1956

Do you really need a name?

  A better year for sure.  We moved from Cincinnati to a small town, Milford, Ohio.  A brand new house and other kids my age nearby, thing were looking up.  The only problem, for us, was the water; there were no wells or city water in the subdivision.  Each house had a single or double car garage, and under the garage was a cistern, a holding tank, that held the rain water from the roof, that's it.  If you ran out of water you called a company that sold water, a tank truck came and filled the cistern; just like a heating oil delivery if you heat with oil, or trucks bringing gasoline to filling stations.
  I spent most of our two summers there camped out in the woods with my friends.  Mom had to check me for ticks every morning; it was just like having a dog - check for ticks.  School at Milford High School was a lot better, there were about a hundred in my class.  An, really exciting, added benefit was that a car dealer asked the school to send two boys to work for them after school and weekends.  They picked me, reason unknown, to work for the Service Manager, Accountant and Parts Manager, another kid went to the Mechanics.  That job, and the inventory in grade 7, shaped my entire work life.  The job was great, it paid one dollar and hour - that was good money in 1956-1958, the work was varied, a day as a service writer, a day with the accountant, I did payroll every week, and a day in the parts department all of which I liked to do.  No surprise then that the Navy made me an Aviation Storekeeper, or that my degree (much later) was in business.
  So that was it, school, work and a little time off, in my car a 1948 Ford.  That's the car Tehachapi Pete has been driving all these years!  Oh yeah, and girls, a dance every Friday night at the school and a ride to Shoney's Big Boy, they had car hops and good burgers - I'd like one right now, and it's 3:30 in the morning!

Fiat produced a car and boat in the same vehicle, notice the boat type seats in back. - click

With 500 hours of wages I could buy this 21 inch TV - click

Top five hits of 1956, want to sing along?