Very Young - Very Foolish
Odd how time and
distance can play tricks with both recollection and total recall. I
was sure I’d written about one of the defining moments of my late
teens – but now I find that I have not. Or at least if I have, I
can’t find it.
Part of the problem
with trying to remedy a poor memory and/or poor organisational skills
is that time is a poor mnemonic. I’m winding the clock back to the
late-sixties. And, I’m trying to get specific about time and place.
Not very successfully, with either in truth.
Let’s work
backwards from what I’m sure I know. Well, pretty sure anyhow. I
was working at 70-Hi Drive-In on Noland Road and 39th Street in
Independence, Missouri. Of that, I’m positive. Larry Stoner was my
Bun-Boy. (lest the alliterative connotations become too complex, let
me explain. In order to produce good quality burgers, the buns needed
to be placed on the warm grill for a short time. This was the
Bun-Boy’s job. The cooked burgers were then placed in the warmed
buns and wrapped in grease-proof paper by the Bun-Boy ready for
dispatch – simples).
Reece Isbell had a
big old Oldsmobile. Any way you slice it: it was big. Somebody, and
it was usually Bun-Boy who had these ideas, decided we should go to
New Orleans. Precisely why, as I recall, was never actually
explained. I believe it had something to do with the ubiquitous
Spring Break. So, to New Orleans we went.
The year is 1965.
We were young and particularly foolish: we had no real idea of the
time and distance involved. Don’t forget this is well before the
advent of the interstate road network. Somehow we came to the
improbable realization that all we had to do was go south on US 71
and keep going.
At that time, US 71
ran right through Kansas City, but it conveniently split north of the
Missouri river to form Highway 71 By-pass - now Missouri Highway 291,
which runs from north of Liberty, Mo. to south of Harrisonville Mo.
The southern
terminus of US 71 is in Louisiana, between Port Barre and Krotz
Springs, Louisiana, at an intersection with U.S. 190, so I discovered
on Google.The highway follows a northwesterly course through
Louisiana, passing through the communities of Alexandria, Montgomery,
Coushatta, and Shreveport. From its southern terminus to Shreveport,
US 71 has largely been superseded by Interstate 49 - which is
eventually planned to roughly follow the US 71 alignment as far north
as Kansas City, Missouri. After Shreveport, US 71 follows a northerly
course, crossing into Arkansas just north of Ida, Louisiana.
Bottom line, in any
era - it’s a long way to New Orleans and without modern roads it
takes a long time. Even today, with the interstate network fully
operational it is about a 13 hour drive. My research tells me we did
it in 15 hours and that must have been some kind of record for the
time!
My researchers are
trying to confirm the dates. I’m pretty sure it was spring break
1965. So, whilst it was common practice for college students to head
to Florida for Spring Break we, being just as poor as we were stupid,
decided New Orleans would do just as well. The plan was to share the
driving in shifts. It must have been the Memorial Day weekend as
Reece wasn’t working. I think we left about 4 or 5 in the
afternoon. I do remember taking a shift at driving whilst it was
still a bit light. I do remember falling asleep on the back seat.
Those old Oldsmobiles were very roomy!
During my next
driving stint we were deep in the Ozarks. The road was narrow with
many bends, and some of them were quite sharp. It must have been dark
by then.
I distinctly
remember closing my eyes for just a few seconds, opening them,
closing them for another few seconds, realising that nothing terrible
had happened, closing them for a bit longer and finally jolting awake
as the car lurched into the gravel at the side of the road. The
other two woke up immediately. I was banned from driving.
We went on into
Louisiana. I had lost my sense of time and place. We were hungry.
I spied a McDonalds. We stopped - at least at McD you always know
what you are getting. I can remember standing at the counter and the
mouth of the girl on the other side moving and a sound being
produced. It did not ring any bells. I can distinctly remember
thinking, “Why can I not understand this person, after all we are
still in America,” Fact was, we were not - we were in deep south
Louisiana, where English is barely spoken.
I had this
confirmed some years later when I was invited by Uncle Sam to avail
myself of the opportunity to serve my country and see the world - via
Ft Polk, Louisiana. We had a large number of local boys in our basic
training company. Their acquaintance with the English language was
only passing. They were super-fluent in Cajun French with last names
like LeRoux, Fontenot, Benoit and Broussard and I was immediately
reminded of the girl in McDonalds.
Eager to see the
sights we drove though Lake Charles - which Google conveniently tells
us:
Distance from Lake
Charles to New Orleans: There are 189.03 miles from Lake Charles to
New Orleans in east direction and 205 miles (329.92 kilometers) by
car, following the I-10 and US-90 E route. Lake Charles and New
Orleans are 3 hours 19 mins far apart, if you drive non-stop . From
this I conclude it was about noon when we went through Lake Charles
and maybe three in the afternoon when we hit Canal Street. We had no
money for a motel room, so we took turns changing out of the grubby
clothes we had on into what we assumed would wow the local girls into
immediate submission. We found Bourbon Street and saw the sights. We
cruised Canal Street for some hours. We mooched around Bourbon
Street whilst it got progressively darker and rowdier. We had a
great time. We had no luck -girl-wise - no change there then.
Let me readily
confess that I like New Orleans. Despite the fact that they don’t
really speak English the natives are unerringly friendly and
approachable. Had they known that we were effectively broke and
exceedingly impoverished free-loaders, perhaps things might have been
different. But we must have been lucky as we had a great time just
wandering around.
My recollection is
that eventually we got so tired that we had to get a room. We found
the cheapest motel ever in St Charles and grabbed some much needed
shut-eye. Knowing that what goes up, must come down (or perhaps what
drives to New Orleans must drive back to Independence might be more
accurate) we had another quick look around and bought some souvenirs
to show the folks back home. Larry Dean had his heart set on a
Forget Hell license plate. This has a caricature of a Confederate
Veteran holding a banner which says “Forget Hell” . I insisted
that we buy a cheap raffia covered bottle of Chainit to drink on the
way back. He has not now and will not ever forgive me for being so
selfish. (It was my money!)
I reckon we left in
the afternoon with Reece and Larry doing the driving and me curled up
on the back seat. A fact of which they are overly-fond of reminding
me. Getting to New Orleans was hard. Getting back was harder still
and far more tedious.
During the first
part of the long road home I had spent a few exhausting hours trying
to remove the cork from the Chianti bottle and having to listen to
Stoner bitch about not having his Forget Hell license plate. I never
did get the cork out completely, but I did manage to cut into it with
a pen-knife and poke most of the cork down into the bottle.
Therefore if you had a swig you mostly got a mouth-full of cork bits
with a smidgen of Chianti to boot. Tasted like it came from a
tourist trap - which, of course, it did.
At some point in the
wee hours, the boys got so exhausted that they had to pull over. My
offer to take a spell at the wheel was rudely dismissed, so I got the
Stars and Bars, climbed out on the lid of the Oldsmobile trunk (very
copious indeed) and went to sleep. The boys were cutting Z’s in
the car.
I was awoken by the
sound of cars arriving and strange voices. We were parked in a kind
of public picnic area somewhere deep in the Arkansas Ozarks. I half
woke up, looked at the Deliverance-types who had pulled in, wrapped
the flag more tightly around me (thinking that deep in Arkansas even
the baddest of the bad would not harm a kid wrapped in the holy
flag). And, I was right. The other two chickens were in the car
soiling their underpants.
We made it back - I
have no sensible estimate of how long it took.
The flag eventually
ended up in Pa Hall’s basement where it hung for many years and
oversaw many a party and drinking session - with the odd game of pool
thrown in for fun.
And the rest, as
they say, is legend.
I'm just waiting for
those other two to tell me I got this all wrong and set the record
straight!
No comments:
Post a Comment