The lecture/interrogation probably didn’t take long, but given my state of anxiety it seemed to last half the night. After the lecture, he handed me a ticket the size of which wiped out all the funds for college tuition and books for the next school term. I had worked hard every day after class for that money, and I was pursuing a dream. I wanted a college degree — hoping for a little dignity and a good job. Now that was a dream down the drain. This ticket was going to wipe me out. Sounds like some old song, doesn’t it?
Lesson learned! Not yet. I was a slow learner. Left for California.
Hindsight: ‘The Law Has a Memory — a Long Memory’
The fine for the ticket was not due immediately, so I took a couple of days to wrestle with my options. Of course, if I had been very smart, I would have paid immediately and worked out a more constructive solution to deal with this disruption to my educational and career plan.
When you read what I actually did, perhaps you will come to the same conclusion that I have — given the benefit of hindsight — years too late, of course. I have discovered that one of the great values of hindsight is its contribution to the development of foresight. I also discovered that one should not turn to the more reckless, misguided members of our society for direction in life or for that matter any of life’s crises, or better still, any significant decision that goes beyond where to eat lunch. I also discovered that cops and the courts have looong memories.
Appeal of the Open Road
So, if I stayed in town, I wouldn’t be going back to college anytime soon. But, I reasoned, if I took a little time off, things would cool down and the patrolman would forget about me. In our neighborhood he had bigger fish to fry. Further, I reasoned my little infraction would become buried in the paperwork of an overworked bureaucracy — things don’t always work out the way we imagine them (more hindsight). But anyway, I acted on what I imagined to be a good plan. It had its ups and downs.
Then, of course, there was the fact that the old college dean didn’t think much of my approach to college.
So, I packed my jeans and my two t-shirts into a paste-board suitcase, waved a goodbye to my elderly grandfather, and drove slowly down the steep, rutted driveway into what was the major self-directed — or perhaps self-inflicted — adventure of my life up to this point. An adventure motivated by mishap and imagination. Mishap provided anxiety. Anxiety motivates. Imagination then provided the sense of adventure and the means of dealing with the mishap. Imagination just seems to thrive on crises.
I spoke briefly with my employer, gave a briefer notice — about 2 hours, withdrew my tuition money, packed my clothes and left town — heading for California. I imagined that great opportunities would open to me in the golden state — the land of movie stars and heroic people such as James Dean and Marlon Brando. Again, I encountered that gap between imagination and reality. But, imagination is a powerful motivator. However, as I discovered, a modicum of planning based on some skill — social and cognitive — helps a lot when it comes to survival in a strange land.
At my age, with no responsibilities, no one dependent on me, in my friend’s old Ford convertible we headed west with the top down and the warm morning sun on our backs.
Leaving the Mountains Behind — Day Two
Before we got out of the mountains I began to realize that my traveling companion had a history — with the law and with certain people who were looking for the opportunity and the justification to write the last page of his history. It was the guy with the shotgun that really raised my anxiety level. We got off to a late start on that first day and it was getting dark by the time we hit the high mountains. Further it was beginning to blow up a storm, so my friend headed for the home of an old acquaintance of his that lived in a rather dilapidated old farmhouse in a rural section of the mountains. By the time we got there the wind was really howling and the heavy rain was pounding the metal roof like hammers on a steel drum. They were nice people and told us to stay the night, an invitation which I was glad to accept.
I accepted, however, without knowing that my associate had a history with one of the daughters in the family — a relationship that bore fruit of strong jealousy in mind of her new boyfriend who just happened to be in the neighborhood that night and saw a strange car parked behind the house. Then, with his mind conjuring up all sorts of jealous images, he knocks on the door. The family expected trouble and concealed us where we could not be seen. They didn’t want a fight — in the house anyway. But when they opened the door to let him in they got more than even they had expected. He storms in with a shotgun demanding to know who the strange car belongs to. He was jealous to say the least. Then without listening to their contrived explanation he storms through the house muttering threats. The family played it cool and he soon simmered down and before long accepted the explanation and left. Needless to say, we decided it was preferable to drive throughout the stormy night, so, we left. Concealed this whole time — now I knew this was a troubled brew.
Then there was the stop at the pawn shop to cash in his mother’s unknowing contribution to the trip’s finances. Once out of the mountains it seemed that we had left his ‘history’ behind. I found his behavior was subject to control, not directly, but through diplomatic persuasion. I began to feel a little more at ease. He wasn’t dumb — just pig-headed, arrogant, and self-centered. Furthermore he was a momma’s boy which turned out to be helpful at times.
I had the little cash that I had saved for tuition and he assured me he had resources that would become apparent as necessity demanded. (This is where being a momma’s boy helps.) Gas was still in the twenty-cent range and we had all the tools we needed to make the occasional repairs that the old car would need. We had most of the bases covered.
Through the South
The first day was uneventful. We headed west, then turned south toward Mississippi. There were no interstate highways in those days. So, one never felt isolated from the real world as one does in the modern age zipping down the interstate a thousand miles without a single red light. Certainly the old two lane highways (U.S. 1 for instance) made for a much more interesting journey than modern interstate travel. It was easier to see how people lived their daily lives. One could see the wash hanging on the clothes line, the kids playing in the yard, or riding their bicycles into the highway in front of our car — and of course all the family junk scattered about the front yard. You could see family history and lifestyle at a glance — the front yard billboard.
I did not make notes on this trip and never thought I would ever want to write about it, but the question has come up in family discussions so I thought I would see how much I could dredge up from memory. Most of the miles were pretty repetitious as far as housing and real estate goes. Through the southern countryside it seemed to be mile after mile of predominantly small, low grade housing with an occasional solid farmhouse and well-kept farmstead and agricultural land. Many homes were dilapidated with much of the family property laying about in the yard. This consisted of old broken down bicycles, that often looked as though they were in about the third cycle of salvage from the junkyard. This was true for most of the cars as well — where there were cars. Even junked cars were not very plentiful in those days (mid-1950s).
We first crossed the mountains to the south through North Carolina — Asheville, for monetary replenishment. My friend had brought along some property that he could pawn as needed and he began cashing in. From Asheville we dropped down the mountain to Greeneville, S.C., and through the backcountry into Georgia. I loved Georgia. So much of Georgia was rural farm land that I imagined that it still looked pretty much like it did around the end of the Civil War period — a hundred years earlier. Several things about Georgia that left a strong impression on me were the huge cotton fields, the cotton gins, and the number of small time farmers that were still plowing their acreage (gardens as well as the cotton patch) with a mule. This was truly amazing, beautiful, and interesting.
Also, we drove through a beautiful old country town filled with Civil War era architecture and a monument to the local Civil War heroes. At least one of these heroes was a Hayes. That gave me a good feeling. I like to see the Hayes name included among those participants of major community events. When it comes to the Civil War, I can appreciate the individual contribution without condoning slavery. For some reason I felt a connection with this place. This town was also a university town — though I did not know it at the time. This town, Athens, GA, left a special feeling in me. I wanted to come back and spend more time and get to know the place — explore the spirit that seemed to exist in this place.
Out of Athens
We kept rolling west. Out of Georgia and across Mississippi, the mighty Mississippi River into Louisiana.
The towns were far different than today. They had a beginning and an end. The commercial districts did not stretch out for miles into the countryside. About the only business that really needed a great deal of acreage, other than the farms, were the junk yards. Malls were not so prevalent. Now why did I think of junk yards? Think parts depot — nonexistent.
Louisiana: The Clutch Problem
Well, about the time we crossed the Louisiana State line we began to detect a problem with the clutch in the old Ford — it wasn’t working. Now the car we were driving was a Ford with a manual transmission. One needed a clutch in order to avoid damaging the transmission when shifting gears and we had to shift gears without a clutch. This can be done by a skillful driver but it requires a mindset sensitive to the car’s state of being at the moment when the shift takes place. However, this sensitivity doesn’t always have the luxury of timing the shift when the traffic is heavy and the speed of the traffic requires fast shifting. It was beginning to look like I might be going back to face the music before the tempers had had time to cool down a bit. But, you know, one just never knows what one can do until one is thrust into a situation. Add determination to imagination — that demands creative thinking, i.e. problem solving.
Of course, we did not have the money to pull into a garage and have the car repaired, but we did have tools, and we were next door to a junk yard that contained a lot of old Fords of the same vintage as ours. Also, we had the basic tools required for the repair. So, we bought a clutch assembly from the junkyard dealer, found a shady spot, jacked up the car and placed appropriate safety supports to prevent the car from falling on us, and went to work. I’ll not take you step by step through the process of replacing a clutch in a ’50 model Ford, but it didn’t take more than half a day start to finish. Some would say that was slow. So what — we got ‘er done. Tools and knowing how to use them.
On the Road Again
Now, we were ready to continue our roll westward. Since we were in Shreveport, we thought we should at least drive by the theater home of the ‘Louisiana Hayride’ and pay homage to one of the radio programs we listened to as long as we were in range.
Map of a Mountain Man 