1937 Flatback Ford (ST#9)

I suspect most people can only remember back to when they were about six years old. I recently heard an automobile collector saying that he had restored a 1937 Ford Flatback because he remembers his father driving it when he (the auto guy) was less than two years old. I wouldn't dream of questioning his veracity because I have my own memories of a Ford sedan of that vintage. When my folks got married, Mom didn’t drive. During the war, of course, that wasn't a problem. After the war, though, we moved back to Meriden from Springfield and in 1946 my parents bought the house I would sell fifty-six years later, after they both had passed on. It was eight miles to the nearest town with grocery stores, banks and clothing stores, and I suppose Mom felt isolated, so Dad began to teach her to drive. Brave fellow, he was. She’d practice by driving around in circles on the lawn and my sister Bonnie and I had to get in the car with her so she wouldn’t have to worry about running over one or both of us. That car was a 1937 Ford two door sedan with a flat back.

One of my more vivid memories was that winter after Mom finally got her license. We were going to the next town to buy groceries and then pick up Dad from his work. Bonnie and I were in the back seat and it was snowing. About halfway to town, the road goes down a rather steep hill to a flat below. As we started down the hill, Mom saw that there had been a wreck at the bottom of the hill and that a police car and a wrecker were in the road, so she slammed on the brakes. The car began skidding sideways down the hill and as I’d been standing on the floor looking out the window, I got a perfect view of the accident that, in my mind even today, seem to be getting closer and closer. We stopped before we hit anything and I have no further memory of the trip to town, but as Dad was there afterwards, I assume we got groceries and then picked him up.

It was with that same car that Dad hit a cow. It was late in the day and we were on our way home from Mascoma Lake. As we topped a hill outside Lebanon, a cow and our car met in the middle of the road. She got up and, seemingly no worse for wear, took off into a field. The grill of the car was bent up a little, the headlamps were damaged, but the car was still in running condition. Being an honorable man, Dad drove to the nearest farmhouse to report the incident. He knocked and soon a lady of some years opened the door, but stayed behind the screen door, as if for protection. When Dad told he’d hit her cow, she shushed him, and with a furtive look over her shoulder, told him to keep it down.

“If the old man hears you, he’ll raise hell," she said.

Dad told that story for years, usually as we were on our way back from Mascoma Lake.