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

One day my brother Rick drove home in a light blue 2 door 1950 Ford.

Rick and a friend had bought the car earlier in the day for $25.00 bucks. It needed radiator work, some upholstery repair and a good wash job, other than that there was no problem.

Rick said they bought the car so they could turn it into a dune buggy. I said, “A dune buggy, what’s a dune buggy”? Rick said, “You know, a car with big tires so you can drive on the beach or go up sand dunes. You need the big tires so you won’t get stuck in the soft sand’. I thought, oh a car with big tires, I can picture that. But in reality, I had no idea of what they were really going to do to that neat old car.

After a while Rick went into the house, so I climbed in the front seat and started playing with all the knobs on the dash and moving the gear shift lever on the column. It was a lot of fun until Rick saw me in the car and came out yelling! I jumped out and ran around to the back of the car. Rick and I ran around the car maybe 3 or 4 times before he gave up trying to catch me, he then got into the car and started it up. Suddenly the radio went blaring, the window wipers started up, the heater went on high and Rick became this Raging Bull Elephant again and started chasing me around the car. After awhile he stopped… and I slowly made my way back to see what he was up too.
The next day when mom and dad were at work, Rick and his friend decided to work on the Ford. I asked Rick if I could watch them put the big tires on. But he said No! They weren’t ready yet, “So get lost.”
So I went over to one of my friends. Later when I returned home I couldn’t believe what I saw! They had cut the top off the car, the hood and fenders were laying on the driveway, the back seat had been taken out, and 1of 2 doors were off. The whole Ford was either cut up or had been taken apart. Plus no big tires! I said, “What happened to the car”? Rick said this is how you make a dune buggy.
I was kind of sad for the old Ford. Until now, there had been really nothing wrong with it, it ran well, and looked pretty cool too. By the time Dad got home from work Rick had everything cleaned up, covered over, or haled off. I was sure when Dad saw what they had done to the car Rick would get yelled at, but to my surprise the only thing Dad said was, “Make sure you guys install a roll bar and put some seat belts in the car.” So the next day they did what Dad had said. The last thing Rick put on the dune buggy was the big tires. Instead of having 2 big tires in the back of the car, it now had 4 big tires in the back. Rick said they’re called dual wheels.

A couple of days later Rick and his friends loaded the dune buggy onto a trailer and off to Long Beach they went. After that they drove over to Eastern Oregon.
For the next couple of months that’s all that they did. They even went down to Florence Oregon to drive on the sand dunes. They had a blast. But…..After a while Rick and his friends decided it was costing to much to drive to the beach and back so they decided to get rid of the dune buggy. They tried selling it, but no takers. Soon it was under a tarp and forgotten.
After three or four weeks Dad said the dune buggy had to go and he wanted it gone by the time he got home from work. Dad said “Call the junk man maybe he’ll take it away“? Later in the day I told Rick that some of us were going to the old gravel pit to hang out for a while.

Rick said ok. But as we were walking out the door Rick suddenly stopped us and said… “You guys want a ride!” To get a ride in one of Rick’s cars was like winning the lottery, we all jumped at the chance. At that time, Rick drove a 2 door 1947 Oldsmobile that he had painted an Orange color, it also had a flat head straight eight under the hood, it was a sweet ride. So we all went out to the Oldsmobile for the ride. But instead… Rick went out and uncovered the dune buggy and said get in, so we did. And off to the old gravel pit we drove. Instead of dropping us off at the top, Rick drove right down into the pit. Good thing we had a roll bar because that was the only way we could all hold on. Rocks and gravel flying in every direction. By the time we got to the bottom, there was a big dust cloud all around us. It was a lot of fun. After a short while Rick told us to get out, so we did. Next thing I knew, Rick had tied the steering wheel with a piece of rope so the dune buggy could only go in a circle, then he put the car in gear, placed a large rock on the gas pedal then started the car and jumped out. The car suddenly took off all by itself, going faster and faster in a circle, it got so dusty we could hardly see the buggy. After 10 or 15 minutes Rick said. “I thought it would have blown up by now!” But it didn’t, it just kept going. As the dune buggy went around and around we noticed that the circles were getting bigger and bigger, the guys started saying it’s going to hit that big bolder in a couple of laps. Then BANG! The dune buggy ran head on with this big boulder. It pushed the radiator right into the engine and broke the drive line, hot water and steam blew out in every direction. Parts were flying all over the place, but the engine kept going with a clang or chug every so often.
We all came out of our safety and hiding places to see the buggy. Suddenly the engine started revving super high with this ear covering screeching noise! We all dropped to the ground, then the engine made this loud knock!… and that was that…The dune buggy was dead. Then for some unknown reason we all started yelling, jumping and climbing all over the dune buggy. It was like we had suddenly turned into big game hunters that had just bagged this big trophy… but then it was over and time to go. We left the dune buggy where it died and went home.
Later when Dad returned from work, he asked Rick what he did with the dune buggy? Rick looked at me and I looked at Rick. Then Rick said, “Its probably in the rock crusher by now.” A couple days later Rick and I went back to the gravel pit to see the dune buggy, but it was gone.
Grandpa Tom