Keith Tillotson
Driving (1933)
I got my first driver's license when I was 16. The only thing they asked me was, "How long you been drivin'?" I said, "Oh, about four or five years." Well I had – the Model T Ford. I drove those – you couldn't even see over the hood, you know. But it was shift cars I hadn't driven too much – all the Buicks and Oldsmobiles and those kind of cars. But the Ford had those three pedals – that was a little tricky, too. You had to hold one pedal halfway down to keep it out of gear. Let's see, I think the right-hand pedal was the brake. And the middle pedal, I think, was reverse. If you wanted to hold it out of gear you had two ways to hold it out. You could crank it yourself – they have a thing on the side, a lever right on the left side. There's no door there – just an imitation door. You wanted out, you have to crawl over it. That's another little economy thing I guess Ford thought of. Don't have an extra door, you could sell the car cheaper, see? Anyway, you pulled it halfway, now it's out of gear – you can get out and crank it. You set your spark. You advance the spark too much you're liable to get a kickback, so you gotta watch that. So you always make sure you don't have your thumb over the handle, you know. You just catch it like that [gestures]. If it kicks back it won't break your thumb off. That's what happened to Dad. He was left-handed and he got excited one time when Verlene was born, and it broke his arm.
If somebody else was crankin' the car for you, you could simply hold the clutch down half way. One time I was down in Omaha with Perry, and we had a Model T. Now he's drunk – I gotta drive home. I don't know how old I was at that time. Anyway, I'm stopped at a corner, had to turn right. There's a cop out there directing traffic, 'cause they'd had a wreck. They didn't have stoplights – they had arms like this went up and down. This cop was directing traffic, and the car died – and I'm settin' there. Now I gotta crank it. So the cop noticed that and he come over to crank it. It wouldn't start, but he had to go back to directing traffic. So it set it, and I got out. And there's my step-dad just settin' there drunk in the side seat. I got out and cranked it and started it. And when I got it started, I got back in – I just turned right and just took off. Went on home. He didn't have time to – he was too busy directin' traffic.
On a Model T Ford, the lights are dim when the car is idling. You don't have much light – you speed it up, the lights get brighter. So, the faster you go the better you could see! They didn't have very good lights, those old cars. They just had a magneto to run the thing. And it didn't have a starter. 'Course there were starters on some of the Buicks and things like that – they had starters – but not all of 'em. You had to crank 'em.
The cars had two gears – low and high. That's it. You'd hold it – rrrrr! – push the pedal clear down to get low, and just let up and you're in high gear. Then there were times when you had to back up hills if you didn't have enough gas 'cause it was gravity feed. The tank's under the seat – you had a little wooden stick to dip it, see how much gas you had in there. And Perry always liked to run on a low tank. Never had enough gas in there 'cause it cost too much, I guess. So we were always runnin' out of gas. So if you were too low on gas, it wouldn't gravitate goin' up those little hills in Iowa. You had to turn around and back up the hill. You always coasted down the hill to save gas.
We had a gas station at Red Line – they sold gas there. Had a little gas pump. All the little country stores had one. You know, out in the country – like Kirkman had a gas pump. There could have been a couple of 'em in Harlan – I'm not sure. It was always quite a distance between gas pumps. 'Course later years, farmers had their own pumps right on the property. 'Cause with tractors, they have a tank and buy a lot of gas at one time and pump it – have their own gas pump. It was a gravity feed, also. They'd pump up this gas out of a tank, I guess, underneath. Then it'd come up into a big glass thing tell you many gallons are in it. You pump up the amount you want and you dump it into the car. But, a lot of times Perry wanted only a quart – just enough to get home.