"Front Side Going" "Back Side Both Ways"

     Six people, a car that sat six and a system to avoid quarrels.  Two places were givens; Dad drove and Mom sat beside him in the middle of the front seat.  Four siblings were left to claim the other seats.  Lost to time is the memory of how the system evolved but it worked well.  No one wanted the middle of the back seat so that sibling got the prime seat either going or coming...'shotgun' the right front seat with its view out two windows; front and side. Whoever called first got dibs.

     The car?  A 1942 Chevrolet Fleetline two door...a very modern looking car with its swept back styling that Dad purchased new about the time WW II broke out.  It superseded the 1928 Ford Model A that took my parents on their honeymoon to the east coast...the car on which I learned to drive. That '42 Chevy,with its three speed stick mounted on the steering column vacuum assisted that meant finger tip shifting when the engine was running but almost impossible to shift with the engine stopped, was a paragon  of reliability.

     The winter of '48-'49 was a record breaker...so much snow that the National Guard opened roads in the country with bulldozers...I remember being able to step over telephone lines on drifted snow on my trek to school.   Our farm bordered  US Highway 81...drive it from Winnipeg to Mexico City if you'd like...and the highway was regularly plowed.  But, our driveway?...well that was a different matter. It was about a quarter of a mile long rising up a hill and winding through the grove of trees surrounding our farm yard.  We had no mechanized form of snow removal in those days...just all hands on scoop shovels.   

   Eventually we succumbed to the inevitable, gave up shoveling and left that '42 Chevy out in the cold parked at the highway.  It's very doubtful that we locked it but Dad probably took the key out. Yet, no matter how cold, even on those days far below zero and despite the fact that it hadn't been run for days it always started!  It is even more remarkable given the fact it was a six volt battery not nearly up to modern standards.