Long weekends and Good Friday always bring up a memory. When a Good Friday memory floats to the top, it ain't flotsam and jetsam, it's a good 'un. So, I'm sharing, just how it should be. Right?
Good Friday 1962 was the beginning of Easter weekend and a long weekend for B shift of Chemstrand. I had been invited to take a weekend ride up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with three girlfriends. All of us were B shift, area 3, tire yarn, doff crew. We were single, employed, and free to do as we pleased. We did, but hit bumps along while finding our way.
Sharee owned a new Plymouth convertible. That thing was beautiful. It needed a road trip for breaking in. Gloria owned two sisters. One lived in Bluefield, WV .; the other lived in Pittsburgh, PA. They had all worked it out for Gloria to come visit. She and Sharee were roommates in a ratty little apartment in Pensacola. The two of them invited Shelby and I along. Invitation had some stipulations about cost sharing…
So, we worked seven nights of the midnight shift, doffed off big spools of tire yarn all week and planned our trip. Somewhere mid-week of the midnight shift somebody mentioned the fact that we needed to know how to get to Pittsburgh.
"Oh that, I got it covered."
I was full of self-confidence and low on common sense. I got a Phillips 66 road map from Nolin's Service Station at the "top of the hill" in Flomaton. That was the place I caught Langham Lines to ride to work. This was back when the service station fellows filled your gas tank, cleaned your windshield, checked the tires for air, dipped your stick and handed you a road map. I had a car load of road maps. This was back before the Interstates were connected and GPS hadn't been invented.
I had never studied a road map; in fact, I had never needed a road map except to lay under the car to catch oil spills. I studied that map and highlighted our route from Brewton to Pittsburgh. I highlighted us on the shortest route heading straight Northeast. Who knew we were driving all the way up on top of all the highest ridges of the Appalachian Mountains?
"Don't worry, I have looked at the map; I got this, trust me."
Fools die hard.
Good Friday, 7:00 AM. We changed from our Blue Angel uniforms into pedal pushers and cute sleeveless tops. Shod in sandals and Keds, we headed out of Flomaton up Hwy. 31. Top down, breezy & chilly. Trunk and back floorboard filled with enough luggage to carry all the clothes we would ever own. Shelby and I got dibs on the back seat. We sat with our feet on top of luggage; our knees against our ears. The wind whipped us about in a vortex. Sharee and Gloria kept their windows rolled up to protect their beehives. Freshly done the afternoon before for looking good when we got to Pittsburgh, they were very protective of the tease and lacquered up pile of hair. Even went so far as to cover their noggins with scarves. Shelby and I whipped about.
Big Bam radio playing, Ray Charles singing "I can't Stop Loving You," Marty Robbins singing "Devil Woman." We rolled along old Federal Blue Star until we veered off near the Vulcan in Birmingham to head towards Asheville. We stopped at a carhop joint to order the first char-grilled hamburger I ever ate. Y'all, it was just that good. You know how smells will draw you in; the smell drew us in. Mercy!
The time must have been late because teenagers were gathered like flies. Guys cruising around and around, radios blasting, girls flirting. All that and more. Asheville had it going on Good Friday night in 1962. Sharee blew her horn as we drove into the night. We waved out the top, boys whistled; we loved it. Then the road began to wind and the night became cold, so we stopped to put the top up.
Big problem.
Sharee's brother had put the mess down for her. She didn't know how to get it back up. We needed help. We pulled into the first service station we came to…at about 2:00 A.M. The poor hillbilly looked confused. He had been asleep in a ladder-back propped against the front door. He tried, he grunted and clawed. Eventually the thing was on and locked down.
The heater was turned on HOT. Ice thawed from our face and fingers. The pavement crumbled at the edges; we saw the outline of tree tops against the night sky. We could hear waterfalls; we twisted and turned at a snail’s pace. I was put on notice.
"That map must have had a misprint."
"Shut up, you got us into this."
Daylight showed us to be in the most beautiful place on earth, a ridge overlooking Bluefield, WV. We could see the world all laid out below us. A haze all the way to what must have been the Atlantic Ocean lay there in the breaking morning. We stopped at a Mom & Pop store to buy gas and breakfast. We ate sausage gravy and homemade biscuits. We needed to use the restroom. We were directed out back to a one-holer that hung on the north side of a bottomless gorge. We laughed and took turns in that antique while the other three held onto the door in case it rolled. Nerves seemed to quiet somewhat with daylight. I felt a bit better about the mapping mishap.
In the slanting afternoon we stopped to pick up Gloria's married fifteen-year-old sister to go on to Pittsburgh with us for the three sisters’ reunion. Little sister's husband was a TDY navy man. She was living in a bad side of nowhere all alone. She cried a lot. She sat on the console between Sharee and Gloria all the way to Pittsburgh while she whispered into Gloria's ear. She seemed lost. I felt sad for her. I tried not to listen, but failed.
To suggest we were exhausted would be a mistake. We were almost flatline. We rolled into the parking space of a chain motel around 6:00 P.M. on Saturday night. Sharee, Gloria and little sister got cleaned up to go to the reunion with sister number three. Shelby and I took hot showers and fell into bed. First time we had slept since Thursday.
I don't remember hearing anything until daylight on Easter morning. I bolted upright, got dressed to walk into the office of the motel and ask the owner if he could mark our map for the best, fastest way back to Brewton, Alabama. He owned motels in Florida and traveled south often. He put us on the Pennsylvania turnpike east to connect on four-lane roads down to Atlanta. From there I cannot tell you why we drove through Troy, Alabama to get to Brewton from Atlanta, but we did. My ears ached from wind damage, my throat was as sore as a boil and my hair was tangled beyond hope. But let me tell you, we rode with the top down on that convertible because that was what girls with new found freedom did in 1962.
We were chicks on a mission.
Just at dusk dark I was pushed out of that car as my luggage was dumped on the yard. Tires squealed… Nobody waved goodbye. Nobody looked back to tell me how much fun they had and how glad they were to have me along for helping them find the roads less traveled.
I wondered about the screeching tires.
Didn't have to be back at Chemstrand until 7:00 next morning. We had slept for about 6 hours total since last Thursday afternoon. We were young and restless and used our nonsense to enjoy our freedom.
Oh, youth!
Earline’s first book “Life With the Top Down” is now available for sale in paperback at: http://www.lulu.com/shop/earline-crews/life-with-the-top-down/paperback/product-24146318.html
and also available in e-book format at Lulu.com, Barnes & Noble.com, Amazon.com, Kobo.com, and on the Apple iBookstore.
