Model T Tales

I have started participating in the Carnival of Genealogy...I'm posting this early for the next topic, "Funny, foolish family". This can be about any fun story related to your family history, so if you have one you'd like to share, just click on the link above! (It's not due until April 1st.)
My story isn't so much foolish, but just perhaps a little cute. Hope you enjoy it!

A few years before the time of this story

It was the very early 1930's, and as the Depression raged on, there was in one neighborhood in Texas, a little boy with a big imagination and heart for adventure. He was his mama's only child, and there were many a times he helped to add a few premature gray hairs to her head.

He was also very much the little "Ladies Man", even from the very earliest age. When he was about five or six years old, he had a little girlfriend from the neighborhood that he attempted to impress on a regular basis.

One day, he was playing around the family model T, with the little object of his affection nearby. As his mother went about her housecleaning duties, he burst through the kitchen door and excitedly asked her if he could take "Susie" for a ride.
His mother smiled...What would be the harm, letting them sit in the car and pretend to drive, she thought to herself.
With her approval, he happily ran back to Susie and the model T.
Now for those of you who might not be up on automotive history, this early auto was the kind that had a huge, heavy crank in the front. It took a very strong turn of the arm to get the engine even started.

Minutes later, the little boy's mother froze in mid-air as she heard the sound of their car starting up. In a flash, she was out the door, running towards them...the little girl sitting calmly in the passenger seat and her little son looking quite proud as he stood in front of the chugging automobile.

"Son, what are you doing?" she exclaimed, as she rushed to turn off the engine.

"You said I could take her for a ride!" he declared, looking somewhat confused and disappointed.
"I was just about to get in and take her around the block!"

From then on, every inquiry was taken at face value. Never again, did she underestimate what her son was capable of when he set his mind to it!

That little boy was my dad, and his mother I lovingly called "Gammee". And although it happened so many decades ago, the fact that they both could tell me this story in person, helps to make it a bit more personal to me...and hopefully, since I'm only one generation down, I can re-tell it without too many facts getting muddled along the way!

(My dad, at age 18, with one of his old cars)

A few years later, when my dad was a teen and actually able to legally drive, he took both his dad and an uncle for a ride. The car they were able to afford was still of the antique variety so as they sped on down the road, his uncle shouted frantically from the passenger seat,
"Slow down, son! You're going fifteen miles per hour!!!"


But fast-forward a few decades later, and my dad gave me my first car....a big old brown Plymouth Valliant "grandma" car because it was nice and safe...and he'd grip the door handle for dear life whenever I drove just a tad too fast for his liking.

I guess the more things change, the more things stay the same.