Norfolk To Jacksonville

In May of 1960 I was transferred from the Naval Air Station at Breezy Point on the Naval Base at Norfolk, Virginia to NAS Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida.  I had bought a 1953 Ford sedan the previous year, and I loved that car.  For you mechanically minded guys, this was the last year of Ford’s flatheads.  Fords the next year had the newly developed overhead valve engines.

Before leaving Norfolk I made arrangements to have my 8’ X 35’ mobilehome towed to Jacksonville and stored to await our arrival.  My wife and I then came to Northern New York to visit our parents.  A few days later we left New York headed for our new destination in Florida.  The first day we got to central Virginia before stopping for the night in a motel.

We awoke the next morning, jumped in the car, and drove cornerways down over a four inch curb to the street.  The car’s engine fan went through the radiator!  Believe it or not I actually located a man that would work on the car even though it was a Sunday morning.  He located a used fan and radiator and installed both at quite a reasonable fee, while we ate a leisurely brunch, and we were once more on our way.  That night we spent in a motel in Jacksonville, Florida.

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful day, that is until leaving the motel we drove cornerways down over a four inch curb to hear once again the same sound as the previous morning.  Absolutely, the fan went through the radiator again.  As luck would have it I spotted a garage that worked on radiators a block or so up the street.  When I told the mechanic the fan had came loose from the engine and ruined the radiator the day before, he started checking further.  It seemed the front engine rubber mounts had disintegrated causing the engine to shift allowing the fan to strike the radiator.  The fan had been destroyed by contact with the radiator rather than coming loose like the man in Virginia had surmised.

For the second time in two days we were repaired and under way again.  Our radiator was repaired, a different used fan, and new front engine mounts.  I went to the local office of the national mobilehome mover that was storing our home awaiting our arrival.  They had never heard of us, much less were storing our home.  A call to Norfolk discovered our home was being stored there.  Two more nights in a motel while our home was towed to Florida, but at least that gave us time to locate Cecil Field and Cox’s Trailer Court in the vicinity, so when our home arrived it had a place to stop.