History Old automobila is cool but safety took a back seat.

Hell, I remember on a Sat if my dad was headed to Thrifty's or Ole's Hardware all the neighborhood kids would jump in the back of his 62 Jimmy and go see what kind of trouble we could get in. The lucky ones got to sit on the spare laying in the bed.

Shit, that seems a million years ago. What the hell happened to THAT America? It wasn't perfect but...damn.


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Dennis Mitchell? This is the only Dennis Mitchell I remember from back then....

 

Times have changed for sure....this was exactly how my mom loaded us and the neighbors into the station wagon for various activities and sports after school....a pretty common sight in our town as we all screamed at each other and jumped around inside the car....she'd open the rear door and we'd all pile out in a lump and run off as fast as possible. I don't remember ever seeing a car seat!

 

Ray,that picture could be a snapshot of my childhood,thanks for posting. HRP

 

Dad had a '57 T-Bird. One day the top was down and I was standing on the passenger seat (they say I was two years old so it was 1961) when he went around a turn. G-force toppled me out of the car as I rolled along somebody's lawn. Mom made him sell the car shortly after that.

Andy

 

This is a prime example of packing the family in the car then and now. HRP

 

^^^ That's a great pic!....looks like they are as rowdy as ever....that's pretty darn cool!^^^

 

The guy in the back seat owns the car now,he is a member of the '54 Ford club of America.

 

We made it because all the driver had to do was DRIVE, what a novel idea. No cell phones or video players or navigation systems, they could actually concentrate on the world outside the car.

 

I remember an old joke about a guy riding with his girlfriend as she was driving, someone threw a rock through the windshield and hit her in the chest , it also broke two of his fingers.

 

Never any car seats when I was growing up.We rode in the back of the pickup or in the back of the station wagon and no stupid laws against it.

 

With he exception of dad saying "Don't make me stop this car"! HRP

 

I never rode witha seat belt, let alone in a car seat. I remember making the trip from SLC area to Springfield ,MO for summer vacations in the back of the station wagon. Some in the middle seat, and some trying to sleep or pay games in the back. There was 10 of us kids riding, so it was a bit tight. And this was late '70's.
Once again late 70's, rode in the back of my dad's work van folding newspapers on a folding chair. That was an every morning event. On a good morning, you got to ride up front with heater blowing on you during the winter months. Oh the good ol' days.

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Back of the station wagon was technically a playpen for us. Good old days? Yes, but those nasty "statistics" do ruin the party, (belts, car seats, airbags do work). My mom didn't drive for 30 years because in 1954 she was ejected from a car in an accident with a dui, I guess the car was spinning towards her and was stopped by a light pole. I do miss putting on puppet shows for the cars behind us on the interstate though.

 

Some of my fondest memories are of times n the family vehicles.

One of my favorite cars dad had was a '61 Triumph TR3A. I used to lay in the back, just behind the seats during trips. I also remember being small enough to ride in the bin behind the rear seat of our VW Beetle!

In the '63 Impala SS 'Vert, I used to "drive" my Hot Wheels along the top of the rear seat and down the speaker cut-out!

Dad didn't stop throwing his right arm out during braking until I was in my late teens!

Dad's '67 C10 LB had a camper shell half the time he had it. With it on, he also had a "bunk bed" across the front for my brother and I to ride in during trips. We even had a transistor intercom for talking back and forth!

 

I was either sitting on the armrest steering my mom's 79 T-bird or me and my brother were in the back of my dad's pickup. I remember one trip that we took from Elk Valley, Tennessee to Dayton, OH when there were five of us in a regular cab pickup.

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I recall my sister & myself sleeping in the back of my dad's '52 Ford sedan delivery traveling in the early AM when the weather was cooler,traveling from the upstate to the coastal area. HRP

 

Nothing was ever dangerous until someone told us it was.

 

LOL the old panic stop arm sling is a hard habit to break. I was bringing a young lady home from school one night in the pusher and had a panic stop. I slung my arm out without thinking about it. She just smiled and said,"I got a belt and you can just reach across and you don't have to slam the brakes on, just reach across if you want to touch me."

Danny you and me grew up in a different world. Safety was an after thought I am afraid.

 

You are so right Beano,and I won't want it any different. HRP

 

I remember when I was about 6 or 7 riding in the back of my uncles short wide F100.He said that I couldn't sit up on the bed rail because I wasn't old enough, I had to sit on the tire hump or the bed floor. I asked him when I would be old enough and he said when you're 12. I was staying with them on my 12th birthday and when I got up I just got dressed and went out and crawled up in the bed of the truck. I was sitting on the bed rail and he came out and hollered, "What are you doing you mutton head, its time for breakfast." I shouted back, "I'm 12." he laughed and came out and drove me to town for breakfast.

When I was in high school my granddad used to make arrangements for me to spend a couple of weeks on the Nez Perce reservation in the summer. The women taught me how to make a papoose from a blanket. You can sling the little guy behind you or in front. Fast forward to my own little bugger, lots of late nights she got slung over my shoulder and went for a ride until she fell asleep.

my oldest granddaughter fell asleep that way a lot too.

Lots of late nights I remember falling asleep riding on the tanks of the old man's Henderson.

". . . I'm just carryin' On an old family tradition" [Hank Williams Jr.]

We didn't use to have child endangerment, we raised our kids the way we saw fit.

 

That could be dangerous too. I read about some kids riding in the back of a pickup that ran off into a lake. The kids all drowned because they couldn't get the tailgate down...
Ba Dump Bump....Tish
(Sorry 'bout that)

 

When it comes to safety, anything is better then nothing!
I remember that cars only had seat belt in the front, and most people out there kids in the back, so they couldn't get out. My mother would have the fits, when we stood behind the seats.
It might be a trauma leading back to when my parents saw "world according Garp". My dad had my Volvo, before I got it.

But all was good.
I have some magazines from the Danish AAA, from the fifties. They advertised new baby seats, but recommend small children's to stand by the dash. Because in case of a head-on collision, there small heads only have to travel 2-3 inches, instead of 2-3 feet from the front seat to the dash.

Golden times! [emoji851]

 

Heck I can remember my dad driving his 63 chevy station wagon and wack both me and my brother with 1 smack and not miss a beat and keep on driving. LOL. Bruce.

 

He was even better at it in the 56 chevy we had too.LOL.Bruce.

 

LOL Dash board or mosh pit. Not a whole lot of difference.

 

When I totaled my dad's 62 Chevy wagon there was no seat belts,Brenda lost a couple of teeth when she did a face plant into the steel dash.HRP

 

Ouch! That reference makes me flinch!

 

Back around 1960 or so, my mother was driving a 50's Desoto. She lost control on an icy patch, and went off the road, over an embankment. The car rolled several times, and she was ejected from the car. Banged up quite a bit, but by the grace of God she survived, but of course in those days, seat belts were unheard of.

 

Looks like Norm's also using one of them dreaded "adjustable" wrenches