Like other motorists caught in rush- hour traffic, I often long for the still-crowded but less stressful commutes of 20 or 30 years ago. I can barely imagine early 1900, when just 8,000 automobiles were registered nationwide and there were only 150 miles of unconnected paved roads. The others were rutted dirt one-laners with potholes that, during the rainy season, could swallow a vehicle whole. Cars were owned only by the wealthy, who could whiz by the envious masses at a reckless 10 mph in Packards, Oldsmobiles, Pierce Arrows, Locomobiles, Baker Electronics or similar handcrafted motorcars.
The average workman, earning 22 cents an hour, had no hope of ever owning his own vehicle. To save $4,000 would have taken him more than 18,000 hours or 72 hours a week for almost five years.
In 1908, only eight years later, Ford’s assembly line for building Model T’s changed everything. Henry’s Flivver or Tin Lizzie could reach the breakneck speed of 40 mph and cost only $850. Eight years later, because of mass production, the price had dropped to $350. Ford’s workers earned the princely salary of $5 a day, so owning a car was no longer an impossible dream: America’s love affair with automobiles had begun.
In 1920, when I was 3, my middle-class family knew only one person who owned a car, Frank John, a concert cellist who needed the vehicle to lug his instrument to various jobs. Sometimes he would invite my family to join him for a Sunday drive. I still remember the excitement of sitting in the front seat and seeing the beauty of thousands of wildflowers covering the hills near Colorado Springs.
Three years later, we moved to Denver and again knew only one car owner, Alfred Romander, a painter/paperhanger, who had a Ford pickup to cart around his ladders and other supplies. Although we took a streetcar to his house for an occasional dinner, Mr. Romander always took us home in his truck with him, Mom and Dad squooshed in the front seat and me lying down in the truck bed. It was an exciting ride through the dark streets. I lay, looking up at the stars and trying to guess where we were every time the truck turned.
By 1928, cars were still a rarity in our Capitol Hill neighborhood, but life was about to change. At the beginning of summer, Lakeside Amusement Park had begun advertising its end-of-the-season raffle prize: a new car. All summer long, whenever we went to the park, Mom filled out the coupons and deposited them into a mammoth wire cylinder. On Labor Day evening, we joined thousands of hopeful patrons at the park for the drawing. The winner’s name was announced: Oswald Kirchgarter, my chef dad’s assistant cook.
Soon after, my parents decided to use their savings to buy a car. We went shopping on East Colfax at Sherman- McCarty’s Ford/Mercury showroom, where Dad struck a deal with the salesman, Mr. Hoffman (I can’t recall his first name), who also promised to teach my father to drive. After several hour-long sessions, and one solo drive, our very own tan Ford Model A joined the family.
Three days later, we took our first long journey in the car, to Rocky Mountain National Park. Dad didn’t become white- knuckled until we started climbing the park’s narrow dirt road. As we rode near the edge, I could see straight down into a deep chasm. And then a downward- bound vehicle approached. Dad inched our car several dozen feet backwards to a wide space, letting the other auto pass. Despite a flat tire and the car’s overheating, we had a wonderful day.
A few months later, after his usual 12- hour workday, Dad fell asleep at the wheel and plowed into an embankment. He was unhurt, but the uninsured car was totaled. Mom kept urging the purchase of another car, this time on the installment plan. He refused, reluctant to “borrow against the future.”
And then Mom had an idea. One afternoon after school, she put several of Dad’s signatures and a white paper on the kitchen table. She told me to practice copying his name until it satisfied her. Then, carefully, I forged “Bruno Bohmer” at the bottom of his life insurance policy. Later, when the check came, I again signed his name. A few days later, Mr. Hoffman delivered an identical Ford, parking it in the wood shed at the back of the house. When Dad opened the shed’s door and saw Model A II, he began to cry – and so did Mom, my sister and I.
Mom never learned to drive. I started when I was 42, drove for 42 years, and then quit, even though my children thought I was still capable.
Nowadays, sitting in an Access-a-Ride van in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I windowshop, choosing the car I’d like to buy. And then I think of America’s population, rapidly nearing 300 million people sharing more than 201 million automobiles, enduring endless traffic, and paying exorbitant gas prices. I tell myself being car-less is not so bad. Sometimes I almost believe me.
Louise Turnbull is a Denver native and retired teacher who has written commercial film scripts and an animated TV special.
