Back then an average truck cost about $1,700 dollars. One time the potato service bought about 25 farm trucks at once and they were all red and white. Those trucks cost about $1,700 each so we made a lot of money that day! It took three carrier trucks to bring all of the farm trucks to Presque Isle. The average car cost about$2,500 dollars. Most cars back then were standard shift and had no radio. In fact, cars were so cheap back then that people would buy a new car about every 1 to 2 years and we would sell around a total of 800 cars every year.
My boss would sometimes have me be his dad’s chauffeur and drive him wherever he wanted to go. Like one time, Skippy told me to go get his dad who was in the Bangor hospital and bring him home. James, Skippy’s father, wanted to go see his son in Waterville though, so when we started off from the hospital I started coming this way (north) and when James saw the sign for Old Town he said, “This isn’t the way to Waterville.
” I said, “Well I’m not going to Waterville.” “Skippy didn’t tell me to go to Waterville.” You see folks, Skippy was my boss and I did what he said.
Sometimes Skippy’s dad James would get a taxi from the Van Buren nursing home and stop here (Carroll’s Auto Sales) to get money from Skippy to pay for the taxi. So then Skippy would call me if I wasn’t there and say, “Would you give James a ride back?” And so I’d come down, get him and bring him back to the nursing home in Van Buren.