MEMOIRS PART 7 - THE MODEL "A"

In 1928, Model "A" Fords were introduced, Dad took me to Ed Cassity's garage, where they were on display. Dad borrowed one and took me on a test drive. We drove proudly around town while he showed me how much better it was than the Model "T". I think he bought one because I remember that we owned a Model "A" with a luggage rack on the back.

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In either 1926, 7, or 8 my parents built the addition to the house, which became the kitchen and living room, with a basement underneath containing a coal furnace. Until then we had a Heaterola in what became the dining room. They also built a garage behind the house, and did away with the garage on the street.
That was about the time of the of the Dempsey-Tunney long-count fight. Dad was an avid supporter of Dempsey, and we listened to the fight on the radio which sat on top of the icebox. Dad whooped and hollered during the most of the fight, especially when Tunney went down for the long count, and was absolutely dejected when Tunney won the decision.

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Since the water table where the house was located was quite high, in the spring there was always about a foot of water in the new basement. Even thought the water table went down at the end of spring, the water stayed in the basement. Finally Dad got fed up with it and he got as star drill and a relatively large hammer, showed me how and where to use them and said he would pay me 25 cents an inch for drilling a hole in the concrete wall as close to the floor as possible.
The wall was about 10 inches thick and it took about a month working off and on between my other chores to finish the hole. The basement still flooded in the spring but stayed relatively dry the rest of the time. Dad finally cured the problem in the late 1930s when he had a trench dug due north until the ground level was a little lower than the bottom of the basement; he then put in drain tiles.