Rosemary Brown's Pentecostal Songs in Indiana!

Below is a Whippet, not Grandpa's but one like it.

Grandpa, my uncles, and their cars

I was always fascinated when it came time for Uncle Joe and/or Uncle Ted to fix a flat tire. They would fill the wash tub up about half full of water,then after putting some air in the inner tube they would submerge it into the water ,and wherever there were bubbles they would know where the hole was. Then they had a special tool a raspy sort of thing with which they would rub the spot around the hole (that made the glue stick better) They always had extra rubber patches and if they didn't they would cut a patch from another old inner tube. After the patch dried they would pump the inner tube up with a hand pump after having placed it inside the tire.

Grandpa had a "Whippet" it was a two door automobile with front seats that folded down to make room to enter the back seat. I don't remember seeing Grandpa drive, but Uncle Joe being a teenager got pretty frisky with that car. One day he took us for a ride with Noah and I in the back seat and June in the front seat with him. He was going pretty fast for those days and then he stopped suddenly and I ended up in the front seat with him and June.

He roared pretty loud "What's going on? Can't you kids stay in the back seat?' After that I didn't care too much about riding with him.

Sometime after that Uncle Ted got a Willy's Knight which had more room and was easier to ride in I thought.

Now the hill that Grandma and Grandpa lived on was rather steep when trying to drive up it in a car , so the boys My Uncles would come down the lane and make a left turn and go around the barn and come up a hill to the south of the house which wasn't as steep. When they got home they would park the car headed down the hill and then put a chock, (a big rock) under the fron wheel. Then when they got ready to go again everybody gets in the car and someone pulls the chock out, the driver puts the car in gear and off we go.

That's how they solved the problem of a run down battery.

When we would have company they very often would park their car at the foot of the hill and walk up to the house. However there was a barely visible lane to my right and their left where they could down shift the car and sort of crawl up the hill. Sometimes I would stand on the porch and wish I could run down there real quickly and tell them there's another way to get up here. Sometimes Uncle Ted would stand beside me and do his little chuckle , heh, heh, heh, like he was really getting a kick out of watching them.

Grandpa, my uncles, and their cars

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