So I’m looking through old bound volumes of Memphis newspapers, just like everybody else in town does on their Thursday nights in the Home, and this ad catches my eye. It’s from a July 1959 copy of The Commercial Appeal.
Street cars for sale! These were the old electrified buses, which had a complicated apparatus on top that made contact with high-voltage lines and just rained down sparks whenever the buses crossed an intersection. For some reason I was terrified of them as a child — probably because I wasn’t allowed out much, and since the mansion lacked electricity, I wasn’t used to seeing it in action.
Anyway, just look at the business potential you had here. Why, just pick up one of these things — with tires or without — and you’ve got yourself a roomy fishing cabin, sleeping quarters (my, wouldn’t THAT be lovely!), field offices, storage facility, tool room, and even a food stand. The sky was really the limit.
I don’t know how many of these ratty old things this company sold, but I sure don’t remember seeing any of them parked around town, serving as “sleeping quarters” or “food stands.”
I’m just glad Father didn’t see this ad, or that might have been my bedroom. Yikes.