My first “big trip” was in the summer of 1967

Summer, 1967

I was a college sophomore on break from UNO, LSUNO at the time, and working at my Dad’s shoe store, ShoeTown, in Metairie, Louisiana. I worked the floor most days and when Presley Flakes, the brother who was our utility-man was on vacation, I did his job. He received all incoming shoe shipments, unboxed, tagged and tied together all the new shoes. ShoeTown displayed all shoes on a rack, out in the open. We were a hybrid though as we had salesmen help people measure feet and fit shoes. Some rack shoe stores didn’t have any customer help. ShoeTown did. Presley also swept up, cleaned windows and kept the store up. When we sold women’s formal shoes, he’d dye the shoes to match swatches of color from the formal gown. Real art, eh? I kinda’ liked the utility-man’s job but I also liked helping customers get a proper fit and once in a while I’d get a referral or a returning “call” customer who would ask for you personally to help them get a pair of shoes. I knew to make sure kid’s shoes had plenty of growth room and I would use a stretcher, in the back, to make leather shoes more comfortable on day one.

We lived in Metairie, not far from the Barlon Plaza ShoeTown’s location which was on the corner of David Drive and Veterans Memorial Blvd. The store was part of a chain owned by Abe Wiener. My Uncle Jules had helped my father get the management position when we moved from Ruston back to Greater New Orleans. Metairie is a suburb of New Orleans. My Uncle had worked with and for Mr. Wiener from the time he had one shoe store, Imperial Shoes, on Magazine Street, maybe Dryades St.? My Dad worked as an Assistant Manager at a couple of other ShoeTowns before getting his own store. It was a mixed blessing. Retail was clean, with decent pay and benefits but 60 hours a week on hard terrazzo floors took its toll.

It was toward the end of summer break and I had saved up a few extra bucks and was wondering how to leverage it for some fun when the pay phone in the back of the store rang. When I answered, I heard my old friend, Tommy Rinehart’s voice. “Whatcha doin’ loser, working?” He was calling from Ruston. He had gotten the store’s phone number from my Mom after calling our house on Green Acres Road. He told me he had just taken delivery of a brand new, 1967 Pontiac GTO and was itching to try it out. He had gotten out a map and highlighted a route to Pikes Peak and Royal Gorge in Colorado and Carlsbad Caverns in Arizona. Once his parents, Trudy and JT realized what he was doing, they claimed back seat but wanted to rotate with shotgun. He was offering me shotgun. It was Tommy’s new car and he would drive. Tommy and I were best friends our first two years in Ruston High School. We were in band together, did sleep-overs and went to summer camp. I dated his first cousin, Mary Lane. When my family relocated from Ruston to Metairie in late 1963, we talked on the phone and Tommy drove down to visit during the summer when he could. The timing was impeccable. I had a spare couple of weeks before going back to school in the fall, I had a few extra bucks to spend and Presley had used up all his summer vacation time. I told Tommy I’d try hard to fit in into my busy schedule and would be there by the next weekend. My Mom and Dad liked Tommy and his parents and were on board with the trip. Each slipped me an extra twenty.

By Friday, the end of the week, I threw some clothes in a travel bag and boarded a Trailways bus across the street from Lakeside Shopping Center on Causeway Blvd. and “cushioned” the 300 or so miles due north through Baton Rouge and Alexandria. Note, later in life I worked briefly as lead transportation supervisor at American Bus Lines in Omaha, a Trailways franchise. “Cushioning” refers to riding on the bus, rather than driving it. I don’t remember much of the bus ride but I do remember getting to the Trailways terminal in Ruston and using the pay phone to call Tommy to come pick me up. In ten minutes, I saw the car approaching like it was appearing in a tv commercial. It was a vision, a two door hardtop in a shiny, metallic tan. It burbled with power from a 389 c.i. V8 with a four barrel Holley carburetor and sounded like it would be really, really fast. In the middle sixties, Detroit was a war zone where manufacturers competed to produce the fastest and meanest mid-sized sedans with over-sized truck engines under the hood tuned for acceleration. They were called “muscle cars.” The Pontiac GTO was one of the first in 1964. By 1967 the GTO catalogue allowed the prospective owner to choose from a myriad of performance options. Three two barrel carburetors and a variety of aggressive camshafts, like building a race car were some of the choices. When Tommy would start the beast up in the morning, it would shake like a wet dog while it idled, the aggressive cams loping unevenly. When you stabbed the gas pedal it evened out really quickly and snapped your neck with instant acceleration. I was 19 years old and had driven a Renault Dauphine back and forth to UNO my freshman year. The contrast between our rides was that of a rocket ship to a mule cart and I was ready to rocket. Tommy let me cruise around town in the driver’s seat and give it a bit of juice. My smile was ear to ear. He drove it hard and I buckled up. Drifting through corners at speed puckered me up but couldn’t erase that smile. This… was… fun. I’d say it was so much fun it should have been illegal but really, the speed he was driving, it was illegal.

We left Sunday and headed west through Dallas, turned Northwest through Dalhart and Dumas and up to Amarillo, yellow, right? and stayed a night or two on our journey to Colorado. I remember driving up the dusty, unpaved road to the top of Pikes Peak. Tommy’s Mother, Trudy couldn’t deal with the narrow, dirt roads and increasing altitude and had to lay flat on the floor in the back seat and cry softly. It was a spectacular view and we felt the altitude in our lungs. Another day we drove to Royal Gorge and walked across the historically high suspension bridge and gazed down. Trudy demurred. There was also a tram ride down to the Colorado River deep in the canyon which gave you the reverse view up from the river to the bridge. We stayed a couple more nights in Colorado and Tommy and I drove around the small towns checking out the locals and going to the movies. We even managed to find a dance at a local place and met a girl or two.

Finally we drove down to Carlsbad for dusk and sat in the amphitheater and watched the million bats fly out, into the dark as the sun descended. The next day, we took the lengthy tour of the caverns which was truly spectacular.

I do remember stopping at a gas station in rural Texas and fueling up and hearing the car knock while trying to accelerate and having to slow down to let the lower octane fuel get used up. The car needed high octane premium. Anything less and it wouldn’t run right. A real problem in some areas of rural Texas, it seems. Premium fuel wasn’t.

That was my first “big” trip. It only wetted my appetite for more, thanks to Tommy, Trudy, JT and that crazy GTO. I can hear and smell the car loping at idle, early in the morning and I will forever hear the sound of a ringing back wall payphone. “Hey Loser, whatcha doin’?”

I’m ready, Tommy. I’m all the time ready and I always will be.