“It’s a bomb!”
When the man on the “cops and robbers” TV show I was watching said that it reminded me of one of the jobs my father held when I was young. He was an automobile mechanic in a garage, and I remember being in the building where the work was being done. The garage was on the top floor of a parking facility with a circular ramp that led up to it. In the 1950s, men called cars that were in less than pristine condition, “bombs,” and when a mechanic brought his own car into the garage, the others would bellow, “BOOM!” This would signal that the car was a “bomb.” It would be many years before I had the opportunity to own a “bomb.”
It was uncommon on the Hill District of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 1960s for teenagers to possess or have access to cars. When I graduated from high school, I don’t think that many of my fellow graduates had a car to take a date to the prom. I took public transportation to every event that I attended, even to the wedding of a good friend and co-worker. My cousin’s friend was a salesperson for a shoe store (he sold me my first pair of Bally shoes) and he had a red, 1963 Oldsmobile Starfire convertible; the car had a great slab of chrome from the front to the rear. This car was most definitely, not a “bomb.” We walking young men were envious of him, but continued to take buses, streetcars, and jitneys (illegal taxis) to where we had to go.
My first car did not go “boom:” it was a 1963 Volkswagen Bug. My first bride and I purchased it from a friend of her family, and she taught me how to drive in it. (I had no license; she did.) I do not know how many millions of miles it had on it, but we called it “The Dreamer,” since we two were going to set out to seek our dreams in California. The car took us from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles via Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado, and only broke down once. When we got to Los Angeles, I put some unapproved fluid into its aluminum engine and killed it. We sold it to someone who converted it into a dune buggy. Since we had become VW enthusiasts, the next car we bought was a 1972 VW Super Beetle; this was not a bomb, and we drove it until we retired it and purchased a Triumph TR6, which was also not a bomb. It did have a bad habit of accelerating on its own, though. When the dealership could not correct that condition, we got rid of the TR6, and got some 4-door, boring Dad-car. No bomb, this. Nor was it a “hooptie,” or a “bucket,” which are two other slang terms for the 1950s “bomb.”
With the tension in the world these days, we must be careful about the terms we sling about. An adage notes that “freedom of speech” does not allow us to falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater. When someone drives their “bucket” past a public assembly, no careful and cautious person is likely to bellow, “bomb!” This is likely to cause a riotous response, replete with a police presence, and an embarrassing visit to the local station. But we can compliment someone’s cooking by saying, “This pie is the BOMB,” or something else is “the bomb-diggity!”
It is safer to note that the passing “hooptie” is a “bucket.”
Definitely: Not a bomb.
cjon3acd@att.net
