Conclusion: An Edsel And The Crown Jewels

  

After his brush with death, Bud Holloway herded his family into Moby Dick—the enormous white Edsel that had nearly crushed him—and headed to Texas for a visit with his mama. Hollowhead later described what happened.

       

As Bud drove through Albuquerque, he toyed with the radio and managed to tune into a radio station somewhere in Midland, Texas, which coincidentally was close to where they were headed. 

      

The disk jockey came on and announced a contest. “Our l’il ole’ radio station is gonna give away a check for one hundred dollars to the first ‘58 car to pull into our parking lot.” The deejay set a one hour time limit for someone to claim the prize.

      

Hollowhead said his dad didn’t give this much thought because they were hundreds of miles from Midland. The hour came and went, and no car arrived to claim the prize.

      

The deejay returned. “All right now, ya’ll, let’s sweeten the pie. We’re gonna make it three hundred dollars if a white ‘58 car pulls into our parking lot within one hour!”

      

Hollowhead said his dad still wasn’t thinking about it much, but there was a slight possibility Bud tapped the gas pedal a bit harder.

      

Another hour passed.

      

“This is getting interesting, folks. It’s hard to believe that in the entire Lone Star State there isn’t a white ‘58 car around to claim this prize. So here we go again, more milk for the kitty. Now we’re looking for a white ‘58 vehicle with a red interior. And we’ll pay five hundred dollars!”

      

Bud must have glanced over at his wife rubbing her sore back as she sat beside him on the Edsel’s red vinyl front seat. I imagine he gave thanks then and there for the powerful V-8 engine as he put the pedal to the metal. The city of Amarillo must have passed by in a blur.

      

When the deejay interrupted a song to announce a winner, Bud reportedly started to slow down. But he accelerated again when the deejay exclaimed, “Sorry folks, thought we had a winner, but some guy was trying to pass off an orange interior as red. No dice. We want red, and now we want a Ford as well. Bring in a ‘58 white Ford with a red interior, and we’ll give you seven hundred dollars. Now listen up folks: a few of our great Midland merchants are calling in to see how they might participate in our l’il ole’ contest. Midland Tools has agreed to add some honey to the pot. In addition to the seven hundred dollar prize, Midland Tools will gift a thousand dollars’ worth of tools to the first car meeting our specifications.”

      

According to witnesses in the car, tool-addicted Bud started drooling at this point. Another hour passed without anyone claiming the prize, after which the deejay demanded the sought-after car have air-conditioning. Sixty minutes later, the car needed to be a station wagon. Another hour and it needed to be manual, not automatic. Hollowhead said his dad fingered the column shift out of overdrive, dropped to a lower gear and pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

      

Merchants were calling the radio station and donating all sorts of goodies to cash in on the cheap advertising, but Wilma was most intrigued when a jeweler phoned in to donate an unusual item. He had an imitation of the crown jewels worn by Catherine the Great of Russia at her coronation, a set that, although not genuine, was still valued at five thousand dollars. How such an item came to be in Midland, Texas, was a mystery, but this was also added to the booty for the first white ‘58 Ford air-conditioned car with red interior and manual drive that also happened to be an Edsel. 

      

Speed limits were definitely a thing of the past when they rocketed through Lubbock on their way to Midland. Another contender for the prize was eliminated for exceeding the amount of recorded mileage the deejay had requested. Miraculously, Moby Dick had just the right number of miles on its chrome speedometer. They’d come halfway across Texas by the time they reached the radio station and screeched to a halt in a cloud of dust. They’d won, and it was too bad for that other white ‘58 Ford Edsel wagon with air-conditioning and red interior and manual drive and equal mileage that blazed into the parking lot just moments after the Holloways had claimed all the prizes.

      

Local reporters made a big deal out of the contest, and pictures of the Holloways made it into several newspapers. Hollowhead even got to talk on the radio about life in California. The deejay unofficially proclaimed him an honorary Texan and wanted to know what he thought of Texas so far. Hollowhead said it was just fine and that he wanted to spend the afternoon touring The Alamo. The deejay tried to explain that The Alamo was in San Antonio, not Midland, but Hollowhead insisted that it must be hidden around there someplace. 

     

 I learned that people phoned the radio station to question the quality of California’s public school system or to ask if Hollowhead was retarded. Evidently it was beyond any Texan’s imagination that a school kid anywhere wouldn’t know the location of The Alamo. Finally, a hotel manager in San Antonio called; he’d been listening and offered a free hotel suite if the Holloways wanted to drive on to San Antonio to see the Alamo, which they did. It was with reluctance that Hollowhead climbed back into the Edsel—he was convinced the Alamo was hidden somewhere in Midland. The twins had no interest in The Alamo, but a monumental fascination with the hunky deejay. They would have preferred hanging around Midland but Bud rounded up his family for the drive to San Antonio so Hollowhead could finally tour the Alamo. On the drive back to California, somewhere near Flagstaff, Bud remembered they’d forgotten to visit his mama.

      

When the Holloways returned home, everyone in the neighborhood took turns ooohing and aaahing over the treasure. Bud was nearly readmitted to the hospital after learning the amount of his tax liability for all the money and prizes, but Wilma took it all in stride. She wore Catherine the Great’s coronation jewels while manning the lawnmower—claimed they made cutting the grass easier. I can still picture her mowing her front yard, a bejeweled crown twinkling on her head, her chest covered by a glittering necklace weighty enough to stop bullets.

  

An Edsel And The Crown Jewels

  

Our annual kick-off event for the summer of ’63 had just begun; neighborhood kids had gathered around the Zenith in our living room to watch Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The local TV station always ran the comedy the Saturday after school let out. We watched the movie in a different house each summer. This year it was my turn.

      

Dad was attending big brother’s baseball game and I couldn’t wait for my mother to make herself scarce. She’d already hung around too long. I was worried when the movie started that she’d give us all a lecture on Mary Shelley and other female writers. I was relieved when she finally retreated to the room she referred to as her boudoir—to my knowledge the only boudoir in the neighborhood.            

Noticeably absent was goofy Andy Holloway (a.k.a. Hollowhead) from across the street. After his parents’ divorce, Hollowhead and his older twin sisters (see Tight Asses) spent the first two weeks of every summer with their mom in Redwood City. Today Andy would probably be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, but back then we just said he had ants in his pants. He wasn’t missed because he could never sit still through an entire movie. 

     

 We sat in a semi-circle on the floor—little natives paying homage to the great god Zenith. It was a reeeaally good part in the movie, when Costello first sees Frankenstein. We always screamed in mock terror…but this time someone outside beat us to it—Hollowhead’s stepmom. Wilma Holloway couldn’t have sounded more upset or frightened had Frankenstein himself just pressed her doorbell. 

We poured out of the house to see what was up. Wilma was across the street running in circles around the white Edsel station wagon that was her husband Bud’s reason for living. The Edsel was a ‘58 Bermuda, with the famous (and later ridiculed) horse collar grille, scalloped indentations on the sides and gull-wing taillights. It sat nine passengers and was designed as a chrome-and-steel homage to the American spirit. It weighed nearly as much as a Sherman tank. Bud nicknamed it Moby Dick.

At first we couldn’t tell what had caused Wilma to come unglued. But we soon pieced together what had happened: Bud had been in his usual spot on the driveway, tinkering beneath Moby. The huge station wagon had slipped from its jack and now rested directly on Bud’s chest. A moment earlier he must’ve barked for a beer and Wilma had dutifully fetched it, arriving just in time to observe the car slipping onto her husband—the can of Pabst was still in her hand. Good thing she was prompt with the suds; the weight on Bud’s chest would have prevented him from yelling for help.

As we stood around like statues, Wilma ran to the front of the station wagon, tossed aside the beer can and grasped the chrome bumper in an attempt to lift Moby off her husband. I’ve since read amazing stories of people doing incredible things when pumped up with adrenaline and this was undoubtedly the case here. Wilma couldn’t actually lift the car, but she did budge it enough so Bud could replace some of the air squeezed from his lungs.

Luck arrived in the form of a Sears repairman, who was conveniently passing by. The bull-necked fellow hopped down from his truck and raced to the rescue. Mr. Simons dashed over from the house next door, which further added to the drama because Bud and Mr. Simons worked for rival auto companies and detested each other. Mr. Simons and the repairman quickly re-jacked Moby.

      

Bud was in the hospital for a few days with several cracked ribs, but it was Wilma who endured the most pain. She had damaged her back trying to lift the Edsel and would suffer for the rest of her life. Bud undoubtedly felt badly about this; there was soon a change at the Holloway house.

      

Most people in those days had push mowers, and mowing the lawn was an unpleasant chore many parents passed on to their children. But Wilma enjoyed mowing the grass in the front yard, claiming it relaxed her. Now, because of her bad back, she considered giving it up. But when Bud recovered from his brush with death he bought her the first power mower in the neighborhood.           

      

Wilma loved her new power mower, but not as much as she hated that Edsel. She was not pleased when Bud turned a deaf ear to her demand that he get rid of it. Wilma never again wanted to ride in the Edsel, but Bud decided that while on medical leave from the Ford plant he would load his family into the Edsel for a long overdue trip to Texas to visit his mama.

      

Hollowhead’s sisters weren’t pleased to be pulled out of cheerleader camp. They were at that age when it was a disgrace to be seen with parents, much less vacation with them. They had no interest in Texas, unlike Hollowhead who was determined to see The Alamo, even though he was repeatedly told they weren’t going anywhere near it. Hollowhead was a big Davy Crockett fan and would still have been wearing his prized coonskin cap if Ricky Delgado hadn’t swiped it and buried it in a shallow grave in his backyard.

     

 For most families, having the head of the family crushed beneath a behemoth car would have topped the list of memorable summer moments, but for the Holloways the excitement was just beginning.

Conclusion on Wednesday