hernando

 

We all have our aspirations, I guess. And now that tomorrow is my birthday, with a cake and candles to blow out, I get to make a wish that will come true if I blow them all out in one puff. 

Actually, I have two wishes. One is secret and maybe I'll tell it next Sunday morning, especially if it comes true, because folks will notice. The other, if the One doesn't come true, is to be a 1947 DeSoto.

Yes, a dusty, maroon Custom club coupe is fine. Not a Chrysler, a DeSoto. I admired DeSoto cars as a boy. My Gentry grandparents owned a silver DeSoto Airflow sedan back in the 1930s when my car consciousness was just beginning to form. 

DeSoto taxis were common. 

Red Baum, master plumber here in StAndrews back in what? the day? used a DeSoto Suburban as his work and pipefitting car when I was early teens. Gray Sala's father was the DeSoto-Plymouth dealer when I was at Cove School and Bay High. Richie's father Howard Cunningham, on "Happy Days", drove a DeSoto, also a Suburban. An enormous nine-passenger sedan with three rows of seats, fitted out with a luggage rack on top, wooden roof slats inside, and foldable seats. 

Of my dozens of die-cast scale model cars, three are DeSotos. two sitting here on the windowsill beside me as I write. As to owned cars, my list includes several Dodges, a Plymouth, and a Chrysler, but I never owned a DeSoto. My last opportunity to own a new one was sixty years ago, when Chrysler Corp ceased DeSoto production with the 1961 model year.

All I can do now, is wish to be one.

T