As the price of oil rises, and the gouging goes into uncharted territory seeing the profits of the oil companies soar into reaches unknown and undreamed of in the past, its hard to believe that at one time the automobile economy was the nearly unquestioned wave of the future. Thinking people realized that fossil fuel was a limited resource and would simply run out at some point. The environmental costs, societal destruction, and economic consequences aside, it was obviously finite and simply inevitable. These people were in the minuscule minority, and their voices were drowned in the sea of economic prosperity created by manufacturing and putting on the road nearly one vehicle for every man, woman and child in the country. The economy is more completely grounded in fossil fuel than ever, and there is no real option on the horizon. While we debate the regulations for fuel economy on new vehicles, time runs out for the planet and the people who live on it. Perhaps the pendulum has now swung too far and there is no return, but there is little doubt that we have given up looking for a realistic solution and are just along for the ride.
I saw my first car on the side of the road, it was two-tone green.. a very light green, with a creamy lighter green band running around the passenger compartment. Being a 1955 Ford Ranch Wagon meant it was boxy.. but it was love at first sight. My father turned the truck around and we went back to look. It had a black and red ‘for sale’ sign in the window.. a little v8 sticker on the right front fender, and I wanted it badly. It was $150 but dad said we could work that out, I’d been working for him for quite a while, and he would let me make payments, so we test drove it. First thing I found out was that it was a three speed on the column, with no synchro-mesh in first gear. For those who don’t know what this means.. lets just say, you couldn’t put the car in first gear unless you were stopped, so you basically had to drive with two gears.
The main reason to have a car was of course, to go to the drive-in, and there were several around. The North Salem drive-in was very familiar to me, having gone there with my parents for years.. We kids would get in our pjs and go watch movies, the idea was that we would go to sleep right away, but I always stayed up and watched some of the great movies of the fifties and early sixties. From ‘Taras Bulba’ in which Yul Brenner plays a middle ages cossack chieftain, to ‘The Misfits’ a great movie about dying breeds, starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift.. (speaking of dying breeds)..
Running that engine to keep the window defrosted, vacuum windshield wipers on the nights it rained, and memories of surfing and hot rod movies, the sixties were a time of the Hammer horror flicks too, with Christopher Lee as Frankenstein or someone and the unforgettable Peter Cushing as lots of someones and short appearances by actors who would be names, Jack Nicholsen comes immediately to mind. Lee as Dracula, Cushing as Van Helsing.. what a cast.
The trip though was to Coos Bay, we were off to be surfers. Some 150 miles to the south, in the old ranch wagon it might as well have been a zillion, but we made it. I knew a guy who ran a surf shop, near North Bend and we went in to see boards being made.. these were all fiberglass long boards at that time, and the process was amazing. Setting it up, coating with fiberglass the end result slick shiny and beautiful. The ranch wagon was perfect for hauling boards down to Sunset Bay, and the surf was incredible. It didn’t take me long to realize that these guys were tough, in the cold pacific, wet suits notwithstanding. I couldn’t unfreeze enough in the water to do anything, but the bonfire on the beach and the beautiful sunsets made the scene amazing.
The thing is, we had spent all our money traveling to Coos Bay, and were totally broke, big question was how were we going to get back, we had jobs for the summer and we couldn’t wile it away at the beach. One of my buddies decided to take matters into his own hands, said he’d get us a tank of gas and off he went.. When he came back later with two five gallon gas cans, it looked like we were in business, at least enough to get us most the way home. While he poured them in, we said goodbye to our friends then off we went. We didn’t get far though, and as we smelled something strange, the car sputtered and stopped.
I asked him what the smell was, and he said.. it must be diesel. Wonderful, he had poured ten gallons of diesel fuel into the gas tank of my car, and with the little bit of gas left, we had tried to run the car on almost straight diesel.
We drained the tank, walked back to the beach, managed to get a ride, borrow some money, buy some gas.. and finally got home, although we were late, all in trouble, and a little wiser about what might be in gas cans.
Within a year, I had read ‘Future Shock’, the first thinking discussion of what the future might hold, and the dilemma of oil versus environment and humanity had worked its way into my consciousness. I gave up my car and tried to survive swimming upstream in the fossil fuel economy, but eventually succumbed and became one more card carrying consumer, ready to adjust my living standard to preserve my automobile. And now, I ponder the consequences of this behavior for the planet, as China moves into the fossil fuel individual automobile economy and threatens to overcome the United States as the number one consumer and polluter.
