Insterding Facts and Stories

Traces of Texas
4 mins ·
The Texas Quote of the Day:
"Back when the best Texas paving was brick ---- or gravel ---- driving an automobile was an adventure and could be hazardous. For example, the highway between Van Alystyne and Sherman, in North Texas, was merely two runners of pavement with a turnout here and there so that cars could pass. There were rules of the road as to which car had to back up on single-lane highways with "pullouts." Arm signals persisted past World War II: the left hand, down at a forty-five-degree angle, meant "slow" or "stop"; up in a right angle meant "right turn"; straight out was "left turn." (Lighted turn indicators and air-conditioning did away with hand signals.) even in the 1930s there were skips in the pavement, called "holidays," were sections of road were left unpaved because the adjoining landowner refused to pay for his portion (Farmers complained that motorists, needing a lever to get out of the mud, would tear down a fence to obtain a post.) And for twenty years, all "V-8s" were Fords.
Until the middle twenties, gasoline was a problem. Not only were filling stations sometimes many miles apart, but their storage tanks weren't always waterproof. Some gasoline had to be strained through chamois to remove impurities such as water.
But the real automotive hex was tires. To get two thousand miles from a tire was remarkable, and few motorists taking a trip of more than a hundred miles dit not have to change at least one flat. Tire troubles involved words and phrases motorists of today have never known or have forgotten: "breaking a rim," inserting a boot," hot patch versus cold patch, regrooving. All kinds of tires, from bicycles to automobiles, had inner tubes.
Side curtains had isinglass inserts that gradually turned brown and checkered. There was a hole on the driver's side so that he, or she, could stick out an arm and give hand signals. Mud, of course, was a constant enemy, and many a farmer was called out with his team to extract a stuck automobile. In fact, some were called "mud farmers" because, it was claimed, they kept a mudhole on the nearby dirt road full of liquid ---- while they stood by with a team of mules, charging as much as five dollars, a day's salary, to pull you out."
----- A. C. Greene, "Sketches from the Five States of Texas," 1998. Every Texan should get this book and read it. Like all of A.C. Greene's work, it's fabulous.