Thread: Where were you in 1957? (Tulsa inspired!)

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24 years old and cruising around in my '56 Dodge D500 looking for 283's to demoralize. The only way to tell that the Coronet two door "cheapliner" had anything other than a gasping flathead six under the hood was a little crossed flags emblem on the left front corner of the hood. It had a little 315c.i. hemi in it that was factory rated at 260hp.

So I had a bit of an unfair advantage. Is there a problem with that?

Also, stuck in a job I didn't like in and industry that didn't interest me and freshly dumped by a girl I thought was the only woman in the world for me.

....... You gotta take the bad with the good, don't you?


Jim

Originally Posted by Big Tracks

24 years old and cruising around in my '56 Dodge D500 looking for 283's to demoralize.
Jim

I was 15, living in Dayton, Ohio, not too far from Ken (NTFDAY) and driving a '47 Dodge 4-dr. sedan that my dad had bought me for $100. He had lied at the motor vehicle bureau and told them I was 16 so I had my license. I had been reading Hot Rod magazines for a couple of years at that point and like many others in this thread, I was hooked on cars. Weekends I was mixing mortar and carrying brick for a group of brick masons that dad was friends with so I could help out by buying my own clothes and paying my own expenses. A year later, I would be bagging groceries for Liberal Super Market, a much more acceptable position in my mind over carrying hod for the brick masons. Looking back, I remember a quarter tip for carrying groceries to the car for the customers as being a big deal. (Hey, it bought a gallon of gas!)

Dad had just bought a brand new '57 Studebaker Golden Hawk with a McCulloch supercharger on it and I got to drive it on occasion. I used to keep a list of cars that I beat at the stoplight derbies. As I recall it, nobody ever beat me. What a beautiful car it was! Solid black with a red leather interior.

As far as the old Dodge, I took it to the local welding shop and had the guy heat the front coil springs to drop 'er into "dago" mode. It had a few dents and scrapes on it from previous owners, so I pounded them out as best I could and shot primer on them. The car was a medium green and now had flat grey and flat red primer spotted around her. I had been into pin-striping for a couple of years at that point, so I laid some designs on the trunk lid and hood. Too cool!! Lots of guys named their cars in those days and painted the name either on the lower front fenders or on the trunk. I carefully painted "Bouncing Beulah" on the bottom of each front fender because of the way I could get her bouncing up and down in second gear as a result of the (now stiffer) front springs. Several young ladies were converted in the back seat of that old heap.

We all had "DA" haircuts (Duck's A--) and pegged Levis. The tighter you could get them at the bottom of the pants leg, the cooler you were. Most of the time, we just wore a T-shirt with them, but when wearing a collared shirt, the collar had to be turned up in the back or you were "square". Most guys didn't wear a belt, but if you did, it had to be the real skinny kind or you were square. Pegged pants were rated by the circumference of the pants leg at the bottom. Number 9 pegs referred to the fact that the pants leg was 9" and you had to squirm like he** to get into them.

Nobody that I knew had any knowledge of drugs of any kind. We had all heard tales of the effects of marijuana, but nobody I knew had ever used any. There was no LSD, PCP, cocaine, crack or any other drugs of that type in those days. The worst it could get was to "shoot-up" heroin and we had only heard stories of that nightmare. Nobody I knew was ready to stick a needle in their arm. The way to get beer was to have an 18 year old buddy to purchase it for you and then it was only 3.2% alcohol, called "three-two" beer. In order to get the good 6% stuff, you had to be 21.