[ponyakr]

any body remember studebaker vehichles? they were quite popular back in the 40's & 50's. they had both cars & trucks. my 1st driver was a stude 4-door with suicide doors on the back, & 3 on the tree. i was only 5, so i could neither reach the pedals, nor see over the dash. so dad would let me sit in his lap & steer & shift gears & he would work the pedals. i thought the system worked quite well. now i thought dad was doin this to to let me have a little fun, but by age 6 i found out his real motives. there's always lots of work to do on a farm. its all hands on deck. i was the only son, so dad was training me to help him work. but for me the driving part was always great fun. now by the summer of my 6th year, we had a little red stude pickup. dad had built a plywood box on the back & we would go around to all the dairies in our area & pick up their raw milk in 10 gal metal cans. when we got it home, we'd load it on a 2-ton reefer truck & take it to be processed in monroe, about 40 mi away. while there we'd load up with processed milk & bring it back home to sell. so my dad got a big pillow for me to sit on so i could see over the dash. i still couldn't see over the steering wheel 'cause it had manual steering with a huge steering wheel for more leverage. by now i could reach the pedals enuff to operate everything. i remember this all took place between 1955-57. we stopped in a little town called saline. they had a little cafe with some tables & a juke box. elvis was just geting popular & i loved elvis. dad would give me a dime & i'd play 3 of elvis's latest records, probably something like thats alright mama, jailhouse rock--you know the early stuff. & we'd always buy a choclate malt--they were 25 cents. by the way, gas was still 20 something cents. for the 1st few days of my 1st grade year, i drove me, my mom & my sister to school in our '55 mainline ford with 3 on the tree. it was fun for a while,til i found out the other guys were goin early & catchin flys during baseball season & playin football during the winter. here,s an oft repeated scene from school ground football. i was bigger & stronger than the other guys from all the work my dad had me do, so they'd give me the ball & i would trudge down the field, dragin kids with me, usually with 1 attached to each leg. oh it was great fun. so i quit driving to & from school & started ridin my bike so i could get there earlier. driving was routine by now. i'd already logged thousands of miles in the red stude. any of you guys get to drive to school in the 1st grade?