Betsy, Memories of My First Ride
written by Ken Smith
What was the first car you drove? Can you remember? I’m sure that you can. I can remember my first ride like it was yesterday. She wasn’t a fine, flashy, fast, or new car; however, she was mine (so to speak and when Mama wasn’t driving her).
The first car that I drove upon receiving my driver’s license was a Model P-18 1949 Plymouth Special Deluxe 2-Door Sedan. She was probably a beauty when first driven off the showroom floor, but you have to keep in mind that by the time I started driving her in August of 1962, she was already 13 years old, and my Mama, Theo Smith, wasn’t about to pay good hard earned money from her teacher’s salary for some kind of fancy, new car just so her teenage son could show off in it.
This old car had a 3-Speed manual transmission with three on the tree. Under the hood she had a 218 cubic inch flat head 6 cylinder Mopar engine with oil bath air cleaner. I used to work on her and try to make her purr as well as I could with the limited knowledge that I had, but with the help of Robert “Snookie” Coleman, (one of Donald’s older brothers), I managed. I used Auto-Lite AR-5 spark plugs and Kendall GT 30W oil. This old gal’s paint color was faded appropriately for her age, but her paint color was original and when she came off the showroom floor, I’m confident that her shiny Salvador Blue shone like a mirror. Her Chrysler manufacturer’s paint code number was 605 (Clyde Jenkins discovered that information for me). She had chrome bumpers (not ABS), and if you kicked this ol’ gal, it would hurt your foot, but not the car. Even though she was aged and faded, her color was close enough to “Carolina Blue” for me, so I was happy (Go “Tar Heels”).
With what limited knowledge and ability I obtained, I tried my best to pamper her like a baby, even though she was old and not very “COOL”. The engine had 40 pounds of normal oil pressure. She was wired under a 6-Volt system. The spark plug gap was .025 inch; the timing order was 1-5-3-6-2-4. The timing mark was top dead center, and the engine idle speed was 475 RPM.
For those of you that are wondering! No, I’m not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, and I don’t work on cars, and the only reason I can remember any of this information is that “Snookie” Coleman taught it to me and drove it into my brain. I used to work part-time for “Snookie” at his Pure 76 station on Hwy. 1 and also at his present location (still there today) near the First United Methodist Church downtown. “Snookie” made me work on Mama’s car when it needed regular maintenance, plus he made fun of me by saying, “Come on now! Even a monkey can work on a flat head six”. Somehow, I figured he and Mama were in cahoots about this arrangement from the beginning. But, like seemingly everyone else in Rockingham, she had taught Snookie too when he was in high school. Oh well, I earned a little money for my dates or any fad clothes that I wanted, because my Mama was not gonna waste money on as she called it, “high priced faddie clothing”, but I will always be indebted to Robert for teaching me to properly and regularly maintain and clean all of my own cars for the rest of my life.
This old car even had a name. I dubbed her as “Betsy”. Mom purchased her from Worth Walker (W. G’s (RHS ’64) Dad) at Walker-Carr Motor Company for the whopping sum of $600.00. As well as I remember, she had close to 75,000 miles on her when Mama brought “Betsy” home. She was by no means a street rod, or anything close to it for that matter, but she was always good, dependable transportation for many years. I don’t ever remember “Betsy” breaking down or even being at a mechanic’s for major repairs. To top it off, she didn’t cost an arm and a leg to operate.
For those of you that remember my Mom (Theo Smith), “Betsy” was actually her car. She drove it to and from school every day for what seemed to be forever when she taught eighth grade on the top floor of our old Alma Mater, Rockingham High School. “Betsy” was a 2-door sedan, or as Mom used to say, “She had two doors and “Mother-In-Law” seats”. When Mama drove her, the driver’s seat was all the way forward, and she still would have to sit on the edge of the seat with her back never touching the back of the seat. Even though this was far forward, she would still have to depress the clutch and manipulate the gas and brake pedal with her left and right toe. Yeah, she was that short, and I have many a time had to unbolt the seat from the sliding track to get it unstuck (in fact, that’s how I discovered WD-40). None of this ever bothered me though. Hey, if you wanted to date bad enough or have a ride, anything would do. Shoot, helping take care of “Betsy” was a small pittance to pay for such a great reward.
Mama continued to drive “Betsy” until after I graduated from college. When she did, the old gal had almost 200,000 miles on her. Mama sold her for $800.00 (note the $200.00 profit) to a black man in town who did yard work. She had promised it to him if she ever sold it. Several years after I was married and Mom had passed away, I was home one week-end and saw him still driving it. I stopped and chatted with him for a while. She was a whole lot worse for the wear and tear that had been placed on her doing her new job. Her headliner was torn and the seats were showing foam all around, and I noticed that he had placed knocked down cardboard boxes in strategic places in the floorboard because they had rusted completely through to the point that, without the cardboard, you could see asphalt underneath you, but my “BETSY” was still a chuggin’ on down the highway.
I discovered the picture below and it is scary as to how close it resembles “Betsy”.
And “Betsy” was super good on gas mileage. I can remember once purchasing $.25 worth of gas at “Snookie’s”. I drove her for two days to and from school and from school to band practice at the football field next to the Armory (where all our football games were played) before having to put in more “push juice”.
Shoot, I can even remember being out on a date one Saturday night and “Betsy” began to run out of gas, and while she was spittin’ and sputterin’, I would rapidly turn the steering wheel back and forth. Thus I would be able to squeeze about 10 more miles out of that lone $.25. Now you gotta’ keep in mind that the minimum wage back then in ’62 was $1.15 per hour. We were having a “gas war” but a gallon of gas was $.25 per gallon and that had to come out of the wages, and it was almost impossible to afford to put much more than that at a time (HA!).
I am also quite sure that the young lady I was dating at the time, as well as myself, were both extremely grateful that I knew how to get the 10 extra miles out of the old gas tank by executing this ingenious maneuver. For you see, her Dad and my Mom would not have been happy campers at all if I had been the cause of us both becoming stranded, out of gas, and late as well. That would have been a definite “No-No”.
I really shouldn’t complain at all though. After all, one of my favorite baseball players, Mickey Mantle, even owned one of these baby’s. The only difference was that his was a 1949 Plymouth Special Deluxe Convertible Rag Top.
1949 was the year that Mickey Mantle graduated high school and the year that he was awarded a contract to play baseball for the New York Yankees farm club. In these formative years as a young kid eager and ready to play, Mickey saw many great vehicles; and as any red-blooded American male of the time, cars could linger in the dreams of boys as long as baseball and girls. The Plymouth was the top production car in postwar America and was, most likely, the make most often seen driving the roads at that time. Perhaps dreams of driving this type of car to the drive-in movie and necking with the girls in the hometown of his youth is what later motivated Mickey to find this great example. I couldn’t play baseball anywhere near as good as da “Mick”, but it was nice to know that we both day-dreamed about some of the same things when we were in high school.
Mickey’s 1949 convertible "Special Deluxe" Model Plymouth has an inline 6-cylinder engine with three on the tree, 97 bhp at 3600 RPM with 217.8 cubic inches, and a wheelbase of 118.5 inches. His ’49 rag top had a light blue exterior with a cream-colored electric convertible top and two-toned blue interior. The P-18 series Plymouth was introduced in March of 1949. The model with the LOWEST production number was the "Special Deluxe 6-cylinder, two door convertible" with only 15,240 made in 1949---making his car MORE HARD TO COME BY THAN ANY OTHER MODELS PRODUCED THAT YEAR.
Although “Mick” didn't collect baseball cards, " I revel now in knowing that Mickey Mantle sought out this 1949 Plymouth to bring him back to the days when he dreamed of long summer nights under the stars with the convertible top down, his best girl in the seat next to him while laughing and flirting in the fields near Commerce, Oklahoma, just like this teenaged boy from Rockingham, North Carolina.
My “Betsy” wasn’t a convertible but a 1949 Plymouth “Special Deluxe” just the same, and she could bring back all the same type memories and more than my baseball hero had experienced in his old rag top. Though similar, my memories were of riding up and down places with names like Hillcrest Drive, Deweese Avenue, Ann Street, Foushee Street, Skyland Terrace, County Home Road, and Surginor Road. Up and down roads named Roberdel and Richmond I would go. Out to communities like Roberdel, Rohanen, Philadelphia, and Cordova. I would explore all the “nooks and crannies” up and down Hwy. 74 and US #1. I would go to places with funny names like Foxport, Five Points, Ledbetter Lake, Boyd Lake, The Ballast Pits, and Split Rock. “Betsy” would pull me up the hill so me and my buddies could shoot pool at John’s or maybe we would drive over to the Corner Pool Room instead. I would go all the way across town to “Seagos” and then all the way over to Hamlet to the “Hub”. On a hot Saturday, I’d cruise over to Otto’s Clubhouse and just sit on the bank at his pond and fish. I would always end up at “Tom & Sarah’s”, the grandest drive in known to man. After ordering a Ne-Hi, Fries, and a Large Zip, we would either just continue crusin’ around Toms after a Friday night football game, chew the fat while leaning against my “Betsy” , or parkin’ in the back with your best girl, sip on a Zip, and neck.
I could never get in too much trouble with “Betsy” because everybody and his brother and the rest of their families, too knew Theo, and they all recognized “Betsy” and knew me. And Lord, in Roberdel, I couldn’t do anything without Mama knowing within minutes what I’d done and where I was.
For just one story, I can vividly remember being on a particular date. Prior to it, a buddy of mine had been given directions to this new and really cool parking spot. It proved to be in one of those fields like Mickey experienced in Commerce, Oklahoma. This special spot was a corn field in the Roberdel Community (not there now - only houses - you guess where). My girl and I arrived there on a Saturday night around 9:00 p.m. I pulled off the main road, cut the lights off, and began to inch “Betsy” into the corn, being very careful not to damage too many good corn stalks but making very sure that I was completely hidden and surrounded by the stalks. “Betsy” ran very smooth and quietly, so with her lights off I was able to creep along in 1st gear under the starlit sky being able to clearly see where I was going. Having reached the exact ideal spot, I turned the ignition off and rolled the windows down as to experience a beautiful romantic summer night with just a hint of a breeze. There was a beautiful but dark crescent moon. As soon as I had taken a sip of “Zip” and slipped my arm around my best girl, I was immediately hit right in the face with a giant beam from a flashlight. A man’s voice said, “What are ya’ll doing in my corn field?” My very first thought was “Please, God, don’t let this man know my Mama”. He continued to shine the flashlight in my face, in the back seat, on my girlfriend, in the floor, etc. He leaned his head about halfway in the window and the next thing that was uttered was, “Oh, you’re Theo Smith’s son!” Not Ken or whatz ur name, but a most positive ID of “THEO’S SON”. I acknowledged that I was one and the same. All he said was, “OK, Now don’t knock down too many corn stalks when you leave, don’t smoke out here because it’s too dry, and I know that you know better that you ain’t supposed to be a drinking. Be careful, and have a good time.” YEAH, RIGHT!!! The date was officially over. Then he added, “Oh, tell your Mama I said Hi!” I responded by only saying, “Yes Sir”! Did I tell my Mama? What do you think?????
Thank you, “Betsy”. Though you were neither a dragster nor a show car…though you couldn’t wind it out to 100 mph (nor even 80 mph)…though you couldn’t out drag anybody…you were still providing a sanctuary and many hours of relaxation, pleasure and mischief for this teenager boy from many years ago, his dates and his buddies. When we just needed to get away, have a good time and just “Cool It” by Crusin’ around, you were and will always be “MY FIRST Ride” that I will fondly remember in my little textile hometown of Rockingham. You were a “GOOD OL’ GAL & MY BETSY”!!!