The first automobile I remember was our 1920-something Essex. I remember it as a big car. I guess when you are five years old all cars looked big. It had four doors. Doesn't that make it a big car? I thought it was in league with the Cadillac. I was wrong. According to my research the Essex was considered “a small car and affordably priced.” It boasted piano-hinged doors which were exceptionally strong. By 1929, the Essex was third in sales behind Ford and Chevrolet. Wow! And I thought it was a gunboat of a car. Our Essex was black in color. Weren't all cars black back then?

You started it with a hand crank. One person could start it but two were better. Again, as I remember, you set the brake, pulled out the gas choke handle on the dashboard while the other person addressed the front of the car. There was an opening just below the radiator for the crank. The person doing the cranking inserted the crank, turned it until it engaged and then gave a good healthy rotation of the crank. If that didn't start the car, you did it again and again until it did. Push the choke in quickly once it caught or the engine would stall due to too much gas. Put the crank on the floor behind the seat and you are on your way.

I remember Mother taking me and my two brothers on a road trip to visit our maternal grandparents. Gas stations were few and far between. A five gallon can of gas on the floor behind the front seat took care of that. Of course there was a spare tire, but that wasn't enough. Mother had a tube patching kit for the inevitable flat tire. The roads we traveled were not paved back then. Road hazards such as nails and glass as well as our bald tires meant there would be several flats on the trip. Mother was good at changing a tire and patching a tube.

After jacking up the car and taking off the wheel, she removed the tire from the rim and extracted the inner tube. Then, after cleaning the area around the hole in the tube with solvent, she roughed it up with the abrasive cap of the kit. An appropriate size piece of rubber was cut and painted with rubber cement as was the tube area. She covered the hole with the patch and rubbed until it was securely stuck on. So far so good. Mother inserted the tube back into the tire, put the tire on the rim and the wheel back on the car. With a hand pump she inflated the tire and we were off again until the next flat tire. The trip would have been easier if we could have afforded new tires, but we couldn't. After all this was around 1933 in the pit of the Great Depression. We made do.

Today, if you have a flat tire, your call a wrecker on your cell phone and wait for the man to change your tire. I have never changed a tire. I think I would just sit down and bawl if I had to do it. I am not sure you can still buy a tube repair kit, but, no matter, no tube. A can of fix-a-flat would get me home. Wait a minute. There is a donut tire in the bottom of the trunk. Maybe I can stop someone to change it for me.