A ROAD TRIP BACK INTO THE PAST!

Saturday morning found me meeting up with Gary Baker in front of Fairmont Headstart school building, which is located on Fairmont Ave., on the west side of Pine Hills in Harriman, Tennessee.  The school sets on property that also takes in about 10 to 15 acres of land that was once a nursery farm for Bob's Flower Place, a local nursery where I once worked along side Woody Adkisson, the adopted son of Bob Adkisson, the owner.  The neighborhood kids all called him "Uncle Bob" and you'd have to look hard to find a better person.

Uncle Bob raised his children, Betty Anne and Woody, in the church, and every time the doors were open, he expected them to be there!  I can't say he was a strict man, but he did expect his kids to perform chores around the home, and Woody worked for him just like any other hired hand.  He got the same wage and performed the same jobs, and I think it was all an attempt by his father to teach him the business.  However, Woody never had the desire to be in the "flower" business.

Woody learned to work hard in the heat of the East Tennessee summer sun and humidity, and I often had trouble keeping up.  However, that work ethic rubbed off on me back in the summers of '62 and '63, and dripped off my brow down in a little hidden valley behind Pine Hills Subdivision; down next to Bumgardner Creek.  If you follow that creek, and the railroad bed on the south side of the creek, west, you will eventually come out by McDonald's near Exit 347 of I-40.

Woody and I toiled with pick and shovel, wrestled tillers, sowed burlap bags that formed giant balls around bundled roots and earth, and pushed mowers back and forth for 75 cents an hour.  We worked hard, trying to get to the next break under the shade of a line of slender saplings that grew straight and tall in the best bottom soil around.  That soil was irrigated with Bumgardner Creek water that pooled up behind two concrete and 2X6 board dams that Bob had constructed years earlier.  The water level was determined by the number of boards inserted into the concrete slots on each side of the dam.

The water was cool in those pools and we often sat on the dam walls, dangling our bare feet in the water, while sharing a Winston, and a cup of cool thermos water off the back of the ol' "Green Bomb", Bob's '48 Chevy pickup.  We shared many a conversation, about which is lost in time, but needless to say they involved the coming weekend, girls, and an occasional heated discussion about the differences between calling a church South Harriman Baptist verses the Church of Christ!  Never of us ever won these exchanges, but we forged a bond over those years.  

Woody and I ended up joining the Air Force in August of '64, along with Tom Hall, and after that, well, I only saw him a half dozen times.  Where he is today...even his family don't seem to know for sure?!

Anyway, I said all this just to point out that the land below Fairmont School holds a special place in my heart.  So, Saturday, Gary, who now owns the property, and I walked down the hill and into the past.

The dams are almost too overgrown to see anymore, and their purpose is lost on anyone who does not remember "Uncle Bob" or the nursery he owned.  Gary remembered it though, having roamed Pine Hills as a young boy, along with our mutual friend Bennie Lowery.

Besides the dam walls, little is left that would indicate the area was ever used as a nursery farm.  However, if you look real close, you can still see trees that are in perfect alignment, and a huge juniper bush or two that would seem strangely located to an uneducated eye.

We crossed the creek and walked the fence line that separates the land from the railroad right-of-way and into the heart of the property.  We each took turns pointing out trees and shrubs that were obviously remnants of the past.  We stood by the creek and marveled at the tranquility, which was only broken by the distant traffic on I-40.  Over those muffled sounds, you could almost hear the ol' Green Bomb sloshing across the creek!

We left Pine Hills and drove to Clifty Creek.  Gary had called Dr. Ahler and asked him to join us.

Together we walked back into another past, a past where young boys (me, Woody, and Barry, among others) used to come, again in the ol' Green Bomb, and do boyish things.  We shot cans lined up in rows, and regrettably bottles, that we had tossed in upstream, ambushing them as they passed.  I like to think that after fifty years of so, that the water had ground off all the sharp edges, or tuned them back into sand, but I'm sure that's wishful thinking.

Each of us told personal stories of the "Pepper Box" area, as we sat on a big sandstone rock and looked up Clifty Creek, remembering the past.  

Dr. Ahler spoke of leading Boy Scouts across the creek, and the time he slipped and fell in.  

Me, well, all those cans and bottles were rolled into one event, just like the camping trips.  They all turn into one great adventure, in the dark, around a camp fire, listening to the "peppering" sound the water made after falling a couple of hundred feet and splattering on the rocks below.

Today you can enjoy a variety of wildflowers, waterfalls, and old growth forests along the valley.  One day, I plan to take a pilgrimage to the back most regions of this area.  They say there is a second canyon area, with steep sandstone walls, that makes the first canyon envious!  I want to find that wall!

The area, at least on the Morgan County side of the creek, is now part of the Nature Conservancy, and that makes me very happy.  The area, its flora and wildlife, is now protected and should be available to future generations for many years to come.  There should be no more "bad boys", who had no sense of legacy back then, shooting bottles in the creek.  And yes, as the years go by, the chances of those bottle being turned back into sand increases!

A RETURN TO “OUR” HIDE-OUT

I’ve never mentioned my favorite place on earth before now, and it’s not even in my “Laugh & Times of Mushy”, but I was blessed last week to find the person* that now owned this beautiful private place, and discovering that we both call it “our hide-out!”

When I first moved to Harriman and made friends with Barry and Woody, they introduced me to their world. They had a secret place that they loved to visit, shoot a can or two, hunt squirrels, skinny dip, skip stones, camp, or just walk quietly through the splendor of it all. It instantly became my special place too!

The area was not far from where Barry, Woody, and I lived in those days, but far enough that a car, or as it turned out an old ’49 Chevy pickup, was necessary. Oh, it was well within range of a 2 hour bike ride, but bicycles by then had become way too juvenile for 16 and 17 year-old boys!

Woody was usually our designated driver, using the old work truck from the nursery his dad owned. The nursery also provided me with work during my junior and senior years. I am very grateful for that job, but I’m more appreciative now for the transportation that allowed 3 adventuresome boys a way to get to their “hide-out”!

When I came home on leave, before leaving for Vietnam, I took one last trip to “my hide-out” and walked in the serenity there. I wondered what I was about to learn about the big world, and it even crossed my mind that I might not walk there again. As I walked along, forming a tear or two, listening to the crunch of leaves beneath my feet and the whispering of the wind in the trees above me, I suddenly realized that whatever happened, had to happen, and I did not worry about it again.

I don’t think I ever had time to go back there until after Judy and I married, some 15 years later. One of the first places I took her was among the trees in “my special place”, and it has remained “our special place” through all these years.

You might imagine how disappointed I was a few years ago when I wanted to show my granddaughter this “little piece of heaven on earth”, and finding it locked away behind a gate and a “Keep Out” sign!

How could this be? Didn’t this place belong to all those that loved it? Why was it no longer accessible to us?

After a couple of years of wondering and searching, and having no luck, this past week I found out who owned the property*, but that he lived most of the time in California. My heart sank! But, as a last ditch effort to get access to "my hide-out", I sent him an email explaining my situation and love for the area.

I could hardly believe that a reply came that very evening! Better yet, he told me how much he also loved the area and understood my feelings for it. The letter gave me special pass to walk the property anytime I wanted!

Let me tell you, that night was a restless night for me. I was so excited at getting the permission that I had trouble falling to sleep. It was just a dream come true!

Judy and I decided to take our first walk of the area this past Monday. Sunday night was the same as the night I got the news – nearly sleepless! I even dreamed that the area had been developed as a state park of sorts, complete with a gift shop and caged animals! All this had been hidden and unknown until we crossed the creek and stepped into the fall colored forest. I was shocked to see people milling around, shopping, and snapping photos of various rock formations and the fall colors.I woke up several times early Monday morning, but each time I had a big smile on my face. I knew it was just a dream, but I was having the time of my life. As soon as I closed my eyes, I was again back in the dream in the same place as before – it was terrific!

However, nothing was more terrific than once again stepping foot back into those woods for real! Nothing had changed except me! The tree under which we used to camp was not nearly as large as I remember it, but quite a big beech tree nonetheless! The tree and rope from which we swung out into the creek was also gone.

The 150 to 200 foot rock wall that rims the northern part of the woods there prevents anyone from accessing the area from that direction. To the south, a long steep rocky hill line guards that side of the little hidden valley. The only access is from the east, down a leafy path, across a wide boulder strewn creek that often runs full of swiftly moving water. However, on this day, Judy and I crossed the creek gingerly, slowly picking our way from boulder to boulder, remaining high and dry due to the two year drought.

As we stepped into the woods, we both half expected to see a gift shop! We laughed, remembering the dream, and walked on deeper into our past, barely containing our excitement, adding new memories of our “special hide-out”.

If anyone ever tries to think of a place to sprinkle our ashes…this is it. What could make resurrection more special than for it to happen in “our special hide-out”!

*Who would have ever thought he and I would have so much in common:

>See more photos of this area on FLICKR!<

AIR FORCE BASIC TRAINING – PHYSICAL TRAINING (Part 1 of 5)

The days continued to pass slowly, with a constant dread of the unknown lingering over me like a cloud full of threatening rain.

You woke in the morning terrified, not just by the blaring of “The time now is 0530 hours…” but also by the knowledge that you had minutes to hit the “head,” shit, shave, shower, and shine! There were always the long lines in front of the toilet, urinals, and sinks. “Hurry, damnit!” you shouted inside as you waited, rocking back, and forth watching every move of the guy in front of you made.

Once the four S’s were behind you, there was the bunk to be made, nice and tight with “hospital corners,” dusting off everything in your area including under the bunk, top of the displayed shoes, the little dresser area above the four drawers that held your worldly possessions, and finally inside the wall locker, and lastly the bill of your dress hat - then, and only then, could you rush down the stairs and into your formation position!

But no…not me! I had to help Woody make his bunk! Woody, Tom, and I joined on the “buddy system.” We were supposed to experience the Air Force together. The truth, as we learned, was that we would go through basic training together and then off to our separate training schools or assigned bases for On the Job Training (OJT)!

It was years later, years after our four-year tour, that I saw either Woody or Tom again!

I would finish my area then swing up under Woody’s bunk and pull the G.I. blanket tight, then re-tuck the corners. It was hectic waiting on him, but he proved a liability to me. He had trouble marching and was always getting his ass kicked while in full step. The DI’s foot passed in front of me and I always jumped thinking it was for me!

Woody could not grasp the concept of knocking once on the DI’s door, waiting for his “Come in!” and then entering. He would knock twice or more and go right in! I shuddered at the constant “dressing down” and cussing he seemed to get. I found myself not wanting to be associated with him.

On the Physical Training (PT) Field the DIs gathered their “flights” in front of raised stands, some six to eight feet above the ground. From there they demonstrated and scrutinized your exercise efforts. There were a dozen or more “flights” of thirty to forty troops each spread out over the huge field, and the voices of the DIs echoed angrily back and forth across the field. You had to concentrate to obey only your drill sergeant’s orders, or suffer the consequences!

You were also constantly aware the DI’s eyes that were scanning your every move and you did not dare mess up the demonstrated exercise, or raise your hand to brush off a Texas sandspur. Many were the times I stealthfully dug at them under my palms with my thumbs, trying to relieve their painful stick!

There was poor old Woody, attempting to keep up with the push-up count when his knees sagged and touched the ground!

“Woody (in reality the DI screamed his last name), what the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing sir,” Woody replied between heavy breaths of air!

“If you do that one more time, I’m go’na jump off this thing right in the middle of your back! Do you understand me Airman?”

“Yes, sir!”

Woody was laboring and I was terrified for him. I did not want the DI on the ground to see me mess up too!

Before I could worry any longer, Woody suddenly yelled out, “I’m sick sir; I’m going to throw up!”

“If you throw up on my field, you’ll damn well eat it! Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir, but I can’t help it!”

“Get off my field Airman…don’t you dare throw up here…run…you’ll eat it,” the DI screamed as he pointed and yelled at the running figure!

Woody ran for the edge of the field and no one dared look.

Me, well I took the opportunity to dig out another sandspur and kept on pumping, cussing Woody all the while under my breath for bringing the DI’s wrath down on the rest of us!

POOL HALLS AND RELATED TALES

There were actually two pool halls in my life, but both served as places to gather, to grow socially, and to kill time.

One was way in the back of a local beer joint, actually a nice bar for the day, called the “Rec Center,” short for recreation. “The Rec” had red leather covered stools, and matching tufted booths along the opposite wall from the bar. The mirrors along this wall and one large one behind the bar made the room seem immense, especially to a teenage boy walking anxiously through the bar to the pool tables.

We never wanted to be caught in the bar area, while the pool area could be explained away, should our parents see us.

Naturally, we could not order at the bar, but they would take our coke and chip order through an opening in the wooden paneled wall that separated the two distinct areas - the bar and the pool hall.

The pool table area was separated by a gate and wall of oak paneling that included box newels extending from about half way up the wall to the ceiling. The smoke and beer smells and the conversations easily passed between the sections.

The other pool hall was known simply as “The Pool Hall” and was located in the middle of Harriman. Large plate glass windows separated the smoke, ball breaks, and loud talking and cursing from the street. On more than one occasion, I saw a strong snooker break send the cue through one of the windows and down the street. As a ball hit the floor on break or angered shot, you always heard the overly used “Cost extra to play on the floor!” Later, chicken wire was placed along the bottom of the glass to deflect ricocheting balls.

“The Pool Hall” was a deep rectangular building, built in the 1920s, with a few mirrors, some raised platform seating, a cigarette machine and a single “coke” machine. Little else adorned this place, it was basically an old west saloon with the bar missing. The walls were painted a baby blue, but mostly covered with dirty jokes and curse words. The floor was wooden, squeaked when you walked over the greasy boards, and were always dirty, with little piles of red sweeping compound and cigarette butts in the corners. Besides the drink machine, there was nothing nourishing in the place so you had to walk across the street to “The Spot” café, if you got hungry.

This centrally located hall was the prime hangout for most high school boys, and the old “long since graduated” losers of Harriman High. Mostly the old and the young mingled pretty well, except for the manager, who seemed to hate anyone under thirty!

If our money lasted through the first round on a Friday or Saturday night at “The Beacon,” with cherry cokes and burgers, and the obligatory pinball game, one of these pool halls were our next destination!

“The Rec” was usually only chosen if we knew someone older was coming by and had promised to buy us a six-pack up front. If this fell through, then it was the half-mile on to town to shoot a few games, then stand, leaning back against a parking meter to watch the cruising parade of girls and boys in cars, trying to look cool.

Mostly there were guys and gals on dates, with whom we tried not to make eye contact. I suppose we were a little ashamed we did not have dates or cars in which to cruise ourselves.

Nevertheless, we stood tall as cars full guys and/or gals came by, hoping that we might be invited to “cruise” with them. However, when you stood with Barry and James, you knew few offers would come, at least from the “popular” crowd.

More often than not, we ended up with a car full of guys from lesser important cliques playing the expected role of circling all the local “drive-ins,” hanging out the windows yelling at former girlfriends and their dates, or anyone else we wanted to see us in a car. Being spotted in a car seemed, at least then, to give us some credibility of being liked by someone, and possibly even dateable!

It was not that I was better than Barry and James; it was that alone I seemed to have the knack of fitting in with other cliques. However, I loved those two guys and I would not hurt their feelings for anything. There were at least two times that I declined a “ride” that was only meant for me.

Being free and capable of moving between groups allowed me to have many more “friends” in high school, although my preference was with Barry, Woody, and James. I really do not remember James ever being on a “real date,” but Barry, Woody, and I often double dated when one or the other got permission to take out the family car.

One night, while standing tall in front of “The Pool Hall” two of our class’ homeliest and healthiest girls pulled up and stopped. Barry and I looked at each other, then our watches, and figured “what the hell!”

The only good memory from that “cruise” was that I drank a tall Falstaff that was the coldest beer I have ever had the pleasure drinking. It was an especially hot and muggy night and little ice slivers kept sliding down my throat. I was in heaven! Of course, it was pretty hard to swallow, slumped down in the back seat where no one could see us! We took their free ride, but we had our pride!

The last time I ever remember being in “The Pool Hall” was in 1969. I had been distracted by a couple of mini-skirts crossing the street from the pool hall side to the Princess Theater, and rammed a Road Runner in the rear-end with my new candy apple red Mustang! While everyone in the pool hall stood at the window or just outside, I had to walk in and use the payphone to call home. Quite embarrassing, especially since they did not know the full “mini-skirt” story!

THE TENT REVIVAL

Between my house and Woody’s was a vacant lot that sat empty for years, but this area served the community and the boys of Pine Hills well for years. In the fall, until the ground was perceived too hard, we played sandlot football until we could not see the ball in its spiraling flight on pass routes. I often joke about some of my aches and pains I now have coming from having played football in the SFLA (Sandlot Football League of America). I cannot count the dislocated thumbs and pinkies, twisted knees, rock contusions, and crack-back blocks I endured during my membership!

This field also provided local churches with space for great tent-revivals in early to mid-summer. Upon this holy ground I committed an act toward women that still haunts me to this day.

Now, as life would have it, Betty Anne’s church held this particular annual event, and signs were posted all over the county. Betty Anne and several of her girlfriends planned to attend, and naturally asked us guys to accompany them to the services. Naturally, we declined, setting off a two-week long “we’re not speaking to you” campaign.

Standing within a rock throw of the field was a Gulf Service Station operated by another friend’s dad. Morgan was the same age as Woody and me and had many of the same interests, especially in girls. We discussed our own strategy for the five nightlong revival, and it boiled down to spying on the girls from high atop the service station.

The first two nights we lay on the roof in the twilight and watched for the girls to file in and find seats. Each night, up until this time, they had taken the same four or five metal folding chairs with their backs to the station, and facing the podium and minister’s lectern.

Through the entire service we peppered them with the small roof gravel, and generally made a nuisance of ourselves. The girls would turn around and look in our direction, having figured out whom and where we were, and then nonchalantly flipped us “the bird” behind their heads.

Then came the third or fourth night and a new “grand” scheme was hatched. We would stand on the brace between the back legs of the usual chairs, making deep holes down into the soft ground, pull the chairs back up out of the holes, and wait for the fun to begin later! What a great plan, and everything worked as expected, we might see a flash of panties as the chairs rocked back into the holes and dumping the girls over the backs in our direction!

The music began softly as people filed in and took their seats, but for some unknown reason (could have been the rocks, I do not know!) the girls took seats on the opposite side of the tent facing us! Oh, my God - how could this be?

We watched puzzled and waited to see who took the designated chairs. It appeared the chairs would go unused as the first song began with everyone standing and flipping to the correct page in the hymnal. However, just then four little old ladies, the youngest about seventy-five came parading down the aisle in the “Sunday Best” looking for seats close to the front.

We held our breath as they moved down the row and stood reverently in front of the “booby-trapped” chairs!

As the song ended, and the minister began to welcome everyone, the little old ladies began their slow and deliberate decent to the chairs. As fate would have it, their little scrawny bottoms touched down in perfect formation. As they leaned back, the chair legs sank as calculated, and over they tipped, to a reclining position, eight legs in the air, with their backs still against the chair backs!

All I remember, as we hunkered down behind the roof wall, trying to stifle our belly laughs, was the sight of the eight opaque stocking legs, with the roll just below each knee!

If it had not scared me some much, I too would have been rolling in the roof gravel trying to catch my breath! However, I only thought about someone being hurt and the beating my mother would give me for embarrassing her so.

As I remember it, the girls got such a kick out of it that they only held out for “not talking” to us for a week.

No old ladies were harmed in execution of this transgression, but the preacher got an eye full, and like me, probably has trouble getting those spread old stocking legs out of his head!

THE ARRANGEMENT

Woody had an adopted sister and soon after I met him I met Betty Anne and she was the first girl I was “sweet on” in Harriman. There were usually six of us hanging out at Woody and Betty Anne’s (Woody, his girlfriend, Barry’s girlfriend [more on Barry later], Betty Anne, and me) playing music, conducting light petting sessions, and sneaking cigarettes up in one of their rooms. Woody and Betty Anne had separate rooms upstairs, and as I said in the previous post, the parents had never been known to come up to either room since the kids left elementary school.

We played 45’s and huddled around a floor fan, set in the open window, that sucked the cigarette smoke out. Once, in our exuberance, we bumped the fan and it fell out the window, passing rapidly by the kitchen window below, where their mother stood daydreaming while washing dishes. “Woody? Betty Anne? Yawl alright up there?”

“Yes mother, everything is fine,” Betty Anne said, holding back her giggles.

One of us sneaked down the stairs, out the backdoor, and retrieved the fan. It made the fall, only losing one of the safety screens. We soon had it back in the window and working for us again.

Such a living arrangement was a dream situation for us teenagers, and sleepovers took on a whole new meaning for us in those days!

It all would begin with Woody finding out that Betty Anne was having a friend/s over on Friday night. He would invite me, or Barry, or both depending on the lineup, to spend the night with him and the fantasy planning and scheming began!

Truthfully, nothing in a fantasy ever works out as planned and not much serious ever happened during these times. Woody and I did get to sample a lot of lips and practice our techniques. My job was usually to ensure Betty Anne was occupied while Woody made a move on her girlfriend, but sometimes the girlfriends wanted to sample me as well!

I think in today’s world, such an arrangement would be a very dangerous situation. Probably in today’s world parents would monitor such an arrangement more closely, but in those days there were two things going for young girls.

First, boys respected girls, as a rule, more then than they seem to today. Oh yeah, we took it about as far as we could, but if a girl reacted in a certain negative way or flat out said, “What are you doing?”, or said “Stop” or “No”, we did. After which, we usually felt very ashamed for having taken them for granted and trying to make them out to be something they were not.

Second, girls respected themselves. There was a limit to how far they would let experimenting on “night moves” go and then they called it off. They cared about what we would think, what they would think of themselves, what their parents would think about them, and what the community thought about them later.

Self-respect seems to be blurred today. If an action can be rationalized away, then it is okay and you are allowed to feel good about yourself.

Sex is not really sex, as Bill Clinton explained to America’s youth, unless you actually have sexual intercourse. Oral sex is not really sex! Therefore, it is okay and a girl really has not been violated.

What a great arrangement we have today – sin is really not sin unless, of course, it really is – huh?

THE OLD GREEN BOMB

Woody was my first new friend in Harriman. We did not meet until after our junior year began. His dad owned a great little nursery across the highway from where we parked our trailer. Later, I got work at the nursery, very hard work that involved a shovel, a mattock, and “other implements of destruction” most days. The only worthwhile part of it, besides the $5 or so I made a week, was working a long side of Woody.

He was my age, very skinny, very fickle, undependable, and never seemed to buy his own cigarettes, but he and I connected on many levels. We both had a great work ethic and we loved music, cigarettes, guns, girls, and beer.

Woody was a philosopher of sorts, and contemplated the deeper things of life. He often quoted phrases and ideas from Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet,” a collection of essays about the human condition.

Woody made the author’s view of love, marriage, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, pain, friendship, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, religion, and death, among other things his own. By the end of that first year at the nursery, Woody had related almost every word of the book.

We talked endlessly, with me doing more of the listening, but even after work we would sit somewhere, puff cigarettes, and discuss countless things. He was Church of Christ and I was raised Baptist, so religion was often a topic which always ended in an argument. We finally learned to avoid the topic. It seems sometimes, that religion is good for nothing else.

Our favorite place to talk was in the “Green Bomb” which was his dad’s ’48 Chevy pickup. It was a classic with a strong straight six, three-on-the-tree, and it would run forever on $2 of gas – of course that was about eight gallons back then!

The only flaw in the “Green Bomb” was the passenger door that would suddenly swing open in the middle of a curve, but after the first time you learned to anticipated it. Many were the times I would swing out on that door with a hoot and a holler, banging on the outside panel, and swing back up in the seat as the road straightened out! The ease with which it opened came in handy when you wanted to “roll” a big dog!

We did not get permission to take her out as much as we liked, but we made up for it by stealing it! The truck was always parked on a hill and if you released the parking brake and pushed in the clutch it would quietly roll off and over the next hill. Woody would then turn the key, put it in second gear, pop the clutch, and we were off!

Once Woody’s mom and dad settled into watching TV in the living room, they rarely moved. So, on the return trip we simply doused the lights, killed the engine, and rolled the “Green Bomb” silently into its former position and stopped. I remember one night, just as we stopped; Woody’s dad came around the corner, from the back of the house and just said, “Howdy boys.”

We sucked in a breath of air and “howdied” him back, waiting for a lecture. As it turned out, he never knew what we had the truck out, just went on into the house.

Woody even dated in that old truck from time to time, which reminds me of a saying his brother-in-law had about girls that would date a guy in a truck! “If you can truck’em, you can _ _ _ _’em!” Believe me, that old adage was put to the test!

I loved that old truck and when I think back to my high school days, this truck stands out as that time’s icon. It was not a beauty, never turned girl’s heads, but took us everywhere we wanted and should not have gone. I can smell the musty dusty cab now, and feel my hand slam the glove compartment shut again for the tenth time on every trip.

Once we took it upon ourselves to teach Wayne, another friend, to drive a straight-shift. He did fine until he failed to negotiate a sharp curve and took out about six mailboxes! There was not a scratch on that old truck – they don’t mak’em like that anymore!

I bet, if I look outside just now, I can see ol’ Woody pulling up in the ol’ “Green Bomb” looking to bum a Winston.