastes tended towards the eccentric he liked Nashes so there was a 1940 Opera
and a 1939 Ambassador Coupe in the mix.
These cars took an engineer's mindset, skills and constant tinkering to maintain. Such was automotive ethic of the family that
I was born into.
Chapter 3 ~ Need for Speed
While attending Everett Community College I faced a 30 mile
commute each way. I bummed rides with four
guys I knew from high school but they all had their own lives and personal
priorities so a ride to or from school wasn't a gimmee. I ended up hitchhiking on occasion and whenever
I did I never once got rides that took me anywhere close to campus or home. Consequently, I did lots of walking. A good ride was one that required less than three
miles on foot. My personal transportation
consisted of a broken down 3-speed English Racer, a homemade Tote Goat and a
1957 Lambretta 160 scooter. I tried
riding my scooter to Everett but that was a death trip. The speed limit on I-5 was 70mph and I could only
do 50mph tops. At that speed the clutch would
overheat and start to slip which reduced my speed to about 40, then 30, then
20mph. And then there was the rain. When one of my rides to school resulted in a
horrific car accident that only two out of four of us survived, I knew that it
was time for me to have my own car.
1957 Lambretta 160
I had saved $250.00 by pumping gas at Bergie's Richfield so I reasoned that I could afford ten Boeing Beaters or a car ten times nicer than my Dad drove. Since he knew how to work on cars, I was happy to have his help selecting my first one. What I didn't take into consideration were his off-center tastes or his belief that this life was for learning. In his mind this was my opportunity to learn how to keep a car running so he found me a "beaut". A 1957 Volvo 444 was being offered for sale by one Louis Rubbelke (a Boeing engineer) for $250.00! The ad said that it had new paint.
Chapter 4 ~ The Test Ride
It was blue and freshly painted by Spray King. Never mind that the new paint had been
applied over dents, dings and rust. It
was oddly shiny in a still off-gassing way.
Both halves of the two-piece windshield were cracked and broken. One large dent on top of the front fender was
coated with rust and remnants of blue paint.
It looked like a round section of paint had simply failed to adhere and had
popped out in one large chunk. When Louis
took me for a ride it seemed sort of OK.
I mean, we didn't have to push it to get it started. I wasn't expecting much for my $250.00, just a
beater to drive to school that was ten times nicer than my Dad's car.
Not My '57 Volvo as no pictures exist
The knob for the choke was missing and had been replaced by a
pair of vise grips. I could work with
that and besides, I could always use another pair of vise grips. I noticed that he shifted from 2nd to 4th,
skipping 3rd gear altogether. I asked
him why and he said that it was because the car had come with a three-speed
transmission that he had upgraded to a 4-speed so 3rd was a touch rough. "Huh"? I guess that I needed to be an engineer to
understand that logic but "a touch rough" was OK since the
transmission had been upgraded, right?
Also missing was the handle to raise and lower the driver's window. Louis said that he had lost it and that I
could pick one up for cheap at a junkyard.
That was fine with me because my Dad had introduced me to junkyards and I
liked nosing around in them. When I
drove it I found third gear noisy but not "rough" as expected. The speedometer kind of jumped around from
zero to whatever speed we were actually going and the steering was a bit weird. Louis said that the car was overdue for a front
end alignment. Not a deal-breaker. What really impressed me was its full set of
decent white sidewall retreads.
Like I said, I didn't have high expectations for my first
car. I hadn't come from a high school
where there was a car culture and I was used to seeing my Dad, a solid role
model, driving ugly old cars so that was a low bar to clear. This
car had some rust, dings and bruises, but it generally fell within my
requirements. It did have "good"
tires, and the owner was a Boeing engineer so that was good. My Dad liked the fact that this Volvo had an old
timey look that you didn't see around town so that fit his quirky requirements,
too. I think that Rubbelke about fell
over when I handed him the money. On the
hand-written bill of sale I noticed that AS IS was underlined in capital
letters.
Chapter 5 ~ Vise Grips in the Rain
It was the day after taking possession that I noticed that
Louis had kyped the vise grips while I wasn't looking and learned why the
driver's window had no knob. While
driving downtown in a pouring rainstorm I turned the corner at 5th and Olive
Way and the weird steering sent me over the curb. Big bump!
I mentioned the odd steering, right?
With that jolt from running over the curb the driver's window fell down
inside of the door with a loud bang.
"What the hell??!!"
I found a place to park in the pouring rain and pulled the
door panel off to see what had happened.
Inside the door I found that the channel that guided the window up and
down was completely rusted out and flopping around. The mechanical crank mechanism was totally
rusted and seized up. At the bottom of
the door was a piece of 2 x 4 that had been propping the window up. After recovering from shock, I pushed the
window back up and jammed the wood back into place. I needed better weather to investigate that
further.
During that same deluge I learned about the limitations of
vacuum wipers. That reality would come
back to me while trying to pass a semi on I-5 in a driving rainstorm, but that's
another story.
Chapter 6 ~ My Dad's Dream Come True
Due to the rough 3rd gear it was no time at all before I had
checked out the large blue Chilton's Motor Repair Manual that included Volvo from
the library and learned how to rebuild a transmission. Other lurking issues came to light that darkened
other select pages with my greasy fingerprints and taught me how to replace
timing gears, rings, bearings, rods and valves.
My Dad, being a fan of Boeing Beaters, was amazing as he knew how to do all
that stuff and was able to offer encouragement during my learning process. Eventually, the jumpy speedometer cable broke
altogether but not before I had learned that at 70 mph the loose front end
vibrated so badly that the car drifted around on the asphalt. Slow to below 70mph and it smoothed out just enough
to track sort of straight. The steering
was still strange and sticky and if turned all the way to one side or the other
had a tendency to lock up.
Chapter 7 ~ Cruising Alki
Then one summer night my buddy Berry and I were cruising at
Alki in the Blue Beater with the driver's window in the "rolled-down"
position. Inspired by some truly hot cars,
cool people and desperation to be a part of the scene I laid the biggest patch
of my life. I had visions of lighting up
my white sidewall recaps and smoking the tires in a big U-turn across Alki
Blvd. What actually happened was the
steering locked in a tight left turn punctuated by a barely audible chirp just
prior to my 4.56 rear end meeting its maker.
The engine raced but the car continued in a tight turn coasting to a
stop right there in front of God and everybody.
I wasn't sure what had broken but hoots, hollers and laughter filled my crimson
red ears. To the amusement of all Berry
and I had to wrench the wheels straight by hand and then push my first car ½
block down the street to the first open parking spot.
I needed a tow, so I called a guy I knew (Scott Taylor) who
worked at a gas station that had a tow truck.
He said that he would tow me when he got off work for two cases of
Rainier. When he showed up he was already
sloppy drunk and we figured that we would let him tow my car to his gas station
while we safely made our way home by some other means. He started lifting the front end of the car
off the ground and when he got it about 3 feet in the air the cable broke dropping
the Blue Beater hard onto the ground. All
of the spectators just laughed and Scott said that we would have to tow it with
a chain. He said that meant that he
would have to drive very slowly and that I would have to ride in the car to
steer and apply brakes. Since he had
said he would be driving very slowly I reluctantly agreed. Berry crawled into passenger seat choosing my
company over Scott's as the thought of having to talk to him for 12 miles was more
than he could stand.
Chapter 8 ~ Fear and
the Aroma of Tacoma
Things started off badly with Scott driving well above the
speed limit along Alki Blvd. I couldn't see
anything other than the back end of the tow truck, the brake lights and Scott's
head. He was driving next to the curb
and when he swerved to the left I was horrified to see that I had to react fast
to avoid plowing into a parked car. With
that, Scott turned and laughed through the back glass of the truck. Twice
more he pulled that stunt and I was expecting a respite at the stop sign where
Alki Blvd. intersects with the Spokane Street Viaduct. Berry and I had discussed jumping out when he
stopped but he blew right though that stop sign. Berry had his door unlatched and would have
been pulled right out of the car when it swung open if not for the aftermarket
seat belts I had installed.
Straightening out I fought the stiff steering of the Volvo for
control.
Scott seemed agitated as he kept turning to look out of his
window and then to turn and look back at me and laugh. The ride across the viaduct to I-5 was fast
and Scott threw in a few unnecessary swerves just for the heck of it.
I thought that the night air smelled a bit like puke and thought
that Berry might have gotten motion sick with all of the swerving but whenever
I glanced at him he was sitting stock-still hanging onto the dashboard for dear
life and staring straight ahead. His
cigarette was dangling from his teeth as he had bitten through the filter of his
Winston. Maybe, I thought, I was
smelling the bile raising up my own throat.
The smell came and went and I decided that it must be the aroma of
Tacoma. Since I had no way to close my
window I couldn't do anything about it plus, I was busy trying to stay alive.
Chapter 9 ~ Freeway of Terror
Once on to I-5 north I wasn't sure whether to pray for a cop
to chase us down or if Scott was unhinged enough to try to outrun him with me
in tow. He was moving his head back and
forth and turning to laugh like a madman.
I knew the instant that we hit 70 mph as the front end started to shake
and dance like never before. I carefully
drifted around behind the truck and I hadn't been so certain that I was going
to die since that night at White Pass.
We passed cars left and right with me shaking along behind like a fish
on a hook. I determined that if I
somehow survived, I was done with Volvos, the Boeing Beater philosophy and Scott
Taylor. He was dead to me.
Chapter 10 ~ Safe at Last
By the time we entered Montlake and Scott slowed to 30 mph I
was physically and emotionally exhausted.
I couldn't believe that we were still alive. When we pulled to the curb I got out with
shaking knees and noted something sprayed on my fender and door. As Scott stepped from the cab of the truck I
was overcome with the smell of puke and realized that his head movement had
been to facilitate his vomiting. Berry
rolled out of the Blue Beater and collapsed on the parking strip. He laid there with a crushed cigarette filter
still clenched between his teeth. I gave
Scott $15 for beer and told him to go drink it all up and die.
Shortly thereafter I learned how to rebuild the rear
differential and got to dirty some new pages.
Epilogue
Just as there are no photos of my Uncle Jimmy there are none
existing of my blue 1957 Volvo 444. Both
seem to be deemed unworthy of remembrance.
Every other car that I have ever owned shows up on those heavy black
pages or has been scanned to my computer just like photos of every other aunt,
uncle, niece, nephew and cousin. Black
and white or color. No difference, they
are all there other than that damned Volvo and Uncle Jimmy. Like Uncle Jimmy, my first car wasn't to be
trusted and like Uncle Jimmy it was an unreliable ne'er-do-well, ready to start
a fight or steal a piggy bank.
I am certain that somewhere on the shoulder of that endless afterlife
highway, my broken-down 1957 Volvo 444 sits in the pouring rain with the hood
up and the driver's window permanently down.
The speedometer is stuck at zero miles per hour. The fender and door are streaked with puke so
thick and vile that the torrential downpour can't wash it away. Uncle Jimmy is sitting behind the wheel with rain
drenched hair plastered to his head reading the blue Chilton's Motor Manual for
Volvos and trying to figure out how to make it run. He figures that if he just had a pair of vise
grips he could fix it up, good as new.
He's wrong. My first
car and Uncle Jimmy are broken down, faceless and together for all eternity.
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