Ranch Wagon

Christmas 1955. We came home to Alabama for Christmas. I do not remember the details. I was only 6. I do remember the “Ranch Wagon”. I do not remember any car prior to the “Ranch Wagon”. After that I was more aware of what we drove but I remember we bought a brand new 1956 Ford Ranch Wagon from Richard Lawrence at the Ford place and took it back to Maine. What made it a “Ranch Wagon”? Why the seat covers of course. They were sort of leather covered (two tone, light tan and brown)vinyl and they had cattle brands alllllllllllll over. The only one I remember is the rocking R. A large R on a rocking horse base. The other extraordinary thing about this car was the color. To politely describe it, it was called a “flesh kind of color”. All of the kids (at least the boys) called it …..pink. But that was alright because it was a “Ranch Wagon”.
Some time later it became the first car in the neighborhood and probably the state of Maine to sport a seat belt in the back seat. I say seat belt because there was only one. It went all the way across the back seat, meeting in the middle and fastening with a genuine airplane seatbelt buckle. Not only was the buckle genuine airplane equipment, the belt was genuine P2V-7 seat belt material. Dad had talked one of the parachute riggers in the squadron into making him a belt he could use to keep us all in place in the back seat. Seat belts did not show up in production cars for 6-8 years after we got ours and they only held one person at a time. Dad was resourceful. There will be a number of stories of things we had due to his imagination and resoursefullness with materials and talents that crossed his path. (can anyone say enclosed back porch).
Unclewesty, over and out