ROAD TRIPS AND OTHER SUCH ADVENTURES:
Me and my friend Judy Jones would occasionally take a road trip. We had no idea what the proper term for all that driving around was called. After all it was the mid 60's, we were driving big assed cars with no seat belts, living the life.
We had short trips to the City. We loved to go to the zoo, the Golden Gate Park and there was an amusement park near the beach fairly close to the zoo. This place was popular during WWII. A place for GI's to date pretty girls, go on the fun house and roller skating. We did both.
The fun house was a genuine old fashioned one. It had a large wooden slide, a flat spinning thing to try not to get spun off and a very large mechanical woman cackling away on the outside to attract customers. Other times we would go to the roller skating rink. I was truly awful and picked up plenty of bruises on my bouncy backside.
Of the medium type trips that involved jumping in the car with very limited pocket change and going intil we had half a tank of gas left to get back. One time, shortly after her little girl was born we took off down the coast and went for an over night wander just to be looking. I don't think we got as far as Hearst Castle.
Another medium trip, two or three of them over a period of time, involved spontaneously driving to Winnemucca, Nevada. Because that was where her sister's husband was stationed. That time I think we had twelve dollars between us for gas. We were depending on hitting Betty up for gas money to get back.
The most memorable medium distance trip was one late December, Betty decided she would drive the Bonneville to Winnemucca. She asked a bunch of us to go. There was her, Judy, me, a girl we called Karacha (because her first name was Judy) and one of her friends. Five women dressed to the nines headed north in a snow storm. The snow came down so thick that we had to stop ocasionally to wipe the snow off the headlights. At one point the back seat drivers were saying things like "Go left!".
We finally dragged into Winnemucca very late at night. We decided to get a very late breakfast at one of the downtown casino's. There we were walking into one of the darkly lit restaurants, there were several Airmen sitting at the bar. We apparently stunned them into silence or they thought we were fresh meat for the line. (Itty bitty houses of pleasure down by the river). One of the men actually stood up with his hand over his heart. I think he might have been from Texas.
We got a couple rooms close to the Airbase (radar station actually) and spent the night. Betty went off to get her husband up early, they had an apartment closer to downtown.
We had a good time at the New Year's Eve party. I have never danced so much in my entire life well fueled with various mixed drinks. Judy had a good time helping make drinks behind the bar. It was one of those all nighter kind of things, I dimly remember going enmasse to the mess for a huge breakfast, I believe steak and eggs were involved.
Judy and I made long distance cross country trips two or three times. We borrowed Betty's Pontiac, got a map from Triple A. Her daughter was a toddler then. We discovered accidentally that said toddler could grab the keys out of the ignition while the engine was running. This caused the power steering to stop but the engine kept running. This occurred somewhere high in the Rocky mountains.
We navigated well until we crossed over into Kentucky headed towards West Virginia. By then we had deviated from the Triple A map. It was somewhere on top of a mountain that had three roads going down that we stopped for a breather. We was lost. All alone. Crickt chirp, chirp, chirp.
Pretty soon a couple of guys in a pickup stopped to inquire if we needed help. During a conversation Judy recognized a place the guys could point us to and off we went. We drove by swinging bridges the kind cars actually used to cross creeks.
We got to her parent's place 33 hours after leaving the San Francisco area. Non stop. We did pull over for a snooze somewhere along side a freeway in Missouri. We slept for about 45 minutes buffeted by the wind of passing semitrailer trucks. We went to bed when we got there and I slept 13 hours. The rest of the visit was a blur.
Now the most memorable trip to West Virginia was the one where the entire Jones family and myself decided to take a plane. There was Judy and her little girl, Betty and her little girl, a dog, myself and luggage the likes of which made us resemble the Gabor sisters going on tour.
Betty had extra baggage for her daughter, her dog and her wig. In the sixties it was very popular to wear whole wigs or piece of wigs. These wigs were kept on Styrofoam heads when not being worn. This was also how the were taken to the beauty shop to be styled in fancy well lacquered curls. Betty had one suitcase reserved just for her wig.
We flew jets pretty straight to Kentucky where we changed to a much smaller cargo configured WWII era plane. The plane flew low through clouds and the fog rolled down the center of the aisle, a very strange sensation. Our stewardess was a lovely young lady with a British accent. She handed out sandwiches and drinks.
West Virginia is known as the Mountain State and there are no flat places to land planes unless they shave off a couple mountain tops to make an airport. Same thing goes for a drive-in theater where Judy burned out a clutch. So , there we were, the five of us. The luggage and dog had to come on the next flight.
I had a very good time. I discovered fire flies. They looked EXACTLY like the fire flies seen during the Pirates of the Caribnean ride at Disneyland. Amazing.
I saw some amazing things. We visited friends and relatives. One place had several roosters in individual pens. Turned out they were kept that way for highly illegal cockfighting. I also went with Judy to pick up a jug of moonshine from a stump to being back to a neighbor in California. There were rumors that this batch was occasionally cut with bleach. I never tasted any of it, I didn't want to go blind.
I was shown the local car wash. It was not the kind where you put in quarters and soap comes out. This was the natural kind that consisted of a very handy waterfall to drive through once you had the car all soaped up.
Also shortly after a rain shower we washed our hair utilizing the rain barrel that filled up from the gutters of the house.
I met one of Judy's school friends. This family was considered upper middle class. They lived in a spiffy double wide trailer. They switched out wardrobes on Labor Day and covered their furniture in plastic upholstery.
I also learned there was a lot of casual discrimination. The black folks used the bowling alley on during the week, the whites had the weekends. Same arrangement for the drive-in movies. The stores had separate area for common supply items that black people most often purchased.
I was randomly picking up odd items that I had never seen before and asked Judy what these were? She collapsed in laughter and hustled me out of there because what ever I was fingering was some sort of black hair processing equipment.
One of the last trips to and from West Virginia involved taking her Mom and her brother Clyde back with us to California. We were doing well until we got to New Mexico. It was summer, it was hot. We stopped for gas and the attendant warned us that the tires looked bad. We ignored that advice and stopped at a rest stop east of Rosewell, New Mexico for the night. That was purely miserable.
The next morning we got up and three tires had gone flat. We stood around a little bit what us gonna do!? Judy asked a trucker to ask a garage to come to us. Eventually a guy from a garage showed up and changed out tires and got us back on the road. We got home to Judy's apartment. I got in my own car to leave the next day and the last tire on the Pontiac had gone flat. Good times.
Me and my friend Judy Jones would occasionally take a road trip. We had no idea what the proper term for all that driving around was called. After all it was the mid 60's, we were driving big assed cars with no seat belts, living the life.
We had short trips to the City. We loved to go to the zoo, the Golden Gate Park and there was an amusement park near the beach fairly close to the zoo. This place was popular during WWII. A place for GI's to date pretty girls, go on the fun house and roller skating. We did both.
The fun house was a genuine old fashioned one. It had a large wooden slide, a flat spinning thing to try not to get spun off and a very large mechanical woman cackling away on the outside to attract customers. Other times we would go to the roller skating rink. I was truly awful and picked up plenty of bruises on my bouncy backside.
Of the medium type trips that involved jumping in the car with very limited pocket change and going intil we had half a tank of gas left to get back. One time, shortly after her little girl was born we took off down the coast and went for an over night wander just to be looking. I don't think we got as far as Hearst Castle.
Another medium trip, two or three of them over a period of time, involved spontaneously driving to Winnemucca, Nevada. Because that was where her sister's husband was stationed. That time I think we had twelve dollars between us for gas. We were depending on hitting Betty up for gas money to get back.
The most memorable medium distance trip was one late December, Betty decided she would drive the Bonneville to Winnemucca. She asked a bunch of us to go. There was her, Judy, me, a girl we called Karacha (because her first name was Judy) and one of her friends. Five women dressed to the nines headed north in a snow storm. The snow came down so thick that we had to stop ocasionally to wipe the snow off the headlights. At one point the back seat drivers were saying things like "Go left!".
We finally dragged into Winnemucca very late at night. We decided to get a very late breakfast at one of the downtown casino's. There we were walking into one of the darkly lit restaurants, there were several Airmen sitting at the bar. We apparently stunned them into silence or they thought we were fresh meat for the line. (Itty bitty houses of pleasure down by the river). One of the men actually stood up with his hand over his heart. I think he might have been from Texas.
We got a couple rooms close to the Airbase (radar station actually) and spent the night. Betty went off to get her husband up early, they had an apartment closer to downtown.
We had a good time at the New Year's Eve party. I have never danced so much in my entire life well fueled with various mixed drinks. Judy had a good time helping make drinks behind the bar. It was one of those all nighter kind of things, I dimly remember going enmasse to the mess for a huge breakfast, I believe steak and eggs were involved.
Judy and I made long distance cross country trips two or three times. We borrowed Betty's Pontiac, got a map from Triple A. Her daughter was a toddler then. We discovered accidentally that said toddler could grab the keys out of the ignition while the engine was running. This caused the power steering to stop but the engine kept running. This occurred somewhere high in the Rocky mountains.
We navigated well until we crossed over into Kentucky headed towards West Virginia. By then we had deviated from the Triple A map. It was somewhere on top of a mountain that had three roads going down that we stopped for a breather. We was lost. All alone. Crickt chirp, chirp, chirp.
Pretty soon a couple of guys in a pickup stopped to inquire if we needed help. During a conversation Judy recognized a place the guys could point us to and off we went. We drove by swinging bridges the kind cars actually used to cross creeks.
We got to her parent's place 33 hours after leaving the San Francisco area. Non stop. We did pull over for a snooze somewhere along side a freeway in Missouri. We slept for about 45 minutes buffeted by the wind of passing semitrailer trucks. We went to bed when we got there and I slept 13 hours. The rest of the visit was a blur.
Now the most memorable trip to West Virginia was the one where the entire Jones family and myself decided to take a plane. There was Judy and her little girl, Betty and her little girl, a dog, myself and luggage the likes of which made us resemble the Gabor sisters going on tour.
Betty had extra baggage for her daughter, her dog and her wig. In the sixties it was very popular to wear whole wigs or piece of wigs. These wigs were kept on Styrofoam heads when not being worn. This was also how the were taken to the beauty shop to be styled in fancy well lacquered curls. Betty had one suitcase reserved just for her wig.
We flew jets pretty straight to Kentucky where we changed to a much smaller cargo configured WWII era plane. The plane flew low through clouds and the fog rolled down the center of the aisle, a very strange sensation. Our stewardess was a lovely young lady with a British accent. She handed out sandwiches and drinks.
West Virginia is known as the Mountain State and there are no flat places to land planes unless they shave off a couple mountain tops to make an airport. Same thing goes for a drive-in theater where Judy burned out a clutch. So , there we were, the five of us. The luggage and dog had to come on the next flight.
I had a very good time. I discovered fire flies. They looked EXACTLY like the fire flies seen during the Pirates of the Caribnean ride at Disneyland. Amazing.
I saw some amazing things. We visited friends and relatives. One place had several roosters in individual pens. Turned out they were kept that way for highly illegal cockfighting. I also went with Judy to pick up a jug of moonshine from a stump to being back to a neighbor in California. There were rumors that this batch was occasionally cut with bleach. I never tasted any of it, I didn't want to go blind.
I was shown the local car wash. It was not the kind where you put in quarters and soap comes out. This was the natural kind that consisted of a very handy waterfall to drive through once you had the car all soaped up.
Also shortly after a rain shower we washed our hair utilizing the rain barrel that filled up from the gutters of the house.
I met one of Judy's school friends. This family was considered upper middle class. They lived in a spiffy double wide trailer. They switched out wardrobes on Labor Day and covered their furniture in plastic upholstery.
I also learned there was a lot of casual discrimination. The black folks used the bowling alley on during the week, the whites had the weekends. Same arrangement for the drive-in movies. The stores had separate area for common supply items that black people most often purchased.
I was randomly picking up odd items that I had never seen before and asked Judy what these were? She collapsed in laughter and hustled me out of there because what ever I was fingering was some sort of black hair processing equipment.
One of the last trips to and from West Virginia involved taking her Mom and her brother Clyde back with us to California. We were doing well until we got to New Mexico. It was summer, it was hot. We stopped for gas and the attendant warned us that the tires looked bad. We ignored that advice and stopped at a rest stop east of Rosewell, New Mexico for the night. That was purely miserable.
The next morning we got up and three tires had gone flat. We stood around a little bit what us gonna do!? Judy asked a trucker to ask a garage to come to us. Eventually a guy from a garage showed up and changed out tires and got us back on the road. We got home to Judy's apartment. I got in my own car to leave the next day and the last tire on the Pontiac had gone flat. Good times.
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