Almost every American over the age of 70 can tell some tale involving a Model T Ford. Truly ‘people’s cars,’ far in advance of the German concept of ‘Volkswagon,’ they were called Tin Lizzies, Tee Bones, Flivvers, and, sometimes, just Tees. They were the butts of jokes and the objects of kicks and curses, but over fifteen million of them were produced between 1908 and 1927 and most served their owners well. With a variety of body styles and a cast iron 20-horsepower engine that could burn gasoline, kerosene or alcohol, they were adaptable to a rural, agriculturally-based America without paved roads, and they could be maintained with the bag of simple tools that came with the car.

Who could forget the unique huff-puff sound of that low-compression engine and the buzz of the spark coils? There were just three pedals and lever on the floorboards that changed gears and applied the brakes, and you can look in vain for an accelerator pedal. The throttle was a lever on the steering column, under the steering wheel on the left side. On the opposite side a lever controlled spark advance and retard. (Heaven help you if you tried to crank the engine with the spark advanced; the kick could break an arm.) Yes, the controls were pretty simple, but those Model T cars and TT trucks were the low-cost, low-maintenance core of American transportation for a whole generation.

Built high above the ground, the Model T could be driven over rocks and stumps, across streams, and over ruts that would cripple most modern cars in minutes. Once at a work location, they could be lifted up on jacks and their rear wheels fitted to drive belts that powered saw mills and farm machinery. Not only that, there were direct power take-offs available that attached to the differential.

Within a few years of the Model T’s introduction, kits were sold by the Sears, Roebuck company and other retailers to spiff up its basic chassis with a sporty ‘roadster’ body, or even change it into a tractor. In any setting or modification, it was rugged, reliable, and affordable; providing a vital contribution to the needs of the growing population of middle-class Americans. By the mid-1920’s, a little over $250 would buy a new Model T that could travel up to 45 miles-per-hour while getting between 13 and 21 miles-per-gallon of low-cost gasoline.

Photographs of El Cajon dating between 1920 and 1930 show the predominance of Model T Fords on the streets, and one of them might have belonged to the Rices. In 1927, my newly-married parents drove their shiny new Model T coupe from San Francisco to El Cajon where my grandparents had bought property near the corner of Third and Lexington. This is the first car that I remember, and like most early childhood memories, I recall it only in the context of certain scenes. For example, there is a distinctive rock formation near Descanso that I can’t pass without a smile and reminiscing about my first encounter with snow. I remember shivering in the cold and warming my little hands on a heater that was strapped to the left front side of that car. Most peculiarly, my mother called my attention to a pile of snowballs someone had left behind, and for years thereafter, I thought that snow fell in balls, just like in the comic strips in the Union and Tribune newspapers.

When I was very small, my father sometimes had to work late, and my mother would sit by the living room window, rocking me and anxiously watching for those faint yellow Model T lights coming up the long driveway from Lexington Street to the house. My mother was a city girl, and being alone at night in the middle of a dark orange grove with no telephone was a source of terror for her. She later admitted keeping me up late so she would have some company while she waited.

Another flash memory dates to no later than 1932 when my father sold our work mare, Jill, to a man who lived on Mollison Avenue and agreed to deliver her. As my mother drove slowly down Washington Street, I stood on the seat next to her and watched out the back window, while my father followed on horseback. My mother never did have a license, but in those more relaxed days a lot of people had no official paper and a ‘chauffeur’s license’ for truck drivers was a metal badge that was worn on the hat.

The real ‘miracle machine’ at our place was a Model TT 1916 truck that apparently came with the place when my grandparents bought it. It could sit for months, even years, in the barn or outside in the weather, unused, its tires almost flat, its under-the-seat gas tank all but empty. But when it was needed to haul a load of manure from Stacy’s Dairy or bales of hay, my father would pump up the deflated tires, check it over for any problems (some caused by kids playing in it) and it would start on the first few cranks. The lack of doors and seatbelts would whiten the faces of today’s safety advocates, but no one worried about it at the time. Even though I was fascinated by the buzz and blue sparks of the spark coils in a box on the firewall, my Daddy insisted that I sit on the bench seat beside him and not move when the truck was moving.

I’ve long since forgotten why we made trips to Lakeside and crossed the long wooden bridge across the San Diego River, but one memory persists. Yes, even today, when I cross that long modern concrete bridge on Highway 67, I hear the spark coil’s buzz, the hollow puff of a Model T engine, and the rattle of bridge planks under the tires.

My friends and I often abused that old TT as we scrambled over it playing cops-and-robbers. Worse yet, I practiced my youthful mechanical skills by removing parts from its engine and body ‒ parts that my father had to bolt back on before the truck could be driven. The end of our old Ford truck, like so many others, was a matter of transformation. My father traded the engine to a neighbor who needed it to drive a pump, and in exchange, the neighbor turned the bed and wheels into a trailer to haul sprinkler pipes. Today, you can still buy original Model T and TT parts from any number of automobile supply houses. Their forms persist as proof that most old flivvers never died; they just morphed into new hot rods, new machinery and automotive immortality.

Chug on in peace, old friends.