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| "The Deacon," a 1936 Ford convertible |
That is the famous "hoopee". Stick shift, mechanical brakes that were the very dickens to adjust, a fabulous rumble seat, well worn leather upholstery--a great car to drive. Dad bought this used car for us (for the three older boys as we were able to drive) and the first summer Richard and I drove out West in it. It had a brand new set of tires when we started. I dropped off in Kansas City to work for the summer, and Rich drove on out to southern Utah to work for UP on the North Rim. [In those days, Union Pacific ran the western national park concessions in the summer.] Obviously RG put lots of miles on our car because when he returned the tires were virtually bald. He can tell you about his excursions in the Southern Utah Desert country.
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| Richard as "janitor" at Bryce Canyon Lodge |
I was married so did I not drive the car as much as Rich and Walt. I did contribute a gear shift knob replacement. The plain old black plastic knob was removed and replaced with a nice large carved walnut stylistic turtle head that fit into your hand just right. [The turtle was evidently the original "Deacon."]
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| Gerald Leroy Scott with The Deacon |
Walt is the one that really kept the hoopee running for a good while. Among other things he replaced those hideous mechanical brakes with a set of air brakes. The hissing air sounded like a truck every time you stopped. Walt can tell you about some of his excursions--with his double bass when he played in a dance band and his trip up to the end of terra firma in Northeastern Canada.
Lots of great memories from Dad's investment in his boys.
RICHARD (His memories from a taped interview with Mary Lee)
That car is “The Deacon,” a 36 Ford. The gear shift was a turtle head. It had a rumble seat. Boy, that was a great car! My brothers and I shared it while we were teenagers.
I would sleep in the car when I was driving all over the canyons near Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon. I worked as a chef at the lodge in Bryce Canyon.
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| Richard, circa 1948 |
The drivers’ seat had a very high back and I would sit on the top of the back when I was driving on small roads. I would pull out the throttle, sit on the top of the seat, and steer with my feet on back roads. [Richard explains to Mary Lee: The throttle has a little knob and you can adjust it for how fast the engine runs. It's connected to the accelerator; you pull it out and it stays fixed.]
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| Richard in his chef's hat on a back road |
One day I was following little trails and I went around the corner, and there was a sheep herder with his equipment. He was surprised and so was I! I dropped down and put my foot on the brake. It was the end of the road, so I turned around.
Mary Lee: Did you make any modifications to the car or was it just Walt who made the modifications?
Richard: He made the positive modifications, I made the negative ones.
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| Richard fixes a problem with the Deacon |
Once a rock came up, hit the fan, bent the fan blade, cut into the radiator core. It caused the radiator to begin to leak so I had to go in there carefully with needle nosed pliers and squeeze off all of those things that I could. Then I got some stuff called “Never Leak” and put it in the radiator. By carrying extra water we got around until it kind of sealed itself.
When we got back to the city [Washington, D.C.], we would divide the use of the car among us. (Richard remembers taking Jeanene on dates in the car, sometimes accompanied by her little niece, Andrea Watkins.)
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| Richard and Andrea, Jeanene's niece, in the Deacon |
I remember when we went to get that car. We had a new engine put in, a rebuilt engine. Dad was so good to let us have that car.
Walter would put his bass back in the rumble seat and go off to play in dance bands. He really had a terrific ear for music and the ability to play string bass. He was very good on the string bass, playing it with little musical groups. Wayne won a contest and had a chance to sit in for an hour or two with Tommy Dorsey’s band, probably a rehearsal session.
WALTER
Well, Mary Lee got this going and Gerald added some important facts, so I guess I need to make a contribution.
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| Walter in the Deacon |
The mechanical brakes were awful. The air brake system was taken from an old Ford truck of the same model year (1936) and included a compressor that ran off of the intake manifold vacuum, a storage tank and some actuators. It was a fun modification but still used the mechanical brakes so it didn't solve the problem. Friend of mine told me that the 1939 Fords had hydraulic brakes that would fit directly on our car without modification except for adding hydraulic brake pedal, master cylinder and lines. Finally we had brakes. The next problem was the steering. The original steering column had a really poor friction gearbox. I was able to replace it with a steering column from a junked car, which had a much better ball bearing gear box. For a while I had the original steering column "installed" in the rumble seat area so we looked like one of those big hook and ladder fire trucks with two steering wheels. The generator was also a very poor design. I did a number of things with that thing trying to solve the problem, including a separate manually controlled field excitation circuit, different pulleys to increase the speed, etc. Never got it quite right.
One summer Craig Carpenter, the son of our stake president, and I drove out to Utah to get him to BYU. We camped along the way. One night, in the middle of the night we were very rudely awakened by a speeding train. Seems we stopped after dark and didn't realize that we were only a few feet from the train tracks!
Gerald also mentioned a trip I made to Canada that followed the Erie canal route clear to the Northeastern tip of Canada to Riviere du Loup, a Catholic shrine in French speaking Canada. I recall going into a little country store one morning to buy some cereal and milk. Before I realized what was happening, they had spread a table cloth on the little counter and had filled a cereal bowl with rice krispies and milk! My communication skills were a bit wanting. At another point on the trip I was watching a boat go through one of the locks along the water way. I turned around to find several young men, carefully examining the car. They wanted to buy it on the spot! In Montreal I was trying to see the sights by following two American tour buses. At one point they stopped and suggested that I get between the two buses to complete the "guided tour." Some fun!
That car held a lot of memories!
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| Richard and Walter |
MITCHEL
The turtle’s head was the Deacon. The car was the Deacon’s masterpiece.
It was a dream to drive. You could jump start it in the Porter street driveway with a roll of less than one foot.
I can tell you how it left the family. I have never had a car that was as much fun to drive. I was the last driver. One day, Dad told me he thought we needed a station wagon to take things back and forth to the farm. The next thing I knew, he told me we were going to buy the station wagon. He had found a used Rambler wagon and already made the deal to trade in the masterpiece. I remember well the look on the used car lot guy as he got in the car to drive it behind his building.
A Cheshire cat couldn’t grin like he did. He had that “I’ve just won the lottery” look on his face. I am sure he thought he had pulled one over on Dad, but that never happened.
I have reflected on why he sold the car. As was Dad’s habit, he didn’t say much about it, but as I learned by observing him in other such situations, he always did things in what he considered the best interests of his boys. My conclusion: he just didn’t want there to be any chance at all that his boys might ever have a disagreement over who would be the ultimate owner. The vehicle was never as valuable as his boys in Dad’s mind and he wasn’t going to take a chance on that ever happening, so he sold it as I approached time to leave home.
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| The Deacon |
We are blessed to have parents who were totally focused on their family and especially giving their boys an opportunity to develop their talents, to learn how to do things for ourselves and along the way, taught us to be honest and to be responsible. They trusted us to do what was right and enforced it with Mom’s gentle reminder to “Remember who you are” as we would leave home.
They were the perfect parents for me and I suspect my brothers feel the same way.
