Paul Richardson: The look alike

It was a Tuesday Breakfast Run when the goodwife and I came across a 1946 Ford Coupe. I never owned a 1946 Ford Coupe, but my first car was a 1958 Volvo 444 and it was identical in appearance to the ‘46 Ford Coupe only smaller physical dimensions. The chance meeting turned into a greater coincidence as the Ford Coupe was the same color as I had painted my Volvo.

My relationship with the Volvo began in Muskogee, Oklahoma. My father’s brother, my Uncle Glen lived in Muskogee and had a knack of finding some unusual cars. 

While I had visions of what my first car should be, others, namely my father had a different perspective. I was so eager to possess my own car that I was willing to put my vision aside and yield to different perspectives believing that at some point in the future I would be able to pursue that vision once again. Little did I know how life was going to unfold. 

Uncle Glen worked his magic and found me not one but three cars. They came as a package deal. a couple ’57 Volvos and the ’58 Volvo. 

Off to Muskogee we go to retrieve the cars or as it turned out the “car”. After making the purchase of the three car package, we were able to select the car that I wanted to keep, remove all the parts that we wanted, including a spare engine, and then sell the remainder of the lot for salvage. 

By the time all the wheeling and dealing was completed, I owned a car, a spare engine, and a pickup load of parts for a mere eighty dollars.

The journey home was almost uneventful. I say almost. The car ran fine, and we had the trunk and rear seat stuffed with spare parts. Not wanting to push this “classic” too hard we didn’t return by way of the normal route from Muskogee to Big Cabin and then up the turnpike to the Afton exit; instead we turned off at Pryor and passed through Spavinaw, over to Jay, to Southwest City and onward to home. 

It was between Southwest City and Noel as I was climbing the hill from Saratoga Springs when the freak incident occurred. A rear tire suddenly went flat. That in itself was not a surprise as the “old rags” on the vehicle, while not only worn, but had been sitting for a while. It was a major inconvenience, as a significant amount of parts had to be unloaded in order to get to a jack and the spare, but it was when the cause of the flat was determined that weirdness surfaced.

Once the tire was removed, it was easy to determine that the flat had been caused by a spoon. Yes, a simple piece of flatware left abandoned on the road had punctured the tire and rendered it useless.

So, Tuesday upon seeing the ’46 Ford Coupe, I made it a point to check the road for spoons!

(Paul Richardson's column, The Horse I Rode In On, is published weekly in the Neosho Daily News, Seneca News-Dispatch, Aurora Advertiser and on the Turner Report.)