Pops 1941 Ford Woody

By kiki

 My Pops 1941 Ford Woody is pictured above at Gallatin Rd, Pico Viejo (now Pico Rivera). That is my sister Annie hanging on, circa 1953

The wood where the left rear door hinges were screwed on was rotten, so the screws wouldn't hold. And whenever I made a right-hand turn, the door would fly open or off. When it would fly out, I would have to stop and pick the door from the street and slam it back in place. My buddies used to rag on me all the time because of the door. Nobody wanted to sit on the left rear seat. The brakes also were not that great. During the summer of 1952, I packed the woody with friends while cruising and listening to R&B's on the Hunter Hancock radio show in Old Pico. My friend Albino was sitting on the left rear seat. Coming down a small hill toward an intersection, I applied the brakes to the woody just as Fats Domino started singing, "I'm Going to the River," but the woody kept going. I approached the intersection at a pretty good clip, and as I made a fast right-hand turn, the left rear door flew open with Albino flying out; this was one of the times the door didn't fall off. Albino, as he was flying out, was able to grab and hold onto the top of the door; as we were rolling down the street, he was holding onto the open door and running alongside the woody, yelling at me, "kiki, stop the car" "I can't, the brakes don't work, I have to down-shift" I yelled back at him. After I finally stopped, the woody Albino was so pissed at me and was trying to beat me up as I was rolling on the ground laughing. I think he wet his skivvies.

One time I was taking my mom and a couple of her sisters to visit another sister. My Aunt Lupe was sitting left rear holding a baby, and as I made a fast right turn, the door flew off with Aunt Lupe and the baby flying out too. Aunt Lupe landed on her butt and bounced a couple of times without letting go of the baby. Aunt Lupe and the baby were okay, but she was mad and wanted to kill me; she handed the baby to my mom and started hitting me on the chest with her tiny fist as she screamed at me. She wouldn't get in the woody after that, and she carried the baby the mile or so to her sister's house.

In the late summer of 1952, my dad bought a 1950 Chevy, and I bought my first car, a 1938 Chevy, in the early fall of 1952. And while the woody still ran, it was not used. Then, in the summer of '53, Mom and Dad took a three-week vacation to Mexico, and while they were gone, a friend, Frankie, who drove a 1940-Ford asked me if I would sell him the woody's transmission and said he needed a tranny as his had gone south. He told me I'll pay you ten dollars later; that's fine, I told him. But, again, the woody was not used, so I told him to go ahead and drop the tranny, and that he could pay me later, he dropped the tranny in no time flat.

A few days after Mom and Dad got back from Mexico, Dad told Mom, "I'll be back in a bit, going to take the woody out for a spin; it hasn't been run for a while, and it needs to be run to keep the battery up." I was looking for a rock to crawl under; finding none, I told Pops, "Pop, you can't drive the woody."

"Why not"?

"You can't drive it without a tranny”

"What happened to the tranny”?

"I sold it."

He took it well and didn't get really pissed at me. Not long after that, he sold Old Woody.

I never got the ten dollars from Frankie!!