56 Olds Convertible - Nuff Said!

In retrospect, that first car of mine might have been the all-around best.  But that is not the way I felt when dad came home with my next car.  I remember that he was really excited.  I was sitting in the living room watching television with my brothers.  After he put down the case of Pepsi (we had a constant supply because both mom and dad were addicted, and the rest of us were collateral damage), he turned and smiled at me.

I didn't notice at first, but he just stared at me.  It was obvious that he wanted me to ask him what was going on, so I did.  "What do you want dad?"

His reply was probably crafted on the way home, "It isn't what I want.  It is what I hope you want."

Cryptic, but I fell for it.  "Okay, what do I want?"

He was disappointed.  I wasn't playing the game so he tried again.  "If the car you are driving had one thing different what would it be?"

Convertible!  My answer was what any teenager of the time period would answer.  Maybe any time period.  And dad knew it.  I don't remember ever saying it out loud, but I recall that he had said that when he was young he wanted a convertible.  I think that I agreed with him.

He beamed and lead me to the door, and pointed to the car that was behind the Ford that was my first car.  I was stunned.  It was cherry red.  It was a convertible, and it was a 1956 Olds convertible!  I couldn't move.  Just seeing it paralyzed me!

But not for long!  Dad had opened the door, and I quickly followed him to the car.  I was a little disappointed when he went to the driver's side and got in.  He pointed to the passenger door and said,"Before you drive this car, you are going to have to learn all the features that it has that you have never seen before."

So I learned about the power lift for the convertible top, how to zip and unzip the rear window, how to make sure that the latch on the front of the convertible needed to be engaged, and how to make sure that the windows are aligned properly to get a seal.  That was all cool, but the  item that was on the dashboard to the left of the steering wheel really was intriguing.  It kinda looked like a ray gun.

I could tell that dad loved this feature.  It was a sensor!  You see, when I drove this car at night, I never had to turn on the bright lights, or for that matter turn them off!  The sensor did it for me.  In fact, it sensed bright lights coming at me so well at night that it also picked up street lights and lights at businesses.  So, if you can, picture what this was like for me driving around in town.  I was creating a light show as I went down every street!

The light show aside, this was the perfect car for a teenage boy, and the timing was perfect.  The summer before my senior year.  Whenever I wasn't working to put gas in the car, I was hauling my friends to the lake or cruising either Azar's or Hall's.  I have no idea whether I impressed anyone let alone the opposite sex because I was so taken by the car itself.  As a matter of fact, I was so busy my senior year working, playing football, playing music in the band and orchestra at school, and cruising with my friends, I never even had a date!

Even though I only had two cars by this time, there was no doubt in my mind that I would never have a car more cool than this one.  And even though I know the downside of the car now, I still would love to have it back.

Oh yeah, there was a downside.  No matter how much my dad worked on it, we could never find a way for the car to run more than 20 minutes before it would just stop.  Nothing would make it run until it had at least a 15 minute rest.  When we couldn't fix it, I decided to plan around the idiosyncrasy.   All trips to wherever could only last 20 minutes.  That meant that the lake was out, it takes 45 minutes to get there.  Guess when I learned about the needing rest thing!  Yep, US 30 on the way to Lake Webster.

Because it was such a beautiful car, I suffered its only issue.  Cruising worked because we could stop at Azar's or Hall's and go from car to car for at least 15 minutes.  However, when you go across town for the semi-state basketball championship at the Coliseum and your team wins, you and your friends want to go all over town screaming and yelling.  You forget about the issue.

In downtown Fort Wayne, in the middle of traffic on Clinton and Wayne, the Olds decided to rest after we frolicked for over 20 minutes.  Five of my friends were in the car with me, but one voice rang out above the rest.  Dave Howard.  Dave was five years older than us, but he was graduating with us because he had missed years of schooling because he had polio as a small child.  The polio had mangled his body.  When he walked, people were sure that he was drunk, of course he wasn't.

Before I knew what was going on, he crawled over the trunk and started to push the car.  His idea was to get sympathy because of his ailment.  The other guys got out and blocked traffic as I steered the car.  Eventually, we got close to a parking lot and more people had parked their cars to help us.  I think Dave was pretty proud that he could help.

We sat in that parking lot until the Olds decided to wake up and get us to Azar's.  That was in March and is the last memory that I have of that car.  Dad got rid of it because I needed to have a car that would get me to Manchester College, which was 50 minutes away.  I had it until after graduation, but then it was gone.