Green '55 Chevy

My Dad drove a green 1955 Chevy most of the time I knew him. Writing about him recently on the 50th anniversary of his death made me think about that car. I vaguely remember the earlier brown car but mostly as a fleeting image rather than a memory. We went everywhere in that green car. Dad always did the grocery shopping and would take two or three kids with him each time. We went on vacations in that car to the shore, to the mountains and on all those day trips. We especially loved going to the drive-in movies in that car.  Six kids would be crammed into the car and some of us would fight over who got to sit on the floor hump. There was no radio and as a teenager I always wanted to have my transistor radio with me. There were also no seat belts in that car.

I know that someone in the family has a picture of Dad standing next to that car and I'll be asking around for a copy of it. Right now I'm using a stock photo of a green '55 Chevy for this post but will replace it at some time.

The family got a second car in 1965 that my mother would often drive. It was a Chevy Impala 9 passenger station wagon. Dad still drove his '55 to work every day. All the neighbors knew his green car parked on our street. Parking was always tough because there was parking on only one side of Greene Street although most of the neighbors across the street had parking available in an alley in the back of their homes. Some even had garages back there. 

My dad tried to teach me to drive on that '55 Chevy but it was a standard shift that had a worn down transmission that only seemed to respond to Dad's particular way of shifting the gears. I could never get the hang of it and ended up learning on the big station wagon which was probably a good experience on the tight city streets of our neighborhood.

After he died in July 1970 the car sat outside the house in Harleysville. Mom eventually sold it to a local gas station owner who had expressed interest in it to my dad many times.