My First Car: '33 Plymouth, Clyde Theron Clark, 85, Tampa

'33 Plymouth

My first car was a 1933 four-door Plymouth with wood steering wheel, tongue and groove, which I purchased for $90 at the age of 13. The steering wheel was so large I had to look through the top half. Two weeks later, on Dec. 26, I got my driver's license at age 14. I bought a second car at age 16, a 1937 eight-cylinder Ford with 60 horsepower. I earned money from two paper routes, morning and afternoon.

I walked two weeks on an afternoon paper route to earn enough for a down payment on my first bike. When I finished high school I had $700 in my bank account for my college fund. I paid for a bike, two cars, a motor scooter, a large radio and all my personal needs from age 8. I was the youngest of five. We had no car, phone, radio or refrigerator.

When I went in the Navy and the Marines in WWII, I gave my car to my brother. When I came home after the war, chickens were roosting on it.

I was a member of the luckiest generation.