The Tucker Story

The way that a child forms a memory is very different than the mechanism used by an adult. This is especially true of children before the age of reason, usually considered to be six or seven years old. Things are still a bit sketchy for children who have not yet reached puberty. What is your earliest memory? 

The Tucker automobile was sold in very limited numbers in only one year:1948. Those few hundred cars may have been the only production run. They were for sale in New York City in plenty of time for a doctor to buy one and use it to drive the newborn me home from the hospital. A short hop from Long Island City to a neighborhood near the border between Queens and Nassau Counties. That is the narrative that I recall from my early childhood. 

The car did not belong to our family doctor. Another doctor, a friend of his, was going in our direction and offered to drive us home. My family lived at the time in a very working class neighborhood on the Queens side, but it was a very convenient stop for someone who was probably going to the "Five Towns" area of Nassau. Five Towns, I forget any of the individual towns, was an up-scale place, suitable for a doctor working in New York City. 

I remember my father talking to other adults at some kind of function about the ride in the Tucker. I recall the subject coming up more than once. He was an engineer, and Tuckers were fascinating beasts for engineers. If you had actually ridden in one, other engineers would be interested to hear about it. I also believe that I recall my parents talking to our doctor about it on subsequent office visits. I was a first-born child, and we tend to observe the adults closely. 

Memory is a tricky thing, however, and as time passes, memories get shifted around in the brain, moved to different storage spaces, ignored for long periods of time, and possibly somewhat scrambled. I have always thought of myself as having been brought home from the hospital in a Tucker, but there is no evidence of this. Any other potential witnesses are dead, most are long dead. There were no photographs. I formed the memories because it was always presented as being something very special. It would be special, because Tuckers were very rare birds. 

Was I brought home in a Tucker? I think that the odds are good. The Tucker did not have a long commercial life. 1948 and gone. They go for a fortune now at those rare car auctions. But there is no need to stretch facts to accept the possibility that it happened just like that. They were for sale before I was born; part of the production run was sold in New York City; why shouldn't a doctor offer a ride to a nice young couple and their newborn? It would have been a matter of blocks out of his way. 

So I'm going with the Tucker story. I should put it on my resume. It sounds classy, doesn't it?