Carol's Chapter
A Green Chevy and a Ticket to Freedom
told by Carol Mae Guild Sutton
Carol recalls intimidating tenth-grade driving instructors who also taught Industrial Arts. Only four of about fifteen students finished and received permits, and her leg shook during parallel parking. Her father opposed the children getting licenses because he needed his car for work and could not afford another car or repairs after a wreck. After graduating and getting a job, Carol lived with Iris and Bill and saved all her earnings for three months. Her father then helped her find a green 1948 Chevy for three hundred dollars, which she used to obtain her license. She and her sisters drove it for years, cruising with friends even after it lost one of its gears. Carol remembers gasoline costing about twenty-five cents a gallon and the car representing freedom.
In the family's own words
I took Driver’s Education in tenth grade. Out of a class of about fifteen, only four of us survived to finish and get our permits. The driving teachers were also the Industrial Arts instructors and as mean as they came when teaching us to drive. They would kick out two or three kids each week. My right leg would shake so hard when we practiced parallel parking, I don’t know how I survived. Daddy didn’t want us to get our driver’s licenses because he didn’t want us to drive his car. He said he needed it for work and we couldn’t afford to get a second one or to get his fixed if we had a wreck. I didn’t get my licenses until after I had graduated and gotten a job. I lived with Iris and Bill and saved all my earnings for three months and then Daddy helped me find a car. It was a green 1948 Chevy and cost three hundred dollars. My first car. I was in heaven! I used this car to get my driver’s license. My sisters drove this car for years also. We loved cruising around town with a carload of our friends. I think gas cost about twenty-five cents a gallon then. In the end we were driving the car without one of the gears, but we didn’t care! It was our ticket to freedom!
Referenced in
Carol's Chapter, told by Carol Mae Guild SuttonRelated stories
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