’57 Ford

      I don’t know all the details of the trip, just that mother, brother, and sister took a rather hurried trip to Arizona, first riding the train from La Junta to Arizona (Kingman? Not even sure of that) then driving straight through back to Colorado, with one person driving and the other two trying to make sure the driver stayed awake.

     The Ford was Aunt Margaret’s car, a '57 Ford they bought brand new.  It was probably the cheapest version available.  There must have been some Scott’s blood in the Thistlewood family.

      It was the same year as Pete and Liz’s, but had none of the bells and whistles.  It had a three-speed standard transmission.  It arrived in Arizona from Detroit without an air conditioner.  By design?  Uncle Orrie soon installed an air conditioner.

     Like Uncle Pete, Uncle Orrie was very good with electronics and anything mechanical.   He built the first pickup-mounted camper I ever saw.  According to Aunt Margaret,  she was always bugging him to “build a little cabin on the back of the pickup.”  He did it.

     The pickup was a ’52 Ford, white as I recall it.  The camper didn’t extend much above the cab, but it had everything in it, bunks, a small “kitchen”, everything but a bathroom.  They travelled a lot in it.

     Installing an air conditioner in the '57 was no problem at all for Uncle Orrie.  In Colorado, the Ford became a college car.  It suffered a dent or two in a college trip.  I wasn’t involved and don’t know the details of that.

    It eventually went to Wyoming where it served as transportation for Uncle Ricky to commute to his job on the Wind River Reservation.  Two anecdotes I recall:  Uncle Ricky pulled into a parking lot and drew pointed attention from a mother and daughter.  He struck up a conversation with them.  It turns out that their husband / father had a nearly identical car and it really embarrassed them when he drove it publicly.  When they saw him, they thought their man had escaped in the car while they weren’t watching.

    The second story involved a -50-degree morning when the Ford refused to even turn over.  Uncle Ricky got under the car with a coffee can, in fifty-below weather, and pulled the oil drain plug.  The oil oozed out like really cold chocolate syrup into the coffee can.  He replaced the plug and took the coffee can inside and sat it by the wood-burning stove.  

     When the oil warmed sufficiently, he poured it into the engine and tried the starter again.  This time it started.  The old Ford probably wondered what an Arizona car was doing in a Wyoming winter.

     I think the Ford returned to the farm after Uncle Ricky left Wyoming.  It became a piece of real estate that went through two or three different owners without ever moving.

      Life sitting outdoors on the farm isn’t easy.  The cottontails chewed the spark plug wires down to nubs on both the plugs and the distributor cap.  Needless to say, it never ran after that.

      Though I encouraged subsequent owners to do something with it, it never moved and it became a “somebody-should.”  People who drove into the yard looked at the old Ford, saw that it was still intact, still had all its glass and, remarkably, no mouse damage to the interior.  They would say “Somebody should restore that.”

      The farm is rife with “somebody-shoulds.”  In her day, the Goodwife could spot two or three years of “somebody-shoulds” in a ten-minute visit to the farm.

     Unfortunately, “somebody” never showed up.

      Several visitors expressed interest in buying it, including a guy delivering a farm implement to me.  He was sure he could find a buyer, if not buy it himself.  After a few contacts, he never returned my calls.
      The REA guys replacing power poles expressed an interest, as did the siding crew who replace the siding on the house.  “If you ever want to sell that. . . . .”  Push never came to shove.

     Until this December.  As I sat in the local barbershop waiting my turn in the chair, I picked up a copy of Mile Saver Shopper and leafed idly leafed through it.  There was an ad for a guy looking to buy old cars from farms.  I called.  He called back. 

      With the warm weather the last week of January, we were both able to meet at the farm.  He pulled a trailer that would hold two cars.  He was serious.  He took the old Pontiac in the bargain.

 

     The old gals have moved to a “yard” (salvage or otherwise?) near Pueblo.  Maybe “Somebody” will finally get their chance to restore at least the ’57 Ford.