Remember when you were a kid? It was always hard to make some money, especially if you were the youngest in your family. For me, I had chores every day. I maybe made $10 bucks a week. My brother Rick, he had his every day chores too. Rick being older, his chores would sometimes interfere with him going out with his buddy’s. So every once and awhile, Rick would ask me if I wanted to make some extra money and most of the time I jumped at the chance. But asking me was far and in between. So I thought of different ways to make money. One of the ways was taking a wagon door to door and ask people for old pop bottles made out of glass.

If I remember right, the bottles were worth 3-5 cents each. Most of the time the lady of the house would be home, so we collected tons of bottles and made enemies of the local PigglyWiggly food store. As time passed, many of the stores started saying they wouldn’t take large quantities of bottles. So we started taking smaller and smaller amounts. Another store that we took our bottles to, we called, the Chinese Grocery Store. The owner would always say the same thing when he saw us walking in. “ You boys stop. We not take bottles“…Then us kids would say back…“We’re going to tell our parents”… Then he would say, “ Ok only this time“. I always thought he and us kids were playing some kind of a game, but I’m sure he thought it was some kind of blackmail!

My parents liked shopping at the Chinese Grocery Store because of the green stamps. Plus, on Friday evening you could win a prize if they drew out of a box, your old grocery receipt that had your name written on it. They won a number of times.
Us kids weren’t the only ones going door to door back in the day, a lot of salesmen were making a very good living selling door to door. They were selling things like knifes, books, cleansers, vacuums, fire alarms, siding for you home, candy, hats, flowers, jewelry and more. There was this one guy I was always in awe with and was amazed. He was making a living selling straw brooms door to door. You say, “What was so amazing about that”? He was blind!
When Rick got older he landed a sweet job working in an ice cream store up the street from our house, so I took over his chores. Plus having my own chores, I started making some real money $20 dollars a week. I can still remember receiving my first new twenty dollar bill. I took all of my change and dollar bills into the bank and traded them in for a brand-new $20 bill. Now that was something!
When I was older my Dad would pay me $5 dollars to mow the front and back yard. It would only take me maybe an hour. After mowing the yard from time to time it got me thinking…. I just made $5 dollars in one hour. The Minimum Wage was $1.25 an hour. So I decided to take the lawn mower door to door just like I did when I was younger collecting bottles with my wagon. The next day I started my quest for, The Mowing of the Yards!

Walking up and down the streets it was soon apparent that this idea was going to be harder than I thought. The ladies that answered the door would either say No! or My husband mows our yard on Saturday. The first yard that I was able to mow, was from this real old lady two blocks up the street. She said how much more for edging? I have a edger in back if you need one. I didn’t even know what edging meant. But I said $2 dollars anyway. It took me over 2 hours to do the edging! But I still made $7 dollars in three hours. Still better than minimum wage.
One day while making my rounds with the lawnmower, I spotted this 1947 Studebaker pickup truck. It had a sign on the window for sale or trade. It was a strange looking truck with a tall grill, a three speed on the floor, and a flat head six cylinder engine. It was painted a gray color…It was ugly. But I just had to have it!

As I walked up to the front door, I was met by the owner of the truck. He asked me how much? I just stood there for a second or two because I was going to ask him the same question. How much? He then pointed to my lawnmower. I said $10 dollars because it was a big yard. He said maybe another time. As he was walking back into his house I said, how much for your truck? He turned around and said $50 dollars. Then I said, “Do you want to trade”? I then told him I have $30 dollars cash, if you let me mow your lawn two times this month it will add up to the $50 dollars.
By now we had walked over to the truck, and were looking at it and talking. He said if you mow my yard now and then come back Saturday, and help me clean my garage and take stuff to the dump, then we’ll have a deal. I said OK! Then we shook on it.
After mowing the yard, I went back home and waited for dad to come home from work. I wanted to tell him about my new truck. At first he thought I was joking but then he said, “You did? Where is it, does it run”? I said, “I wasn’t sure. I mean, I don’t know…. But we’re driving it to the dump Saturday. So It must run”! Dad suggested driving over now and taking a look at this old truck. Seeing the old truck first hand, Dad had his doubts until the owner started it up. Then dad said I can’t drive it until I get some car insurance.
After cleaning the garage and going to the dump, I then went home to rest. Later Rick drove Dad and me back to my new truck. I paid the balance of $30 dollars, got the title, then Dad drove my new truck home. The first thing Monday, I got some car insurance and washed my truck.
As months passed by I had no problems with the old truck until one day when I down shifted into second gear. Suddenly a bang noise was heard, the engine started running funny and the oil gage that I had installed showed oil presser over 100 pounds. Rick said that I probably blew up my engine and that’s why I now have a lot of water mixed in the oil.
After a couple of weeks, Rick and I pulled the blown flat head out of the truck and was looking for another. One of my friends called and said that he knew a guy with a smashed up 58 Mercury with a 383 V8 you could probably buy for $15 or $20 bucks. So I did.

 Next thing I knew, we had the front end off the truck, the engine and push button transmission pulled out of the Mercury and Dad had made new motor mounts. Next we installed the V8, the transmission and the rest of the stuff like the exhaust, the mercury radiator and did some rewiring. Then it was finished!
Dad and I stood back while Rick made that old truck come alive. And man was it alive! Rick took off up the street with the tires smoking and wheels hopping. It was one fast truck! A couple days later I put some wider tires in the back and some sand bags in the bed. This helped with the wheel hop. I drove my hot rod 47 Studebaker pickup till I bought my 57 Chevy.

Thanks Dad and Rick
Grandpa Tom