I took my 5 and 6 year old grandkids for a ride in the ’55
and I really got tickled about their reaction to things they have never seen in
a car. The ’55 has that airplane cockpit looking dash anyway. My car is
a radio delete so that is the first car with no radio they had been in. I had
taken the breather off to adjust the choke and had not replaced it yet.
Granddaughter wanted to know what that noise was (air going into carb). This
would be her first ride in a car with a carb. When we were done and ready to
get out, my granddaughter looks over at me and ask how to open the door. Any
my mess with every gadget grandson wants to know what the other handle was for.
He had never seen a window cranked manually up and down.
I bet a kid today would not know how to use an old manual dial
phone. When I was a kid in Thomasville
GA, we had no dial phones and you
picked up and told the operator what you wanted. We had a party line and one
day when I said “Two on this line”, my aunt was the operator and
started kidding me about calling the little girl next door.
I am 59 and stopped a minute there to think just how much
has changed. I can not really say for the better though.
Tom Taylor