Posted by Karla Lofgren Davis, Incorporating the Musings of Franklin Heide, John Echoff, Laura Striegler, Larry Bass, and Ed Davis ~ October 30, 2007
Several of you have mentioned vehicles in this blog. That seems appropriate as memories of cars are probably one of the things most of us hold in common. Franklin Heide mentions several vehicles in his comments. In “Memories of Days Gone By”, he says, “I can't believe no one has mentioned THE RANGER yet!! Dip fries, malts, "fender roaches", etc. Those with cool cars just driving around & around & around with their fingers on the vent window, sitting low in the seat.
Several comments relevant to vehicles can be found in the post “A Place for Miscellaneous Thoughts, or Simply Idle Chatter”. In response to Judy Stevens’ mention of Sidney Jones’ passing, Franklin commented, “Sorry to hear about Sidney Jones.” He went on to say, “Sid was a good guy (and a helluva good football player) who had the best of everything. His Mom & Dad had a 196? Fury, which Sid took out at times. Anyone remember his Grey Olds, customized & all?
In the same post, John Echoff commented, “When you mentioned carpooling, it brought back lots of memories of piling 6 or 7 kids in my '49 Mercury and trying to make it to school. We called it "The Bomb". 
No radio or heater, just transportation. Some time the windshield wipers worked, but mostly not. It's a wonder we all didn't die from exhaust gases during cold weather, but somehow we made it thru. And those were the good old days!” John even sent this photo of “The Bomb”, originally posted in the “Various Milby Photos” Album. (At end of this post, see additional photos of later vehicles that John owned, sent in June '08)
Laura Striegler Wilson added her car memory. Said she, “ I was just talking to my husband, Loyd, the other day about the long walks I took from Milby home to Meadowbrook, past the Wagon Wheel, and through the park there at Park Place, across a bridge that is no longer there . . . I walked until my senior year, when in a fit of temper, after having yet another round of hard-to-start episodes, Loyd backed his Baby Blue '50 Model Ford into my driveway and said (with some expletives), "you can have it". Pat Roberson and I rode to school every day in it from that point on, and it never gave me the problems it had given him. (Consequently, every car since obviously belongs to me since most were traded in on newer models thereafter.)
![Sae%202008%20TT%20others%20021[1]](https://milby1960.typepad.com/.a/6a00e008d5606888340105364f91f2970c-400wi)
12/08/08 – Larry Bass sent this photo with the following message:
I notice in the Blog that Sonny referred to my blue Mercury. Well, I happened to find a picture of that gem and it is attached. Note the exterior is certainly not blue (a Sonny senior moment, I am sure), but I remember the interior was baby blue naugahyde.
Since my folks had a very uncool Nash Rambler (which I was never allowed to drive anyway – and therefore I did not get a driver’s license until age 27 - what was the point?), cars do not figure so prominently in my memories. But boy, Ed sure did love his cars. So I asked him to share a few of those memories with us.
Said Ed: "Pretty girls in high school vied to capture the hearts of the high school lads back in the '50’s as they still do today. But the competition was fierce back then since many of us had a running “love affair” with our cars – or a longing for the ones we did not or could not have. And I plead guilty to this strange romance. I was one of those who received a driver’s license at the tender age of 14. Since we lived quite a distance from my school and I was involved in a number of activities, my parents decided to buy me a car at the end of my 9th grade year. I was the proud owner of a 1955 Chevrolet in the summer of ’56. However, it was the sedan version of this classic car, was a 6-cylinder and single tailpipe variety, and was a not-so-cool chocolate brown color. But it was mine and I drove it proudly for a couple of years.
In my junior year, my dad decided to buy himself a truck and trade in their 1955 Mercury coupe – a hardtop convertible with a V-8 engine complete with dual tailpipes. I convinced him to let me have the Merc and trade in the Chevy instead. Fortunately, he agreed and I now had a much cooler ride for the rest of my high school days. However, the car was chartreuse (remember that color?) and white which was quite unacceptable. 
So, I saved up some money and modified the ride: removed the hood ornament and all other chrome fixtures on the hood and trunk and “leaded” it in; replaced the stock mufflers with glass-packs; lowered the rear end; and then had the whole car painted a gleaming black. You’ll have to imagine how it looked when transformed.
After that, college came and I was introduced to the world outside of League City and my high school. Then marriage brought its own decisions about cars as we struggled to make ends meet for a number of years. (Karla will comment on the role a car played in our courtship when I turn the keyboard back over to her.)
There were a few more memorable vehicles when Karla and I pulled up roots for a couple of years and moved to Benghazi, Libya (North Africa) in 1965 to teach school. 
Our first car was a very interesting Fiat 500 that was extremely small and only had a 2-cylinder engine. But it did have a roll-back roof liner and got great gas mileage – and it was cheap as well. We affectionately called it our ‘sardine can’. Here you see my brother, sister-in-law, and Karla viewing the Mediterranean sights through the roof opening.
Later, we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to purchase an older model Triumph TR-3 convertible (pictured outside our school building in Benghazi) with overdrive, racing shift, and a very powerful engine. We should have shipped this one back to the U.S. but could not afford it at the time.
Then there was the Land Rover that was a necessary vehicle type for excursions out into the Sahara Desert, which was the back yard to everyone in Benghazi. Mechanics were few and far between and when things went wrong with your car you were often in trouble. This happened to us once out in the Sahara, as the picture shows. It was deathly hot, no shade anywhere, and water was scarce. Even though this was the only road into the Sahara in Libya, we rarely saw another vehicle or human being. We managed to take turns sitting in the shade of the Land Rover and a friend and I kept fiddling around with the engine until we got it going again late in the day. It was scary and I guess it was fortunate that we escaped what could have been an unpleasant situation.
We have probably owned far too many cars since then, but these were the ones that produced some really great memories.”
Now that Ed has completed his musings about memorable vehicles, I must add that when Ed asked me for our first date at Baylor in 1961, I was excited in part because at the time he asked me, he was driving a baby blue and white 1959 Ford convertible - a VERY classy car to the mostly “vehicle-less” girls at Baylor. 
Of course, that was not the only reason I was excited to have a date with Ed Davis, and it’s a good thing, because when he arrived at the dorm to pick me up he had traded that baby blue ’59 Ford convertible in for a maroon Pontiac Tempest. [Ed notes – the first one with the engine turned sideways.] No matter – I loved him for who he was, not for the car he drove!!!
How about the VEHICLES YOU HAVE KNOWN AND LOVED? Let’s hear about the VARIOUS VINTAGE VEHICLES that have filled your life and your memories with wonder and joy. If you would like to submit a post, please write it up and send it to me as an inline text or as an attachment. You can also send photos as attachments - they make the post much more interesting!. My e-mail address is on the Milby 1960 website alumni section. Or, you can leave a LONG comment with your CAR STORY below this post or after the other vehicle post ("Javelote"). Karla
June, 2008 John Echoff found some additional photos of vehicles he has enjoyed through the years. Here's how John describes the vehicles in the photos that he sent along for this blog post:
This green '52 Studebaker is what I got after 'the bomb' (described and pictured earlier in this post) bit the dust.
Then I got the 1960 Triumph Tr-3. That's Dina Warren beside me. (Double click to enlarge image)
Next came the coolest of all cars ever built. At least I thought so - the '63 Vette.
Although it doesn't really meet the description of a car, I included a shot of my 172 Cessna. I flew it for a long time and enjoyed any chance to be in the air. John Echoff
So, while we are on the topic of VEHICLES OTHER THAN CARS, check out a vehicle that Thurburn Barker and his family lived and adventured on for a year.
Thurburn writes: "In February, 1979, Cathie and I and our two daughters, Janet (then 14) and Heather (then 9) sold our home in Boulder,CO. We bought a sailboat in Sausalito, CA, and spent a year coastal sailing in California. This picture was taken in August, 1979, as we made a passage from Moss Landing to Monterey." Read more about their fabulous adventure at sea on Thurburn's bio page.
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Posted by: Glenda Burns Minniece | February 22, 2009 at 06:01 PM - Karla, This is a comment regarding your reflections on the quote Larry and Kathy Bass sent: "The time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted time!" I've always been a lazy creature and have wasted a lot (!!!) of time, but have always felt guilty about it, coming from a family of very industrious people as I do. So when my mother would try to amend my behavior, I would quote Richard LeGallienne's poem:
I meant to do my work today,
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling to me;
And the wind went sighing over the land
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand -
So what could I do but laugh and go?
Mother was a poetry lover so some of the time she'd let me get away with it, but not always! For sure!
But in more direct response to the Bass' quote, a poem written in 1900 by William Henry Davies is especially apt in our modern, fast-paced world. Here's part of it:
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to sit and stare?
No time to see in broad daylight
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
And I know that we've all noticed that if we've been wrestling with a thorny issue, then lay it aside for a bit, our minds relax and the issue becomes clearer and/or more manageable. The Bass' quotation is right on - "wasted" time is never wasted - especially when enjoyed!