Vermont Adventure, #1 |
by Walter Sherman Atwood (1887-1974) |
| A few days after graduating from high school in 1905, I was hired by Mr. A.T.
Fuller in Boston, as a Cadillac demonstrator. Mr. Fuller was the New England agent for the
Packard, Cadillac, and Northern automobiles. My job was to go with new customers to show
them how to drive and care for their cars, and since most of them had never owned a car,
this might mean an overnight or a week with the customer. Two men from Vermont bought a Cadillac touring car, and we started out early on a Saturday, and by good luck got as far as Plymouth, NH before dark, and registered at the hotel for the night. The touring car cost $950, F.O.B. Detroit. It came without a top, without a horn, speedometer or headlights. It was equipped with a pair of kerosene parking lamps. License plates or driving licenses were unknown. Gasoline came by the barrel, etc. Next morning we were directed to take the highway to Vermont via Haverhill, NH. We discovered that it was no idle rumor that some farmers did not approve of the new-fangled horseless carriages that frightened their horses and cattle. We should have taken the low road, for the highway was really too "high" for our touring car with one cylinder and three riders. It was no disgrace to get stuck on a hill, but the owners were good sports and got out to push, while I tried to keep the one cylinder functioning. Each man pushed with one hand and held a big rock in the other, and after using all our energy to move a car length, a stone was put under each rear wheel just in case the brake didn't hold. Touring was different in those days. We finally reached the top, and the owners sat beside the car while I gave a demonstration of first aid. Naturally the radiator had boiled over and we had to find water, (on top of a hill?) But when the vibration of one big cylinder is kept going at its worst for so long, I was looking for the four bolts that secured the wooden body to the iron frame. One of the advertised features of this model was the fact that the body could be changed from a runabout, holding two people, to the touring car holding four or even five. The runabout cost only $650 and if a family of two increased, the car owner could buy a touring car body for only $300 and install it himself. I was not too surprised to discover that the vibrations had shaken out three of the four bolts that held the body in place. We were only a bolt away from losing our "body." The nearest farm house was able to supply me with three second hand carriage bolts, and we proceeded on our way. My clients were used to machinery, and decided they could drive well enough and care for the new purchase, so I left them at Barre and took the afternoon train back to Boston. These gentlemen wrote to me later inviting me cordially to be sure to look them up if I ever got to St. Albans, where they would show me the workings of the Franklin Creamery which they owned. They enclosed what was a very useful paper in those days, a recommendation in case I might seek a new place of employment, expressing their satisfaction of my ability and competence. I never used the letter, but I kept it and see it now as a quaint memento of the days before expressways and Thruways. And of all the places I have seen in Vermont, alas, I never got to inspect the Creamery in St. Albans. Sixty years ago, travel was often limited to walking distance from home, and when boys were lucky to be paid more than ten cents an hour for work, when they could find work, a journey to an unknown state was like a trip to another continent today, and to be a demonstrator of a nice new Cadillac rated the status of an airplane or jet pilot today. |
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© Crimson Star, last updated on Friday, January 05, 2001 09:10 PM |
