Gas ration WW-2

[1930artdeco]

Like I always say-along with my parents and many other people-I was born about 4 decades to late. Or was I .......Keep the stories coming!

Mike

[bagpiper]

I still have my ration book from WWII. Some of the stamps are missing. It still has the water stain where I dropped it in the wash pot in the back yard. That was probably in 1943 or 1944. I walked the 2 miles to school when my parents would let me. They were afraid I would find a way to get in trouble on the way. The school building for my first 3 years was an old two-story building with no indoor plumbing. Our lunch room was an old quonset hut, but boy did we have good food. We never had a car then. Only a team of mules and a wagon. My dad bought his first truck, a '36 Chevrolet in 1946.

[Tom from Drippin']

Aha yes nickel cokes. "go for the distance"
As a kid, my buddies and I woud treat ourselves occasionly to a nickel coke at the corner store. We each would pull a coke from the cooler. Check the bottom of the bottle for the city in which it was made .... the guy who got the bottle made furthest from Galveston (our home) paid for all.

[Art Bjornestad]

I remember the small blue "coins" that were change from meat stamps, I think grocery change got red ones.

The speed limit was 35 nationwide during and right after the war.

[Big John]

Go to shorpy.com for many interesting photos andfacts...it changes dailey...

[2manycars]

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Originally Posted by Louis

I think i remember that people were ask to paint the top half of there head light's black where enemy aircraft could not see them incase of an air-raid, anyone else remember that?

I have a large collection of headlamp lenses, from about 1930 and older. I have a pair that have the top half painted black. I guess the car was at least 10 years old, as all the lenses I have are from when they were flat.

[Bruce,Upstate NY]

I wore cordoroy knickers and knee socks in the '30s. Remember how the cordoroy "whistled?" Used to get called Whistle Britches. They were warm, though.

[Louis]

I remember the old red rubber [real rubber that they quit making during the war] inner-tubes that were no longer serviceble that as kids we use to cut up and make sling shots out of...man! you could bust out a street light from 200 ft, [not that i did of course ]...and the left over red rubber we would put on a crude made wooden gun with a spring loaded clothes-pin as the trigger release......The dead'ley rubber gun .
My trusty horse Black'ey was a 1 by 1 piece of scrape wood about 5 ft. long with a piece of string for a harness...I look'ed just like Roy Rogers .

[bobpo]

About the toys, we made most of them. I recall one Christmas when my Dad built us kids a sled from old wood. It was the greatest remembered Gift of all time.

Gasoline was 17.9 cents. One-Room schoolhouse, teacher rode a buckboard to school. Half of the 46 kids in my school were full or part Indian native American type including us kids and were called "Blanket A--es. The other half had blond, brown, sandy or red hair and were called "Okies". (Ozark Mountains) Everyone got along fine with no outside interference. 1-8 graders. All in the same room. Two-seater divided outhouse, one for the girls and one for the boys.

My Grandma and Grandpa could be heard coming to our house in the woods from 2 miles away in his Model A Coupe, braking all the way down the hills. He never replaced the brake lining.

Things sure changed when we moved North........

[CWPASADENA]

I was just a kid during the war. Walked to school and helped my Dad and his partner after school at their Gas Station/Garage (Phillips 66). I always had to be careful to collect the stamps when someone bought gas. There was a provision for evaporation so the station owner always got a little extra to make up for what supposedly had evaporated so we always had a little extra gas. My Dad always had a few extra stamps for friends who were caught short. He was always buying and selling used tires and other stuff to keep the old cars running. He never threw anything away, somehow, everything was repaired that could be and the stuff that could not be repaired was saved for parts.

My Dad worked nights at Curtis-Wright and every so often, they would have a fighter plane come in for an engine change. Before they would bring them into the plant, they would empty all the tanks. Sometimes, he would bring some Avation Gas home with him. That stuff worker real good.

We raised chickens and had a big Victory Garden in the back yard. Lots of stuff was rationed but somehow, we would trade stuff around and we all got by. It helped that we had family who were farmers down in the country. They always had lots of good stuff to eat.

Most people today do not appreciate how the whole country was united in the War Effort.

Chris

[Dale Miller]

There is a web site that has printable gas ration stickers!!
go http://modelaford.tripod.com/gasstickers.html to print
some that look very original.

This site also has a lot of other Model A things that are
printable, such as cartoon drawnings.

Have fun!!

[Job]

OK it's been brought up so I have to tell the story! "up hill both ways" I heard that for years from my mom. Finally got to go to New Sweden, ME to see where she grew up and went to school. Her house was at the top of a hill and she had to walk down to the valley and up to the top of the next hill to get to school. HMM Up hill both ways!!! We got a good laugh about it at the time and for years afterwards. She had lots of fun telling me "See I told you so!"
She left New Sweden in 1930 at the age of ten, I took her back in 1970, forty years later, stopped at the general store as we pulled into town. We walked through the door, the clerk looked up and said "well Hi Rosella, nice to see you" as if she had never left! He suggested we stop at a local house where a kaffee klatch was happening. We walked up and knocked on the door, a lady opened the door, turned to the ladies inside and said "look everyone, Rosella's here" Mom felt like she'd never left, and it amazes me to this day! My great grandpa owned the Ford Garage in town. I have a cherished photo of Great Grandpa and Grandpa in front of the garage with a Model T
I have my dads mileage ration identification folder with C8a stamps in it. As well as Basic mileage ration A17 stamps. He was a construction worker.
Job

[fritznbud]

Boy am i enjoying your stories! I started a thread over at trifive after stumbling into videosurf the other day looking up my old days in N.E. Ohio. Eastlake is where i was raised. I am so happy to know, you Really can go back, for a wonderful walk down memory lane on this internet And i'm watching all my childhood on video, from Dorothy Fuldheim news to Ghoulardi, our local cool cat that left Cleveland for voice-over and friend Tim Conway gigs with Carol Burnett. A shout out to all fordbarners from the greastest place in the northeast, my hometown, Cleveland, Ohio. Memories that i wouldn't trade for the finest A in the land.

[bobpo]

Speaking of Model A's and Cleveland, I took a trip to the Cleveland Police Museum day before yesterday and talk about Memory Lane. Lots of memorabilia about the Old Time Gangsters and lots of them included Model A's. More than worth the trip. It's located right inside the front entrance of their Police Department

[Pete]

Here is a "C" sticker pic that a friend sent me a long time ago.
I have had a lot of fun with it over the years.
Check out the last check box.

[V4F]

i think i have some real ration stamps tucked away somewhere . .. steve

[Clydes 31 P/U]

Pete, I believe the last line makes that an Illinois ration stamp, other places would be more discreet.

[raceron1120]

Great stories fellas! I love hearing them from those who've 'been there', and 'done that'. No regrets on my part but I wasn't there.

Born in '51 so I guess it makes me a youngster compared to some of you all.

But still remember Dad telling us stories about 'back during the war'. He was born in '14 and we lost him in '86. He was 4F (perforated eardrums) but worked most of the WWII years in Pontiac MI at the GM plant, near the end of one of the assembly lines that built big trucks for the Army. He said he put the spare tires and boxes of parts & tools in the back of the trucks as they came down the line, then out for loading onto trains to be shipped out.

He and one of his friends carpooled the 20 miles or so to work and said they didn't have to worry about having enough gas. I still have some of his old ration stamps.

He drove a '37 Chevy pickup during the war years. Mom didn't have a car. He told me later that the first new vehicle he was able to buy after war was a '51 Ford panel truck. According to Mom it's what I came home in from the hospital.

My earliest memories of cars was Mom's worn out '37 or '38 Chevy that Dad bought for her. I still remember sitting alongside the roads, waiting for someone to pick us up because that old Chevy would quit. I don't remember why. But Dad finally got rid of it and got Mom a used '49 Ford, must've been in '54 or '55. He never bought anything but Fords after that.

[Terry, NJ]

I don't recall "Knickers"! Funny how in the UK, Knickers are women's underwear.
I got my first .22 on my 13th birthday.
I always heard how my Grandmother saved up her ration coupons for the ride "down the shore" we lived in north Jersey
$.02 for the bottles, $.27 for the wooden case $.02 X 24= $.48 + $.27=$.75. Yes we actually combed vacant lots and fields near the roads for old coke bottles.
Gas cost $23.9, Kerosene cost $.15 Our tractors could be run on kerosene, but it was too much trouble.
Henry Ford "Propagandized" that Ford-Ferguson system just to sell tractors
And more, much more!
Terry

Originally Posted by FL&WVMIKE

Does anyone else remember wearing "nickers", as a kid ?
How about $.05 Cokes or a six pack for $.25 ?
Going to a Saturday matinee, with a serial for $.10 ?
Hunting for thrown away bottles to collect the $.02 deposit ?
Or getting a firearm, usually a .22 cal., on your 12th birthday ?
If you remember these, you are as old as I am.
MIKE