Story Contest Winner

This story begins in the late 60's early 70's. I was a kid growing up in the Bronx . Back then there were still houses on land that had front and back yards with sides that one can still consider their property as opposed to houses stacked along side each other and garnished with a front and back yard. The game to play was a "Hot and Cold hide the belt" in which one was selected to hide the belt and others sought the belt out. The person who hid the belt would shout out hot or cold dependent on how close we were to the belt and whomever found the belt got to lash anyone who wasn't touching home base. So the mad dash for home was filled with screams and laughter and whoever found the belt now has his chance at hiding it! Life in the Bronx...Go Figure !To this day, it amazes me that if it was one of your parents who was behind the belt ,the lashings could evoke crying from the recipient, but if it was one of your friends, it was considered to be a form of entertainment. Heaven help you if you fell down. The object was to make it home for the next round........ The attention of this game and all others could easily be disrupted by the sounds of a cherry bombed exhaust system that belonged to a big od red car from around the block. It had no front bumper (that was the thing back then) and all the gang would run to the road's edge and start screaming for the driver to blow the horn! It wasn't a typical horn, it was a whistle (later on in life I was to discover it was a Hollywood Wolf Whistle). The car would pass and the entire bunch of kids would be looking in awe as this car with fins and chrome would pass blowing a whistle that "WOWED" all of us. What kind of car is that? "Chevy," I would say with authority. I worked summers in my dad's auto parts store in upper Manhattan. Not that I was a leading authority at the ripe age of 11. My curiosity got the best of me when I went around the block and found the the old Chevy sitting in its driveway in all its majesty.

Its headlights looking out over everything that lay in its path before it. The Cragar's all the way around was a tribute to this car departing from from the normal passenger car realm and it achieved "Hot Rod" status with its stickers from various manufactures in the back window.

Its owner was in the driveway tending to certain hot rod related chores with the door and trunk open. "HEY! can you blow your horn?", I asked . To this day, I can never quite understand, but this guy gave me a tour of the car and showed me everything. From the engine peppered with chrome accessories to the black interior with the chrome "FOOT" gas pedal. I will never forget how he fired up the engine so we could blow the wolf whistle, and he let me sit in the driver seat and watch the tachometer indicate RPMs and how just a kid yanking on the graduation tassel that he used to pull on the valve that operated the wolf whistle stalled the engine and he let "Me" turn the key and try the whistle again, this time without stalling. Our meeting eventually came to an end, but i walked away knowing that it was a 1957 Chevrolet and some day.....just some day! Fast forward to the year 1988 and my friend Thomas gives me a call to let me know that he has "IT" !!!! For my 28th Birthday and for $500 bucks it's mine !!!! A 1957 Chevrolet 210 2-door -- no engine, no trans, no interior, no hood , but i got the shell and that's all that matters. More years later, driving thru various neighborhoods kids will look up and see me coming down the road and line the edge as I go by and ask me to blow the "horn"!! I let it rip as i go by and as I pass and look into the rear view mirror and see their reaction, I am brought back to those days as a kid in the Bronx. I suddenly realize .....I became that guy who gave me that tour of his 57...................

Do take a kid to a car show.....it CAN change his life !!!!!!

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Take a kid to a car show

Thanks to Wrenchbend for sharing this wonderful story another example of how this hobby will last much longer than most of our members. Ed