Author: kyyote

My Grandparents had bought a lot in Cambria and had been using our 14 foot camp trailer to live in while their home was being built. It was finished, and my father and I were going to make the drive from the Bay Area down the coast and pick it up.  It was 1962, I was 14 and had been accompanying my dad on weekend fishing trips and to the San Jose Flea Market to sell,  for years.  We planned to pick up the camp trailer and take it up to Pinecrest for fishing before bringing it back to the Bay Area with us to return it to its normal space amongst all of the other boats and rv’s behind the Chevron station on Grant Avenue.

My dad had bought an old International Harvester pickup truck, I think it was a 1951, and he and my Uncle Chuck had fixed it up and given her a nice new paint job.  It ran like a top.  The straight 6 developed about 100 horsepower and had a 4 speed non-synchromesh transmission.  First gear was a Granny low that could climb up the side of a building.

We hooked up the trailer and set off for Strawberry Lake and the rainbow trout that were waiting for us.  Because we had gone hundreds of miles south and were as far west as we could get, Pinecrest lay hundreds of miles back up north again and a couple of hundred miles east high into the Sierra Nevada mountains.  If you have ever done much traveling you know that highways pretty much go north and south and east and west.  They don’t much do northeast and southwest or northwest to southeast.  But we needed to go diagonally.  So we got out the map and began making our way on not well travelled roads.  Before long we were out in the middle of nowhere.  My dad slowed the pickup and trailer to a stop, slightly off of the road onto the shoulder.  He got out and found a bush to get behind saying he had to see a man about a horse.

When he returned, he came to the passenger side door and opening it, he told me to slide over behind the wheel.  He showed me the shift pattern and warned me that because it was not a synchromesh transmission, I would need to double clutch it when I shifted.  Then he explained that meant I would have to push the clutch in to shift to neutral, let the clutch out in neutral, and then push it back in before completing the shift up to the next gear.

He told me to put it in second gear with the clutch pushed to the floor.  Oh, did I tell you that it had a heavy duty truck clutch in it.  I had to use my arm to help keep it pushed in because my leg couldn’t hold it down for too long. He told me to use my right foot to push down on the gas at the same time as my left foot came up from the floor to engage the clutch.  Off we went like two riders atop a bareback bronco, lurching forward, almost coming to a stop before the next lurch forward.  The pickup was so low geared and had so much torque that it was hard to stall it.  It would buck a dozen or so times before finally stalling.  He would have me try again.  “Work your feet like a kitten making muffins”, he said.  Don’t forget that we are pulling a 14 foot long camp trailer behind us.  I would try again and again.  My dad would have to periodically drive for a half an hour or so, to recharge the battery which would get low from starting the engine so much.  Finally I could get going enough in second gear to coast long enough to complete a double clutch shift to third.  By the time I needed to shift from third to fourth, I had enough speed built up to be able to make smooth shifts.  We were rolling down the road.  Over steering like a maniac!  Watching the road just in front of the pickup had me going side to side and moving the steering wheel all over the place. Remember, there was no power steering so much of  my arm motion back and forth was doing nothing much except making for a rather swaying path from the left and right.  Then he told me the secret.  Don’t look in front of the hood.  Look ahead in the distance and trust that your arms would keep you in the middle of the road.  Now, we were rolling along the nice flat roads of the giant valley.

After a while, we began to climb into the foothills and the rolling highway, with the trailer behind me would be pulling one minute and the next it would be pushing the pickup forward.  Some time during the trip I learned that I could time the pushes and pulls  of the hills and curves to smooth the ride out instead of fighting it.   Through the hairpin turns and the rapidly climbing road into the high Sierras we climbed.  Sometimes I would have to pull off into the turn outs to allow the cars behind us to pass.  By now, evening had turned into night and the mountain road cutting through the pine forests, the headlights illuminating the drops of thousands of feet into canyons below while I sat comfortably in control of it all was exhilarating. We listened to the Giants game late into the night.  Finally, we pulled into the campgrounds and began a search for a camp sight near the lake. The final lesson for the day was backing a trailer up, using only the side mirrors into a parking place between the trees.  For some reason, by that time, it was the easiest thing I did all day.

From that day forward, I became our driver for our trips.

I grew up in a small town, a suburb of San Francisco/Oakland.  In the 1950’s the war was over, the United States had straightened out most of the world and the economy was booming.  A few years earlier my parents had joined many others from the Midwest and had migrated to the promised land-California.  Our street was one of a new sub-division and the homes were bought up by young couples starting families.  Our street had at least 20 kids on it of varying ages.  Kids moved freely from one house to another.

Behind my house was the elementary school playground.  It was a huge field of well mowed weeds, mostly.  There was a huge backstop leftover from the Oakland minor league ball club that had played there and a baseball diamond.  We had enough kids to play baseball and football.  There were three basketball courts, too.

Everyone had skates.  They had metal wheels and attached to the leather soles of your shoes using a key to screw clamps tight.  The lines in the sidewalks made for quite a bumpy ride.  However, on weekends, when the school was empty, so were the outside hallways.  These were cement, very smooth cement broad sidewalks that were covered and had wooden rails, and posts holding up the roof.  They formed long straightaways and turns to make an oval track.  A track to play roller derby on.  We whipped each other around and knocked each other over the rails, sliding on metal wheels on the slick smooth concrete making the turns, squatting down and sticking outside legs out for balance like a speed skater on ice.

Once the bearings failed in the wheels, the ball bearings became slingshot ammo.  But each skate had four wheels and the skates would separate in the middle so that there were two pairs of parallel wheels from each skate. Four pairs of wheels, so now with one failure, we are down three.  Ah, with two pairs of wheels, a 2×4 board, which was available everywhere from all of the construction in the area, a hammer and four or more nails and we had a cart.  Very simple.  Put the wheels at each end, sit on the board and have someone push you by your shoulders.  Add a second 2×4 nailed perpendicular to the first at the front, brace it with a block of wood and maybe put a handlebar on it and we had a scooter.  A wooden peach crate made a Cadillac version as it was like having a cowl.

Back then, little girls got baby dolls and they pushed baby dolls around in baby buggies.  Those were treasured for their wheels and axles, after they were outgrown.  Those four wheels mounted on a frame of three 2×4’s with a bolt through the front board and the center board allowed it to turn.  Feet went on the front board, which had a piece of rope attached making reins to hold onto, and allowed us to steer.  The person who was pushing you down the street tried to push as fast and as long as they could.  It was always dangerous.  And incredibly fun.

We could not have had a better childhood for anything in the world.  We had friends, we had rivals, they changed at times.  We had all we needed if we had a hammer, a few nails, scraps of wood, and wheels.  Hell, the girls rode around on broomsticks, galloping and neighing, pawing at the sidewalk while they talked, before riding off.  If we didn’t have wheels, no problem!  We didn’t need anything.  Go hide and I’ll see if I can find you.  Hide and Seek could go on for hours.  The day was done when it got too dark to see.  I think the children of today have been shorted on their childhood.  Of course, I am old and that is what old men say.  I’ll tell you this, I have lived mine and watched my children live theirs and I would take mine over theirs.