Ruth & Mike's 1st Big Trip

 

Ruth and I married in 1971. She’d survived a head-on car accident a few months prior. She took months to recuperate and learn to walk again. She finished nursing school and by 1973, we were both physically capable and ready to go west. The Air Force provided 30 days paid leave. By September I had saved up my full allotment. We bought a yellow, 1972 Datsun 510. I took out the rear seat to allow for more space for a fold-up fiberglass picnic table. We put on a roof rack for a 10x12, two room camping tent. Inside we had a stove, a lantern, cooking utensils, cots, tarps, food, water and other camping accoutrement. The car was stuffed. I got a map atlas of the US and using a highlighter we sat down and plotted out a bang she-bang, go west, see all, National Park centric, BIG trip to the coast and back.

We were in Bellevue, Nebraska where I worked at SAC HQ. Ruth was a Registered Nurse. We set out one early morning, crossed Nebraska east to west and headed for Colorado. We’ll never tire of seeing the foothills of the Rockies on the horizon as you approach Colorado. Memorably, we drove through Big Thompson River Canyon between Denver and Estes Park, which is an amazing drive. The first night was to be spent in Rocky Mountain National Park. We headed up to Longs Peak campgrounds at 9,500 feet. By September, the sun was down by 7PM or so. Our arrival at 9 put is in total darkness. No ambient light anywhere. We parked facing our camp spot, which we’d picked out at random from what was left and shined our headlights on the area, huffed and puffed from lack of oxygen and set up our big tent. Circus was coming to town. An hour later we settled in for sleep. By daylight we realized we’d disturbed about a dozen other campers who were all around, within a few feet of where we’d set up but hey, it was dark.

We stayed there for three days, driving around, visiting all the sites we could fit into our time window. We also found time to walk around Estes Park. Elk also walk around Estes Park. In the coming years we’d stay at the Stanley Hotel, which we only visited this trip. The drive to the sun, where the Alpine Visitor Center sits at 11,000 feet, was memorable. We exited after three days, by driving around to the park’s west side to Grand Lake.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

From there we drove to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Lots of spectacular views into the canyon and just great campsite. Not crowded. The first night we were startled by a guy who walked up to our campfire and hung out to tell us people were driving around and shooting out of the side of a van, so “watch out.” He disappeared into the night just like he appeared. What he was doing or where he was going, we’ll never know. Nobody shot at us.

 To condense the narrative, I’ll list some of the spots we visited from there. In general, we set up camp and stayed at least two nights, most places three. After two or three two or three nights of camping, we’d splurge for a motel room to clean up and sleep in a bed.

Mesa Verde – Cliff Palace

It was dry the few days we were there but the final day brought a gully washer and we loaded the tent all wet into the bag that went onto the roof rack. The Native American relics were amazing.

Grand Canyon

The tent, once set up, was dry in five minutes. We walked along the south rim in both directions and couldn’t stay out of the wonderful camp store. Never saw so many Japanese, each with a Nikon. I saw a gal who had walked the Bright Angel returning from an overnight back pack trip to the Colorado. She limped from tree to tree to balance her backup. She was done. I made a mental note and in less than two decades we would make that backpack trip with Jacob and Natalie.

Lake Mead - Hoover Dam – Las Vegas

I tried to pound in the tent stakes at a campground in Vegas. Each stake broke and flew away. The ground was hard, dry and impenetrable.  We got a motel room. The first one was cheap but a bit of a dive and when we asked the desk clerk for our money back to move on, he got insulting. “Just like you to walk across dirt.” I walked off the sidewalk to go to our car. There was no grass. We hit the strip, Circus Circus, Caesar’s. I won at black jack until my nose started to bleed like opening a tap. Embarrassing. Ruth posed by the fountain at Caesar’s for a picture and a car stopped to see if she was a “working girl.”

Los Angeles – Leo Carillo State Park, Malibu – Disneyland

We drove the LA freeways and the air was orange. Our eyes teared. It was an “air inversion.” It was also pollution. Carillo State Park was across the coast highway from the pacific and we hung out there. Ruth wanted to move on but I said “let’s check out Disneyland.” The air was clear and dry. The sun was beautiful. We stayed over ten hours. I ate three frozen bananas and we used up all our e-tickets. We were both in our 20s but I don’t think any kid anywhere had more fun than we had that day. Just amazingly memorable. A real tribute to Walt Disney.

Morrow Bay campground – Morrow Rock

San Luis Obisbo campground

Carmel – Monterey by the Sea – Monterey Bay Aquarium

We saw “Magnum Force” with Clint Eastwood. We always tried to take a few minutes to go into towns close by when we could to check out the night life.

The PCH – Pacific Coast Highway

The most amazing drive imaginable. From LA to Frisco. Ruth fought car sickness. The winding road. The amazing views. We looked out of the Pacific and was even with and sometimes above the clouds over the sea.

Frisco – Oakland – BART – Golden Gate – SF Bay tour – Alcatraz

We drove around Frisco and witnessed a couple of car wrecks. Ruth got nervous and we drove across the Bay to Oakland and got a motel with a really nice swimming pool. We started using BART to commute to downtown San Francisco. We took the Bay boat cruise under the two bridges and out to Alcatraz in the bay. The fog rolled in and out obscuring a lot of the sights. We were at Alcatraz and could hardly see it.

Yosemite

My favorite National Park. They run a natural gas powered double decker bus around to each point of interest. Free. We had Golden Eagle passes and stayed for free. We stayed extra days. It was cool. We shared our campsite with raccoons who would come into the tent in the morning and try to take my Captain Crunch from me. Every site in Yosemite is plainly spectacular. Every time we rode the bus by Yosemite Falls the narrator would point out “Dried Up.” And so it was that fall.

Mariposa Sequoia Grove

Took the tram tour. All the sequoias are spectacular. Words fail me. A day in heaven. We learned the trees need fire to propagate.

East Yosemite – Glacier Point

The sights back across to Yosemite Valley from the East are, again, indescribable. The best.

Lake Tahoe

Amazing

Reno

Probably better than Vegas. Just nicer surroundings with similar attractions. We had a nice room.

Great Salt Lake Flats – Salt Lake City

Vast. The Wasatch Range is amazing.

Laundromat

I change my own oil. While washing clothes at a Laundromat I dropped the oil filter while trying to retrieve it from the side of the 1600cc engine (it was slick with used oil) and it landed on the hot side of the starter motor and shorted the wire out. The car would no longer start. A guy who was watching came over and showed me how to start the car by shorting the positive and negative leads to the starter with a long screwdriver. His car had no lock on the trunk. We got it fixed the next day at a dealership but we wondered if the guy would show up in the middle of the night at the motel and borrow the Datsun. Thanks, guy.

Yellowstone – Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone – Old Faithful – Paint Pots – Morning Glory Pond - Bears, bears, bears – Hayden Valley – West Yellowstone

It takes days to just drive around the park.

Buffaloes, Moose, wonderful camping. By now we were closing in on October and tent camping was getting cold. We got a Coleman fuel heater to put between the cots but tents don’t hold the heat well. I remember speaking with our parents from a phone booth. It was nice to get inside. Once the sun was high in the sky the days were beautiful and we never tired of exploring.

Yellowstone is Ruth’s favorite National Park. It’s a large chunk of Wyoming and it varies, depending on where you are. Rivers in great canyons. Erupting geysers. Paint pots and ponds. Diverse. Wild. Unusual. Nowhere else like it. Wolves are welcomed. We stayed several days but our time was winding down.

We headed home to our trailer in Bellevue. Thanks, Datsun. Thanks, Coleman. Thanks, America. What a wonderful country. How lucky we were and are. It would not be our last big trip but it was extra memorable because it was the first time we saw so many wonderful places. Places never to be forgotten.

 

 

Campsite at Mesa Verde before and after tent set up. Notice picnic table in screen room

 

I didn't get into much trouble at school

My parents raised me to be a good kid.

Nothing's absolute.

My first visit to the Principal's office involved a fire drill and a paper airplane. Third grade? At McDonough #7, we would walk down a set of back and forth winding, steel, external fire escape steps that led to the play yard. Adults would call it the school grounds. To me, a play yard. Inside, outside, I was ready to play. The fascination of flying planes made from a single sheet of 8.5 x 11, ruled, writing paper was unbound. The almost infinite ways to fold the paper. Fold for speed. Fold for climbing. Fold for acrobatics. Infinite. Of course infinite to a seven year old is anything greater than five, on a slow day.

So.

I had one designed for long, steady flying. Snub nose. Slight rear flaps for sustained lift. A minor indent in the base fuselage at back. Poor for speed. Great for sustained flight. Now. Think about launching it with a high, slow push. Watch it glide. On and on.

Then.

Think about beginning that long, slow flight from three stories high on an external steel launching pad, otherwise known as a fire escape.

I prepared. I waited.

The bell that rang to change classes took off. It started, loud as usual but then went on and on and on. A Klaxon of warning. Fire!

We rose. Lined up in orderly fashion. Marched slowly and calmly down the hall to the exterior doors leading to the escape. Teach held it open. We streamed, single file out, and then, down. When I cleared the door and as I took the first step down, I launched. Gently. As straight as possible, given the circumstances.

What I learned.

Fire drills are serious business.

In my defense, we periodically crouched under our desks and put our heads down by our knees to withstand a thermo nuclear blast. Duck and cover. We practiced this monthly. They showed what an A bomb blast looked like on TV. We got a TV about this time. "Gunsmoke." "Have Gun, Will Travel." "Roy Rogers." Nuclear holocaust. "A" bomb drills were serious too. The first few? The next several? What about the child that cried wolf parable? It got old. We giggled. Stop that. This is serious. So was a fire, right?

Can I say I couldn't wrap my mind around it?

So I got in trouble. I was contrite. This was "children should be seen and not heard times". Punishment fit the crime. Spare the rod, spoil the child. If they loved you, they punished you. How you learned. Positive reinforcement came later. Much, much later. Meantime, eyes down. Mouth shut. Take it like a man.

The second time, we moved to Ruston, Louisiana. My parents were house parents at the Methodist Children's Home. Whited Miller Cottage. One of three cottages. LMO (Louisiana Methodist Orphanage), Vaughn and Whited Miller, A dozen orphans in each cottage. All boys. Separated by age. Elementary, Junior, High School. Whited Miller was Junior High. I was elementary. The kids varied. The good, the bad and the ugly. My Mom was "Matron." I was "Matron's boy." The kids were a bit older than me. A couple, my age. Often families were kept together even though they were not the same age, which accounted for the discrepancy. We had three sets of three brothers. Anyway, I was fresh meat. They set me up on my first day at Ruston Elementary, sixth grade. I was trying to find my way around when I was backed against a wall and punched senseless by a big thuggy kid. I didn't see it coming and he womped me over and over. I cried. My beater and I got called into the office. I learned the solution for my recalcitrance was punishment. For fighting. I got detention for fighting. I learned a lot. Punishment does teach you things. I ate it. Swallowed it whole. I came home to a lot of questions from the older boys who wanted to see how I took my beating. "How was your first day?" I won't say I said anything clever. I put one foot in front of the other. It makes you hard. You learn you have to be hard to survive. Fairness is for fairy tales.

That's how I got in trouble. Flying a plane and getting beat-up.

My 23rd Birthday

 

I remember my 23^rd birthday, mainly for contrast. When I turned 22 on December 28, 1969, I lived at home. I worked two jobs, as a junior salesman for a local dairy and as an usher in a threatre. I also stocked groceries and worked part time at my Dad’s shoe store. I played trombone in the Royal Orleaneans and the Chevelles. I stopped attending UNO by the spring of the year as my grades had plummeted and I had to sit out a semester. After I sat out one, I decided I’d sit out some more. I had registered for the draft at 18 and by 1969/70 my college deferment had lapsed and my draft number was in the 60s out of 365. I knew I’d be drafted by May, 1970.
Because my parents loved me they saw to it that I got an education. Because I got a decent education, I could pass a test. To join the Air Force, you took a series of mental tests. To join the Marines, you took a physical test. Anyway, I did well enough that the Air Force took me the month I was to be drafted. Instead of going to Fort Polk and Vietnam, I went to Lackland AFB for basic training. After basic, I played in the drum and bugle corps there on tdy and then went to Sheppard AFB and was trained as a computer operator. At Sheppard, I learned I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. I got set back a week. At basic training, I learned I wasn’t in too great a physical condition. That changed. I learned how to make my bed and fold my clothes and hang them in order. I learned how to listen. I learned self discipline and humility. I graduated tech school in thirteen weeks.

From Sheppard I was assigned to Offutt AFB, SAC HQ. I worked the day shift at Data Processing Central which was three floors underground at Bldg C. I carried a TSESI classification and was vetted by the FBI. DPC 1 and 2 were the war machines for the Strategic Air Command. We ran SAC OPS, SYS OPS, and BMEWS. We were directly tied in to Cheyenne Mountain and fed the information for the screens viewed by general staff one floor below us. I worked with other guys from all over the United States who were in a similar situation to mine. They became lifelong friends.

I met Ruth Jones at Al’s Bar in Bellevue the first week of December, 1970. By June, the next year, we would be married.

My birthday, December, 28, 1970, I turned 23. I was no longer the boy who turned 22 the year before.

My Favorite toys, as a kid

Bagged, plastic, toy WWII soldiers

My first ten years, beginning in late, 1947 was spent in New Orleans at 1427 General Pershing Street, which was on the corner of General Pershing and unpaved Pitt Street. It was a dusty shotgun double. The other barrel of the shotgun was occupied by my father’s Mom, Dad and sister, my Aunt Ruthie. My Dad got paid on Friday and he, my Mom and I unfolded a wire grocery cart and wheeled it six blocks up General Pershing to Magazine Street to “make groceries” at the Hills Supermarket. Lots of beans, rice, bread and butter, milk for me. There was a rotating wire rack displaying odds and ends of toys that was placed strategically near the front door to appeal to big eyed, bored children. At the end of grocery shopping, if there was a couple of quarters left over, I would get a bag of plastic toy soldiers. I had to be patient and not get my hopes up but the walk back home, often after dark, was made all the more compelling for me if the big brown paper bags contained a plastic bag of military green, plastic soldiers, ready to defend our home hardwood floor. I can’t even begin to try to explain the myriad of possible scenarios a cohort of tiny, militarily trained and equipped, inch high toy soldiers might engage the mind of a blood thirsty child, but there it is. Floor war. Engage. Battle. Rinse. Repeat. Endless joy for a growing boy. For two leftover quarters.

Mardi Gras Throws

Mardi Gras parade throws provided another source of odd plastic trinkets and toys. My Mom and Dad would haul a ladder out to St. Charles Avenue, which was only a block away and I would wave my arms and scream “trow me sumpin mista” over and over trying to catch the eye of a masked float rider. One Mardi Gras, the truck floats with Tulane and Newcomb students pelted me with all sorts of beads and trinkets and I got hit in the face so much I burst into tears. That year the students felt sorry and we went home with a boat load of plastic treasure to assuage my tears. So much so that my Dad, in anticipation of more fallow times on the parade route, squirrelled away a shoe box full of Mardi Gras throws that might appeal to a arm waving, ladder riding runt. He put the box high up on a shelf, far away from midget eyes. His mistake was reaching up after Mardi Gras was over one year and adding a couple of items from his pockets that he hadn’t needed. I saw. I saw. Later he confessed to acting as though he had caught trinkets from passing floats and handing them down to me. Salting the battlefield, as it were. There it was to my prying eyes, a shoe box filled with antique Mardi Gras treasure, just sitting there waiting to be gone through and treasured. It was not meant to be enjoyed on the short term, only to serve as reserve when we went to parades like Comus, where the float riders went by so fast that nobody got anything. The box was high above everything else, hidden on the top shelf. Formerly hidden. Explain contingency to a kid. There is only the now. As soon as I realized that shoe box was full of treats, I began every histrionic I could manage to beg for access to the fabulous treasure, now building up bigger and bigger in my mind. What could the box contain? How many odd items? Stuff came off floats that were often inexplicable. My brain swelled from an overactive imagination. It took me a couple days of begging. I remember, “I’ll never ask for anything, ever again.” By the third day my Dad realized I wasn’t going to let it go and he wasn’t up to doing what it took to shut me up so he gave in and I got the box. It was perhaps my greatest accomplishment to date. The odd assortment of Mardi Gras treasure lasted me a couple days of amusement and fully worth it.

Captain Midnight Plastic Mug

I got up early on Saturdays to watch Roy and Dale and yeah, I watched The Mickey Mouse Club, Sky King, The Lone Ranger and whatever show that had the Peanut Gallery and absorbed like essential dna, all the commercials aimed at reprogramming my brain. One of the favorite moments in my life, to that time, was getting a red plastic cup that had Captain Midnight on it. Not sure how I sent off for it. Likely Mom did it for me by mailing in a box top or something. It took weeks, if not months to arrive and by the time it arrived, I’d forgotten I ordered it and bang! there it was. A cardboard box. Inside the magic conveyor with my name on it was a red plastic cup with an official Captain Midnight decal on the side. My imagination went wild. I used it as a gun (primal freudian motivation), a transponder to speak to the Captain long distance, an echo chamber and yes, even as a cup. Each meal I used it for its magical properties. I slept with it. It was my real time link with TV people. You saw them on the tube, yes but they were ephemeral. This cup was physical evidence of the existence of “tv people.” National TV people. My link to them. That cup was magic. It must have been summer break.

The Year of Prince Valiant

It was 1954. It was a culmination of years of identifying with heroes of the cathode ray tube and the silver screen. Those who existed as gods of olympus to tiny brained children, like myself. It was:

The Year of Prince Valiant

1. I saw the movie. It was fabulous. Filled with colorful daring-do. Robert Wagner in a black Buster Brown wig, sword and armour. Sword fights, duels, archery, jousting. What more can I say? Glamorous, uncontained violence. Tasty.

More

2. I got the Classic Comic book that was released to coincide with the movie. It was like owning the movie, on paper. Seeing it again, over and over, only in my room, when it pleased me. Awesome.

Finally

3. I got the plastic Prince Valiant sword from Woolworth’s. The trifecta. The movie. The book. The sword. Prince Valiant. Any time. Any place they allowed plastic swords. I dueled James Mason endlessly. And… Always… With Honor.

There were other toys and other times but those were the memorable ones.

Michael Seither, June 23, 2022

 

Pigs survive but seldom ride in topless roadsters with pretty girls.

 

All generalizations are false.

All men are pigs.

Pigs survive but seldom ride in topless roadsters with pretty girls.

When I was twenty, I certainly wasn’t a man yet, so my piggishness, while innate, was underdeveloped. Not to say I wasn’t trying. My pursuit of the opposite sex was driven by hormones, yes but I drove feeble cars. I began with a 1961 Renault Dauphine. I painted it up and tried to spiffy it up. It was a stick on the floor, which was good but it was a push pull stick. You had to push it out of first to neutral, then push it down to get 2^nd. Lame. Four doors. Lame. The radiator fill neck dripped onto the 2^nd cylinder spark plug and caused it to miss. Lame.

 The girls I dated at that point in my life centered around their looks and their cars. KayLynn, Sunbean Alpine roadster. Gwen, MGB roadster. Kay, Karmann Ghia. Roxy, wins a Camaro in a raffle. Piggish? Pretty much. Standard stuff, right? Going forward, things will take a turn for the weird.

I dated Kay for a few weeks. She was tall, thin, blond and attractive. Nice car. No roadster but hey. My best friend’s GF thought she should have been a model. Her one flaw was a small space between her two front teeth. So what’s weird? She liked me. She suggested we find someplace quiet to explore each other. She was quiet and unassuming. She had a nice car. My son explains why he stops going out with young women by saying, “no chemistry.” And there it was. It was gradual but I slowly quit calling her. Had she been harder to get or drove a Ferrari? Who knows what smelly, fetid darkness lurks in the male mind? She was beautiful and easy? Not for me.

Then

I see her at the same places we frequented as a group (LaCasa’s, Friar Tuck’s) and she’s getting out of a spectacular maroon Mercury Cougar sports coupe, showing a lot of really long leg. It was the 60s. Word on the street is she’s dating Tommy Dutton. Tommy’s father is part owner of Clay-Dutton Mercury, a New Orleans automobile dealership. The details are lurid. The Cougar, while sexy and fast wasn’t fast enough. He got the engine “blue printed.” This is serious. He is using science to squeeze every horsepower he can from this already powerful V-8 engine. He also apparently doesn’t hold being beautiful and free against Kay.

It gets worse.

He convinces his Dad that the Cougar, while keeping it in the family business, is too slow. He gets a Corvette. Now he’s driving a car I lust after and still dating the girl I should have lusted after, given a sane mind.

It finally takes a turn for the macabre.

He tops 110MPH on the Ponchartrain Expressway, inbound to the city, in Metairie, fails to negotiate a turn, hits a concrete support and is decapitated. When I heard the news, which spread quickly through my group of friends, I had to ask the telling question. Was he alone?

Within a few months I had joined the Air Force. I came back to town on leave after tech school. Kay was working at a place near the French quarter and I tried to talk to her about what was going on but she didn’t want to talk to me. Neither did Roxy who won the Camaro. KayLynn had gotten married. My best friend’s GF fixed me up with a gal from Newcomb. She was pretty nice but her Dad didn’t get her the Olds 442 convertible until after her graduation.

 Life is hard in the barnyard. Pigs survive but seldom ride in topless roadsters with pretty girls.

The Captain Midnight Cup / Roy and Dale

 I got up early on Saturdays to watch Roy and Dale and yeah, I watched The Mickey Mouse Club, Sky King, The Lone Ranger and whatever show that had the Peanut Gallery and absorbed like essential dna, all the commercials aimed at reprogramming my brain. One of the favorite moments in my life, to that time, was getting a red plastic cup that had Captain Midnight on it. Not sure how I sent off for it. Likely Mom did it for me by mailing in a box top or something. It took weeks, if not months to arrive and by the time it arrived, I'd forgotten I ordered it and bang! there it was. A cardboard box. Inside the magic conveyor with my name on it was a red plastic cup with an official Captain Midnight decal on the side. My imagination went wild. I used it as a gun (primal freudian motivation), a transponder to speak to the Captain long distance, an echo chamber and yes, even as a cup. Each meal I used it for its magical properties. I slept with it. It was my real time link with TV people. You saw them on the tube, yes but they were ephemeral. This cup was physical evidence of the existence of "tv people." National TV people. My link to them. That cup was magic. It must have been summer break.

I recently saw a Roy Rogers episode on cable. I also managed to come by a movie he made in the late 50s, early 60s. I guess I knew back then that Roy didn't kill people. He talked with them. Motivated them. Brought them home to meet Dale and get a meal. Convinced them to live a better life. It almost sounds like I'm kidding but no, Roy was not a typical tv cowboy. Don't get me wrong, he fist-fought with all kinds of villains. They jumped around and rolled around and struggled to stop them from doing bad but, in the end, he made friends with them. They were better off for it and while they may have had to stay in jail for a couple days, in the long run, they were ready to walk the straight and narrow. Sometimes he'd sing a song or two. Happy Trails to you. 'Til we see you again. I'm sorry but Roy was frickin' outstanding. He should have been King of the Cowboys.

My Dad and I used to try to keep count of how many people Marshall Dillon killed each week on Gunsmoke. It would have been nice to have one of those chrome clickers golfers use. Never fewer than one. Some weeks, two, some three or four. It was Chester's use of 9x recycled coffee grounds and Miss Kitty's lousy attitude that did it. That beauty spot might have been syphilitic. Doc was a sourpuss. The undertaker, constantly dragging more bodies down the street.

Dale sang along with Roy. Pat Brady, while something of a stuttering moron, could always bust a smile while he drove Clarabelle. The dark and the light. The world needs more Roy Rogers. I probably had one of his plastic cups. He deserved it.

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.