Tioga County's Community Press
Tioga County's Community Press, Tioga Co., NY
SERVING THE GREATER OWEGO AREA OF TIOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK
FRONT PAGEJUNE 2009TIOGA WEB
Car Keys
by R. Craig
 
As we get older and move on in life I think we all take for granted some of the good times we had when we were living in a more carefree time. Although we didn't have computers or CD players, I-Pods and so on, there was always plenty of fun things to do. It's kinda funny that when we were younger we wanted to be older. Now I would love to be back in my early twenties knowing what I know now. I guess we all wish that. It was great waking up late and just doing what you wanted. No bills, no worries, no major  responsibilities. But then I purchased my first vehicle.
 
All of a sudden I had insurance payments and gas and repairs and service,  etc. Now I have to get a job to pay for all this!
 
After all it was tough on a guy having to pay 28 cents for a gallon of gas! A dollar's worth only gave me a quarter of a tank in my 1955 Dodge truck. I could burn that up in one evening! 
 
Now I was proud of my truck but my older brothers had some cars that I envied. Just before my brother Bob got drafted into the army, he bought a brand new Plymouth Duster. It was beautiful! It was black with a white interior, buckets seats, wood grain trim and standard shift on the floor.

 He kept it in the garage under lock and key. However I happened to know where the keys were. I would sit in it and listen to the radio and once in a while sneak it down the road to keep the cobwebs out. I didn't abuse it and actually did it good by running it once in awhile. I treated it as if it were my own although he probably didn't see it that way. It was still as good as new when he got home from Viet Nam and of course I would not have wanted it any other way. 
 My other brother Marty also had some nice cars. One was a 1964 Dodge Polara convertible. He would often let me borrow it and I treated it well.
 
After that he bought a 1968 Plymouth Road Runner. It was a pretty blue color and was a nice looking car but was a stripped down model. It was only meant to go fast with no frills. To my knowledge he never really drove it fast very often. Being the helpful little brother that I was, keeping it in good running order meant "cleaning it out" now and then so I asked to borrow it once in awhile  and he obliged. I had a lot of fun with that car. Although it was completely stock with no modifications whatsoever, that car ran exceptionally well. After that one was used up he bought a yellow one but that one never had the power of the blue one. When he traded that one in on a Volkswagen, I stopped asking to borrow his car. 

 I started putting together my own hot rods and the fun continued. They weren't always fast but they were always fun. To this day I still try to tinker on my "hot rods" and never get tired of it. And I will always be forever grateful to my brothers for their unselfishness with their cars. Some of the best times of my youth were spent behind the wheel and some of those times I don't dare write about but I can tell you that they all had a happy ending. And I never take for granted the "good old days". 

 Now that I am in a nostalgic mood, maybe its time for me to get to work on my own Duster. I hope the eight track tape player still works!


The Community Press
a free newspaper, published monthly,
serving the Tioga County, New York, area
Copyright 2009 Brown Enterprise and Marketing


The Tioga County Community Press,
your hometown community newspaper, 
is mailed to residents in
Apalachin, Owego, Campville, Nichols, Newark Valley, 
and Tioga Center in Tioga County, New York
and Little Meadows, PA

The Community Press is published monthly by
Brown Enterprise And Marketing 
7830 Route 434, 
Apalachin, New York 13732

Copyright 2009 Brown Enterprise and Marketing

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