Thanks to a Christmas present from my
son, I can now read the sequel to a book I first read in 1964.
Living
in a suburb of Detroit, I'd taken several school field trips to the
Henry Ford Museum and had been impressed with its collection of
antique autos. So when my teacher distributed order sheets for
paperbacks from Scholastic, I was primed for Kings
of the Road
by Ken W. Purdy.
I don't remember if I had to raid my Yogi Bear bank for the full
cover price of seventy-five cents (this was when quarters were still
silver). Regardless, it was priceless. Over the next decade I reread
it countless times.
Its twenty chapters (most adapted from magazine articles) opened me
to the world of such classic automobiles as Bugatti, Mercer, Stutz,
Cord, and Duesenberg (origin of the phrase “it's a Duesey”).
Decades later I'm still traveling to classic car museums. More
important, I'm still reading voraciously--and helping other writers
master the art of dynamic prose.
My
copy of Kings of
the Road,
printed in 1963 on cheap paper, is too fragile for me to revisit its
pages. But I knew hardcover versions on better paper were available
online. So I passed the hint before Christmas.
Published
in hardcover in 1972, Ken Purdy's Book of
Automobiles promises to pick up
where Kings of the Road
left off. After nearly fifty years, I'm eager to resume the journey.
3 comments:
You just taught me the origin of the expression "It's a Duesey." I'd always seen it spelled "doozy," which gave no clue to its origin.
Enjoy the journey!
P.S. At first, I thought the car in the photo was the gift your son gave you. If so, I was ready to adopt him!
HA! Rick! I knew that already! Neener neener!
Oh, how dignified of me...
Ahem...
What a lovely gift! A few years ago, I gave my brother a first edition copy of the very first of the Hardy Boys series. I thought he was going to cry. I found it at a thrift store and held on to it like it was gold. I got out of there as fast as I could, like the woman in the Ikea commercial, "start the car! Start the car!"
In case it impresses anyone, our wedding car was a 1917 Auburn, with the original upholstery and everything!! It was found up on blocks in an old garage in Vancouver, BC, where I'm from. We literally slowed traffic all around us, it was such a thrill to be rolling down the streets of Vancouver IN history.
I meant I knew about "doozy"...
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