1958, The Future Arrives!

The first part of Stephen King's latest book takes place in 1958. I was 11 and in that year everything pointed to the future. In January of that year Russia, who had been beating us in the "Space Race" not only launched another satellite, but it had a LIVE dog in it! Maybe not a big thing to you, but consider that USA had not launched ANY satellites yet! It would be another couple of months before we launched the "Explorer". I know this because I read my "Weekly Reader" at school and was a fan of anything space.

The other thing that caught my eye was the 1958 cars (that came out in the fall of 57) had DOUBLE HEADLIGHTS! VERY COOL! See the FORD photo.

The summer of 59 I heard that Harding Chevrolet in Haskell had received a 1959 Chevy early. I raced down on my back to the this futuristic car.

It was a simple sedan, but it had fins! I was in the showroom as a farmer came in to get his pickup serviced and said something that never has been stated since in explaining a new car.

He walked to the rear and looked at the fins and said: "You could put a goat in there!"

My main memory came when that summer someone at church asked if I had seen the Estes family's new car. Orin Estes, the Free Will Baptist minister, had bought a RED 1959 Pontiac.

It was the wildest thing yet. After seeing that I was sure that we would having flying cars by 2000!