flat tires

“how many flat tires?”

Grandpa was in his 70’s, I had just returned from a trip with my mother to Washington DC where my sister had recently been in the hospital.

I had driven from Washington state, leaving Miriam and the girls at home, picked mom up in Idaho and drove to Indiana where I went to photography school. Mom flew on to DC.

When my school was over I drove to DC, picked her up and drove home. All of this in my one year old 1963 VW beetle.

Granddad had never had a very good car. In the early days he had a model T, but probably not a good one. He went several decades without a car of any kind, and this was in Idaho.

Grandpa made a living as a door to door salesman those days, and he did it all on his trusty bicycle (a big balloon tired monster). His Model T days had not involved too much travel.

“Pshaw.” he said. ”I remember going to Twin (down the road 110 miles or so) and having at least a dozen flat tires.” He grinned. I am sure he did not have good tires, the patches were not good and the roads were worse. My uncle, who learned to drive when he was 9 or 10 would help fix the flat tires, there beside the narrow road.

So, he was quite amazed that I had made a nearly 6000 mile trip and not had any flat tires. Tires changed a lot between grandpa's Model T and my VW (changed even more since then).

It is not uncommon to trade in a car with a lot of miles and have a spare tire that has never been on the ground. The spare in our Cavalier still has the little whiskers from the manufacturing process.

Some things are definitely better nowadays. The list is long, but there are exceptions!