The '39 Ford convertible

TC and I were looking at an old car today and it reminded me of a story my dad told me twenty years ago.

I never really had a whole lot in common with my dad, but we got along fairly well when he was at home (he was a truck driver and was gone a lot). He had always been interested in cars and had actually owned a service station back in the fifties. He also had a race car and a motorcycle way back when. Growing up, I was never interested in any of those things. I was more the bookish type and didn't really care very much about cars or tractors or trucks until I was in my twenties. I was also quite an ass when I was teenager, but that's a story for another time.

Having said all of that, I saw a picture of a '39 Ford convertible in a magazine (y'know, the one with the big 'ole fat fenders?), anyhoo, I thought that it was the neatest looking car I'd ever seen. Showed the picture to my dad and told him I'd like to have a car like that someday (I think I was about fifteen at the time).

He looked at the magazine and said "I used to have a car just like that back in 1953, 'cept it was a different color."

"Really!!!! Why'd you get rid of it?"

"Train hit it."

"What? How'd that happen?"

"Car stalled on me when I was crossing the tracks, so I walked over to Sam's to see if he'd bring his tractor over to pull me off the tracks and a train came along."

He paused for a moment and then said "I'm just glad that ol' gal I was with had sense enough to get out of the car when she saw the train coming."

What makes the story even more funny to me is the fact that the conductor was a friend of my granddad and he gave daddy and his girlfriend a ride back to Dalton on the train.

I've often wondered if the wreckage of that old car is still out in the woods somewhere close to the railroad crossing, but I've never been ambitious enough to go look.