When Driving Was An Adventure
By James “Dee” Newport.
In the early twenties, automobiles began to appear in greater numbers all across the country. Since driving was a new experience for most of us, while we were wildly enthusiastic, we were, also, sadly, the rankest of amateurs. We were eager to learn, but in the process most of us had our ups and downs, some laughable, others even bordering on the edge of tragedy.
My father was born in 1863, and considering all the changes his life-span encompassed, he had proven himself remarkably adaptable. He was, however never completely comfortable in any automobile. He had used a horse-drawn wagon in his business, but this was before my time, and I remembered only seeing old pictures. He had bought his first mechanized vehicle, a Ford pick-up truck, shortly after the first world war, about 1920. He tried his hand briefly behind the wheel, than gave it up completely for the rest of his life, often saying, “It was the best damned decision I’ve ever made!”
His early experience had coincided with that of his neighbor and old friend, Joe Crotty, who also purchased a model “T” Ford that same year. Joe prevailed upon Dad to accompany him with his new purchase on Sunday to Forrest Park, an ideal testing ground for beginners learning to drive. Here were many wide, winding drives with little or no traffic, and without the hazards of stop signs or cross streets.
Dad was far from feeling secure in his role of instructor, since his own experience had been all too limited. However, they made it without incident to Forest Park where, after some preliminary instruction, Joe was installed as driver and the lesson began. No Laurel and Hardy comedy script ever unfolded more implausibly.
Joe was a kindly, soft-spoken, easy going old gentleman with a walrus mustache, watery sleepy eyes, and a constant appearance of bewilderment. He maintained a pretense as a “retired contractor”, with desk space in Dad’s shop and a phone that never rang. But he had a stubborn streak and was determined to master the art of driving.
As Dad related the incident, Joe had not completed the first curve in the drive when he saw a second car traveling the same direction on a road paralleling theirs, approach a point where the two roads merged up ahead. There ensued a you-go-first, I can wait charade, with each driver alternately accelerating, the then braking as they neared each other. Finally, just before coming together, they both pulled frantically off the drive, away from each other, and wound up going in opposite directions. Joe, frozen now with fright, veered wildly right past a massive oak tree, grazed a slender maple, and hurtled crashingly through a thicket of brush and branches. The other car, meanwhile, struggled through a wooded area on the left, both vehicles miraculously avoiding major obstacles. Then, leaving the sound of crackling branches trailing off behind them in the trees, at one moment distant, at another much closer, each unseen by the other, until now the two vehicles suddenly reappear. They are a hundred feet apart, approaching on a collision course!
Looming up between them is the same great oak tree from whence they early-on parted. They brake, they slow, then spasmodically they, at the last moment, swerve away from the tree – and into each other!
The only two automobiles in all of Forest Park (1,326 acres) had come together at 5:55 AM.
All concerned walked away from the accident unhurt, but it was the last time either Joe or my Dad ever
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