The Big Race

By Ken Neal

May 2013

After Pearl Harbor, American automakers quit making cars and turned to airplanes, tanks and other war machines.

A relative few 1942 model autos were built after the fall introduction in 1941, but mostly, the American civil population had to make do with the vehicles they had at the outbreak of war.

When production resumed following the end of the war in August 1945, the 1946 models were basically 1942 designs with cosmetic changes, things like grills, bumpers, etc.

Our 1939 Chevy had served us well during the war but of course dad was dying to have another car. He went to work for American Airlines in January 1946 and so had a steady job. He set his sights on a new Chevy. 

These were the days of the Big Three in Detroit, about the only place where autos were produced, given the war devastation in Japan and Europe.

Detroit had a virtual monopoly on auto making. The 1948 Chevrolets were hardly changed from the 1942 models, except cosmetically. The same was true for other General Motors products, as well as Ford and Chrysler offerings.

The big competition was between Ford and Chevy.

Ford continued to rely on its famous flathead V-8 engine, developed in 1932 by Henry Ford himself.

Chevrolet’s engine was the Stove Bolt Six, and overhead valve engine first introduced in 1929. The Ford V-8 survived until 1955. Chevy’s Stove Bolt lasted until 

1963.

The hot argument between auto enthusiasts was the Ford/Chevy comparison.

Typically, Ford contended the Ford was faster, which they usually were. Chevrolet fans usually would fall back on the claim that the famous Fisher body of Chevrolets was sturdier and more stylish. Chevy fans claimed the Ford’s single leaf springing was old-fashioned and rough riding.

My father, a mechanic in his early years, liked Chevrolets because the engine was easy to maintain and major overhauls were much easier on the Chevies.

Ford, for example, until 1953 had distributors low in the front of the engine. The crankshaft turned the distributor. These distributors required removal of the entire unit and calibration by Ford agencies.

Chevrolet, other the other hand, had a conventional distributor. Distributor points and condensers, which wore quickly, could be changed easily.

According to my father and other car buffs, Ford had a superior carburetor, a two-barrel Holly. Chevrolet, until 1949, had a Carter carburetor that was notoriously “cold-natured” and difficult to keep in tune.

These carburetor and distributor facts are important to my main topic, the Great Race at American Airlines. I can’t remember the exact date. It could have been in 1948, since the new Chevies came out in the fall. I remember our vacation of 1949 vividly, though. We heard the heavyweight championship fight between Joe Louis and Joe Walcott on the Chevy radio.

The Ford-Chevy debates were a constant at the AA overhaul base. By this time, Dad had established a reputation as a Chevrolet mechanic and in his spare time was doing semi-major overhauls on the Stove Bolt Sixes. 

I will write a separate account of Neal’s garage activities in Sand Springs. 

The “boys” at American cooked up a race. When AA moved to Tulsa from New York in 1946, many mechanics and supervisors transferred to Tulsa. Most of them were natives of the New York area, including my dad’s foreman at the time, one Joe Hadka.

Joe Hadka had a nearly new 1947 Ford. He bragged about how fast it was, even bringing in a photograph showing the Ford speedometer at 100.

I am not sure of what led up to the race, but Dad found himself challenged. He was no novice to racing. He had started racing autos (on the streets and highways) years before. He “souped up” a Model T by installing a Frontenac head that converted the T to overhead valves.

He used the old T to outrun a new Model A from Tulsa to Keystone in the early 1930s. That’s another story.

Pop was convinced that Ford speedometers were purposely calibrated to show the car going faster than it was actually.

Still, the photo of the Ford speedometer was a bit disconcerting. It was a fact that a Ford properly tuned would probably outrun most Chevrolets because Chevies usually were held back by infrequent distributor tuning and those loggy old Carters. Chevrolet starting making their own carburetors in 1949, by the way, replacing the Carters. 

Once the race was agreed to, the “boys” staged a production. The arguments and smart cracks occupied the bulletin board and the individual arguments abounded, always with a little “horsing around.”

A day was set. It seems to me it was in the summer, but it could have just been a warm fall or spring day.

A race route was determined. The cars would start from the Traffic Circle at Admiral Place, run north on Mingo Road for two or three miles to finish near the AA facility on Mingo.

Men were designated to stop traffic at the intersecting streets for safety reasons.

I suspect a bit of gambling went on, although I must say Dad was not so confident that he bet any money on the race. 

I was 13 or so and of course a Chevrolet man just like my dad. I knew a bit about those old Chevies from helping him, and I was very proud of our Chevy torpedo sedan. It was a black beauty that Dad and I kept gleaming. It had a set of red custom seat covers that were de rigueur of the day. Similarly, it had a Fulton sunshade over the front window. Now, there were other sunshades, but Fultons were the most stylish and popular.

Dad “tuned” the Chevy, setting the engine timing a bit fast and making sure the Carter carburetor was properly adjusted.

He put 40 pounds of air in the tires that usually carried about 28 pounds per square inch. There was one thing more. We took the Fulton sunshade off to eliminate as much wind drag as possible.

There was a mile stretch of concrete pavement west of Sand Springs on what we called the Wekiwa Road. It was not heavily traveled and so became kind of a testing strip for us.

I went with Pop to “preflight” the Chevy. It made 85 miles an hour in that mile. The engine was running great.

Pop set out for work that day. He was on an afternoon shift that I think started at 2 p.m. I am not sure what time the race was to start but before the afternoon shift, of course.

I badly wanted to go, but would not have had a way home afterward, so I had to stay home.

Dad won, and as he had promised, he called me to tell me so.

Later, I heard all about it.

The “boys” had set the rules. The race started from a dead stop, continuing the approximately 2 miles on Mingo.

The Chevrolet had a vacuum advance on the shifter of the three-speed transmission. Most people had a little trouble because the vacuum booster could be a little slow if one didn’t know how to use it.

But pop knew how to use it and use it fast.

“I got him in low, increased the lead when we went to second and pulled ahead by the time we were in high,” he said.

There is an underpass at a railroad track on Mingo. I guess it was about midway of the race. 

“When we went under the railroad the speedometer was showing 92,” Pop said. Sure enough, the Ford was registering that 100.

Joe Hadka wanted to rerun the race. He was sure he had just been outdriven, which he had.

“We ran two more times and I beat him both times,” Pop beamed.

Joe Hadka never held that race against pop, although he was dad’s superior. In fact, he was pleased to have Dad in his department.

I must say that Dad quickly established himself as perhaps the best mechanic on the base. He hired in as a Junior Mechanic, quickly passed tests to become a Mechanic, Senior Mechanic and Inspector. As Inspector, he was one of the top quality control guys at AA the last 20 years of his career. 

The Great Race of course established his reputation as the “go to” guy on cars and we got all the old Chevies we wanted to overhaul.

The day after the race this notice appeared on the bulletin board:

FOR SALE:

ONE 1947 FORD

ONE FULTON SUN SHADE

In 1953, it was good for a laugh
by Kenneth Neal

The Tulsa World
January 2, 2000

Early in 1953, I walked into the Tulsa World newsroom to stay, off and on, for 47 years, more or less. It was but an eye-blink ago.

There are many memories of the old newsroom of those days; that is fortunate because it exists today only in memory. Nothing, except the hard walls of the third floor of the World Building, remains of that newsroom.

And what a newsroom it was. For a high school newspaper editor of 17, the World was big time, never mind that the job I sought was the absolute bottom level of the newspaper hierarchy with a starting salary of $27.50 per week.

I was there because my high school journalism teacher and close friend, the late John R. Roberson, was a University of Missouri classmate of the late Ed Johnson, head of the department of journalism at the University of Tulsa and the man who routed TU students into part-time jobs at the World. They wanted to be sure I attended TU the following fall.

I was hired on the spot, not because of any special talent, but because the World was desperate for a copy boy and Ed Johnson had sent me.

I still lay claim to being the best copy boy in Tulsa World history, although there are those who dispute that and still others who would observe that that might have been the last job at which I was the very best. There are not as many of them as there once were, however.

This is not a story of my beginnings on the Tulsa World as such, but about a conversation on that night nearly 47 years ago that I have thought about many times as the end of the century drew near.

Lee Erhard was managing editor. Sid Steen was city editor. Both are gone now. In the cramped little newsroom, they sat at adjoining linoleum-topped desks, only a loud conversation apart in the midst of clacking typewriters, the chatter of teletypes and the cackle of the police radio.

Christmas 1945

by Kenneth Neal

It was Christmas 1945 and I had come through World War II unscathed.

That wasn’t hard for a boy of 10.
Yeah, I bought stamps for war bonds, saved scrap iron and aluminum foil and shared the lack of gasoline, tires, shoes, meat, sugar and all those things that were rationed. In that war, citizens were expected to sacrifice, as were the young men who fought it.
My most enduring memory of the war is not the lack of toys during the war, but the Christmas when the toy floodgate opened and real toys were available.
I shudder to think what my dad paid for my two most memorable Christmas toys that year.
Then I remember, that for all his own contributions to the war effort, he was barely 30 years old and a child of the Great Depression. He wanted a toy or two himself.
So he splurged.

The Caterpillar purchased by Fred Neal - Christmas 1945

I got a wind-up metal toy caterpillar, complete with rubber treads. I got a working model of a steam engine. I have played with them since and plan to unwrap them and play with them this Christmas.
Dad bought a giant-sized Tinkertoy construction set (for you young whippersnappers, Tinker toys were stone-age Erector sets). We built windmills and wheels, all powered by the steam engine. When full of water brought to a boil by an electric heating element, the miniature engine generated a tenth of a horsepower. At least that’s what the literature said.
We had spools and windmills connected with string running all over the front room. What a great thing my mother must have thought that was!
As the years went by, I quit playing with the Caterpillar and the steam engine. But dad kept them. And true to his skill as a mechanic, he kept them in working order. Several times through the years he disassembled the “Cat” to oil the wind-up mechanism. He polished the brass and chrome of the steam engine and preserved it with oil.
He kept them wrapped and boxed for more than 30 years and on more than one Christmas we hauled them out to play with them. We must have been a sight; grown men playing with toys and memories.
I will not have Dad this Christmas. But I still have the toys, oil and shined and read to go. And the memories of Christmases past.

John Patrick Neal

Christmas 2012

John Patrick Neal with Santa (December 9, 2012)

"Pop" - Part 3

by Kenneth W. Neal

Fred, Fannie & Ken Neal with the 1939 Chevrolet - Sand Springs, OK (1946)

Automobiles

     

     Pop grew up with automobiles, unlike his own father who was a “mule man” and never comfortable with autos. Radford Neal was born in 1880 and so was 40 years old in 1920 when cars came along in earnest.
     I know how bad it sounds (there’s a phrase right out of my dad’s mouth) to brag, but, as he would say, let me tell you a little story or rather several stories about pop and autos. 

     The earliest were of course told me by Pop.
     He told me that when he was about 13, which would have been about 1927, that he jacked up a Model T and pulled the oil pan on the engine. Then he fired the T up, got back under it to look at the engine while it was running to see how the engine worked.
     He knew enough to do this for only a minute because the engine was running without oil.
     By this time he was the family chauffeur
     It was about this time that a relative came to visit. I can’t remember whether it was an aunt or a grandma, but his father, busy in the fields as usual, sent pop into town to pick the woman up at the train station.
    At first she refused to ride with pop because he was so little, but she relented.
    My Uncle Virgil remembers that he and pop were in a Model T and the rest of the family in another vehicle in one of those nomadic moves from one farm to another.
    They were fording a river, probably one of the Canadian rivers. Once started across, it would have been disastrous to have stopped, so pop was “flogging” the T. In the jouncing and bouncing, some mattress springs slid forward from the top of the load in the touring car.
    “It was my job to hold up the springs,” Virgil told me some 75 years later.

It's the Little Things that Make the Difference - Part 1

by J. Howard Bray - 1968

FORWARD

     The writer does not attempt to say that the following words and thoughts in the next twenty-four chapters of this book are the perfect way to sell.

     His only thought is that there are basic fundamental rules or ways of doing anything, and once learned the personality of the individual added, plus some hard work and maybe perspiration and inspiration with some serious though and with the few reminders that follow they will help to make more sales and an increase in your income.

     The author has spent a life-time in all phases of selling. He has written many articles of the inspirational and motivation nature and is now Sales Representative for Bartlett-Collins Co., of Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

     In 1967 he was recipient of the Company's DSA award for sales performance.

CHAPTER I

SELLING - WHAT IS IT?

     Yes, what is it? What makes the world go round, in the world of commerce of exchange between peoples?

     Many times you have heard the expression:  "I can't sell or I would make a poor salesman, or maybe I just don't have the nerve to ask anyone to buy something from me."

Civil War Trails

The John Wilkes Booth Escape Route - Part 1

November 21, 2009

As part of a comprehensive tour of Civil War sites in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia during a week in November 2009 -- with my brother-in-law Tim Danklef (aka, 21st Century Stonewall Jackson) -- we re-traced the John Wilkes Booth escape route from Ford's Theatre through Maryland and ending at Garrett's Farm in Virginia.  

Booth was on the run for 12 days after Lincoln's assassination, utilizing an assortment of Confederate sympathizers to help him travel throughout southern Maryland and Virginia.  I have always found it interesting that eastern Maryland had more Confederate supporters than western Maryland, a fact that hindered the Army of Northern Virginia at Antietam during the Maryland Campaign in 1862 and in the Gettysburg Campaign in 1863.

We started early in the morning on a Saturday at Ford's Theatre.  The Theatre has a museum in the basement that has recently been renovated.  It has some interesting artifacts from the assassination of President Lincoln, including the .44 caliber Derringer used to shoot Lincoln in the head and one of the boots that Booth wore the night of the assassination. My favorite artifact in the museum is the Brooks Brothers wool coat that was made for Lincoln's second inauguration and that he had with him the night of the assassination.

"Pop" - Part 2

by Kenneth W. Neal

Fred R. Neal in his garden - Sand Springs, OK 

The Ritual

My father hurried into the house with a sprightly, but reluctant gait, as if there was a bit of pain, which there often was. All the Neal men for several generations had the peculiar walk and the unusual physique that went with it. The upper body was a bit too large for the legs and the arms were carried as if they were slightly heavy.

Pop described the walk as "hunching along." It made the Neal men look - at a distance - a lot older than they were. Pop’s hunch was a little more pronounced. He'd been thrown by a horse at 15 and had suffered through two lower back operations.

The work day at American Airlines' big maintenance base at Tulsa had been routine. After a day of parts, paperwork and the smells of solvent, he was ready for the garden. It was 4 p.m. and there was still hours of June sun, time enough to get a lot done.

He thought of what he needed to do in the garden tonight. The tomatoes, his specialty, were up and thriving with blooms and small tomatoes showing. They needed a bit of spraying; blossoms needed a shot of blossom set and maybe it wouldn't hurt to work in a little fertilizer in the rows between them.

Neal Family Archive Home Movies

Movie Trailer:  California Trip 2011

Neal Family Archive Letters

California Trip 2011

To:  John P. Neal

From: Kenneth W. Neal

May 2, 2011

Dear John Patrick:

I write this after reading your father’s well-written account of the 5,900-mile western odyssey of grandfather, father and son. 

I can’t add much, if anything, to his account, but I will take this opportunity to tell you a bit about your father. 

But first, I ask a few favors of you: When you read this many years hence, perhaps when your dad is 75, please make snotty remarks about how older drivers should be kept off the road! 

Secondly, make fun of him because his hearing is failing. Finally, in general, treat him like your dullard child. In fact, he will be acting as if he is because in addition to his hearing, his health and memory will be in decline. 

And above all, watch his turn signal indicator like a hawk, and if he leaves it on an instant too long, jump his old skinny butt like a chicken on a June bug. 

For good measure, you might laugh anytime you get a chance at his skinny legs. As matter of fact, they are pretty skinny right now. 

And, you might laugh at his pot belly, his gray hair (if he has any) and his inability to walk very far. And you might show your boredom when he tells his stories. 

I am not sure what advances in electronics and other devices will be around when he is 75, but be sure and laugh at his efforts to operate same while simultaneously putting on his reading glasses with semi-crippled hands. 

Do these things for me and you will help me get even with your father. He deserves it. 

Neal Family Archive Letters
California Trip 2011

To:  John P. Neal
From: Patrick W. Neal

April 25, 2011

John:

Grandpa Ken and I just got back from taking you on an 11-day driving trip from Houston to California.  I thought I would write down some highlights of the trip before we all forget and since you will likely not remember most of what you experienced.  

Grandpa Ken drove down to Houston to pick us up in his 2010 Infiniti QX-56. This was the same car we had taken to Yellowstone National Park in August 2010 and you named this car T-Rex because it was so big. It had a drop- down DVD player for the back seat passenger and throughout this trip and our previous trip you really liked watching DVD's in the backseat. One drawback to this was that to start or change a DVD, the car had a safety feature which required that the car be in park and that the emergency brake be engaged. Therefore, anytime you wanted a DVD changed or re-started we would have to pull over and completely stop the car. 

At the time of this trip the price of gasoline had recently appreciated to over $4.00 a gallon and T-Rex unfortunately required a lot of gas, only averaging about 15 miles per gallon. By the time Grandpa Ken returned home to Tulsa (after dropping us off in Houston) we had tallied approximately 5,900 miles. 

Review:  Fujitsu's LifeBook

by Diane Young

BW ONLINE DAILY BRIEFING April 13, 1999 Review: Fujitsu's LifeBook -- Welcome in This Bag of Law Books   The B112 mini-notebook is smart-looking, performs well, and weighs a lot less than this student's legal texts. There was muttering in the office cube across from mine a few days ago -- muttering so persistent that it was distracting. Curious, I went to look. Huddled over a midget gadget were three reporters. The object of attention was so small that I assumed it was some sort of electronic planner or palm-size electronic calendar. But no, this was better. My colleagues had been mesmerized by a small, silver, mini-notebook from Fujitsu, the B112 LifeBook. I have to admit I've never cared about laptops, notebooks, or any other electronic gear that has to be hauled around. I really, really like my desktop computers at home and at work, and so far my paper calendar is doing just fine as my personal, portable organizer. I was immediately taken with this compact-size notebook, however. It just looked so cool. If I had to compare the LifeBook to anything else, it would be to a puppy or a Tamagochi: Once I had it at my desk, visitors came by to look, touch it, play with it, and take it home (no house training necessary). But how did it perform?

"Pop" - Part 1

by Kenneth W. Neal

       I write about my father to tell others, particularly my own children, of an unusual and interesting man, flawed, to be sure, but outstanding in his understanding of human nature. But his story is difficult to tell apart from his own father, and for that matter, apart from me.
      It has occurred to me only recently that his story includes his father’s story and that my own story encompasses them both.
      I feel a bit awkward making my father the central character in my own life and memories, because it seems I am neglecting my mother. But there will be time and space to talk about her. She played a leading role in his life and quite obviously, mine.

Fred R. Neal (approximately 1932) with unknown lady.

      Maybe I should start with my earliest memories, not so much because they are so unusual, but because they will help to understand my father, hereinafter referred to variously as “pop,” “dad” or sometimes “the old man.”
      I was born September 26, 1935, in the “east basin” near Mannford, Okla., on an oil lease pumped by my mother’s father, Ray Ingalls. My birth certificate, signed by a Dr. McDonald, lists the place of birth in Cimarron Township, Pawnee County.
      Keystone and Mannford were my dad’s early “stomping grounds,” and some of the stories about him are from before he married my mother July 11, 1934.
      My father was a great story teller, taking great pains, not to mention time, to tell me much about his early life and his own father, Radford Andrew Neal, who died in November 1937.
      I have no memory of Radford, or “Rad,” as most called him, but I know him. That’s because pop told me so much about him.
      It wasn’t that dad consciously decided that his only child should know the family history, it was that he remembered his own father with such fondness that he constantly recalled what he said and did. The good times and the bad times were never far from his mind. I believed and still believe my father told the truth as he understood and remembered it.
      Only recently, I ran into one of his old cronies at American Airlines, who volunteered to tell me that “Fred Neal was the most honest man I ever knew.”
      That impressed me, of course, but it also reassured me that the many stories and anecdotes my dad told me were not only funny or unusual, but true.
      I struggle with how to unfold this tale, so I return to my first memory: It involves the Rock Inn and a few hazy memories.
      Some time around 1936, dad found work “running” a filling station (as they were known then and for years afterward) next door to the Rock Inn, which was just outside the old town of Keystone, now deep under the waters of Keystone Lake.

     There were cabins on the rise behind the service station and the nearby roadside cafe. The cafe was something out of a scene in the “Grapes of Wrath,” yet to be written, of course.
     But it had a juke box and a long bar common to roadside diners. That’s all I remember. I am not too sure I remember that, even. Probably my folks told me about it and that has influenced my memory.
     But I do remember this: Pop had a Model A Ford. He would start the old Ford and park it beside the station to let it warm up, which took a considerable time.
     That’s where I came in. The Model A needed to be “choked” during the warmup period to keep it running.
     A Model A had a choke rod through the firewall to the carburetor (I later learned) and dad put me in the right seat to operate the choke. When the engine begin to sputter, I pulled the choke to keep it running. That I could detect this and keep the engine running “tickled my dad to death” as they say, and he must have done this a lot because I remember it.

Donny & Marie, The Site

by Diane Young

BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE: DAILY BRIEFING - NOVEMBER 17, 1998
WEB REVIEW: DONNY & MARIE, THE SITE It seemed like a regular day as I went through the BW Online mail (the printed variety). Then I pulled out a bright colored postcard, and there they were: Donny and Marie Osmond, smiling broadly and promoting their new Web site, which is called donnyandmarie.com. Excited (and mildly embarrassed), I purloined the card from a co-worker's mail and took a covert look-see. As a child I had loved plunking down in front of the tube to catch the Donny & Marie Show. I wanted to look like Marie. I wanted to marry Donny. I wanted Donny's purple socks. Looking forward to seeing how my idols had weathered the intervening 20 years, I typed the url into my browser.  Bummer. The www.donnyandmarie.com site is really a companion to the duo's new daytime show, Donny & Marie, which premiered on Sept. 21. I had heard of the show but hadn't seen it, and the site sounded like a way to check it out. Alas, Donny, I hardly knew you. I understand why a show needs a Web site -- for PR purposes, mostly. But it probably helps if it's a good Web site. Why ruin your chances for renewed stardom by disappointing aging twentysomethings like me? The site's pages are attractive enough, laid out well, and easy to navigate. But the content is lighter weight than the lyrics of an old Donny & Marie song. Come to think of it, that isn't fair. A typical D&M song lasts three minutes. It requires a full five minutes to take in the entire Web site. Lynda Keeler, head of Columbia TriStar Interactive (which produces both the show and the Web site from Los Angeles) thinks there'll be more to see after the show is on for awhile and the producers get a better feel for what interests the audience. O.K. But aren't people looking at this site because what mainly interests them is Donny & Marie? Hel-lo-o!

Finding Michelangelo

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1654)

Madonna of the Stairs

Created:  1491

Dimensions:  22.3 in x 15.8 in

Current Location: Casa Buonarroti - Florence, Italy

Visited: September 2005

After our initial visit to Italy in 2004 I became somewhat obsessed with all things Michelangelo. This led to another trip to Italy in September 2005 and on this trip I was determine to see nearly every Michelangelo work of art that was in Italy. Over the next few weeks I will try to write a blog entry for every Michelango work of art that we visited in the chronological order of their creation.  Keep in mind that I have no formal art training, so consider my opinions as someone who is basically viewing these works as a tourist.

Madonna of the Stairs  is now accepted as Michelangelo's earliest surviving piece and was sculpted when he was around 15 years old. The scene depicts Mary and Child in front of stairs.  The muscular definition of the Child's arm will become on of Michelangelo's signature styles in sculpture and painting. 

Madonna of the Stairs is located at Casa Buonarroti which was Michelangelo's house in Florence. Now a museum, it houses many of his early works. I was surprised by how small the sculpture is in person. In my head and after seeing pictures before our visit, I had imagined it being larger. Nevertheless, it is still fascinating to stand in front of what is considered the first work of the greatest sculptor (and artist) in history.

Casa Buonarroti itself is a very interesting little museum and I highly recommend taking the time to visit it in Florence. It is not as well known as some of the other main attractions and is small, but because of the size I found it more accessible than some of the larger museums in Florence.