In 1959, my father bought his first brand new car. I was eleven and car buying was still a man’s domain so he took me with him. There were at least two good reasons for me to tag along. Primarily, I believe I was to watch and learn the art of negotiating. Then, and often today, every man felt it his duty to teach his son how to buy a car. There was a second equally macho reason. Mother was no car fan. She couldn’t tell a Corvette from a Buick and Dad was glad to have someone along who could appreciate the acceleration, styling and intoxicating smell of a new car.
We traveled to a Plymouth dealership in Lancaster in his 1953 Ford to look at the new models. Parking in the lot we walked inside the dealership like we knew what we were doing.
“Don’t act like you like anything too much,” Dad cautioned. “Then they know they have you.”
Center stage in the small showroom was a factory fresh 1959 Plymouth Sport Suburban Station Wagon. All eighteen feet of it were decked out in Robin’s Egg blue with fins that would make an orca blush.
I could tell it was love at first sight but Dad did the usual tire kicking and checking out the instrument panel. The speedometer was contained in a clear bubble and instead of a standard column shift, this beauty had push button gear shift. There was bountiful luggage space even with the rear-facing third seat deployed.
The salesman rushed to get the keys and have the car moved out to the lot. He gave the “Take it for a spin” talk and suggested Dad drive out to Highway 9 to “Let it out a little bit.” I hopped in the passenger seat and when we drove onto the highway, Dad let it out more than a little bit.
When we returned, Dad and the salesman spent thirty minutes trying to best each other in the negotiating arena and finally, sporting an “I won” grin, Bob Hill eased his new Plymouth off the lot and powered his way to Hwy 521 and home. We only made it as far as the turn-off to Andrew Jackson State Park before Dad began planning the Florida trip. Like everything with my father, the new Plymouth came complete with a set of plans for the future.
I don’t remember Mom’s reaction but Dad’s steam roller enthusiasm seldom left room for more than an eye-roll. As soon as school ended for the summer, the monster wagon was loaded with luggage and the gas tank filled with gas at 31 cents a gallon. Dad installed Connie and me in the rear facing seat, pointed the car south and off we went.
At that time I didn’t realize the appeal of the rear facing third seat. Dad was at the wheel and Mom rode shotgun. Connie and I sat in the newly christened “Back-Back” with about eight feet of luggage separating the sounds of our bickering from the contented parents. We could barely hear them even when they yelled to us. “Safety First” was not a buzz phrase then and no one mentioned that a rear end collision could hurl me and my sister out the back window into the promised land.
There was another parental advantage to the rear facing seat. Everything we saw was out that back window. Every roadside attraction was in the past tense when we saw it. We couldn’t even beg for a pecan log before Stuckey’s vanished in the distance.
When I began writing these episodes, I saw the back-window view as a metaphor for my reminiscences of the past. I try to capture the elusive memories before they fade away and are lost forever.
The big hotel chains were a thing of the future so we never had reservations. Dad could drive more hours than our restlessness allowed so around four-thirty or five Mom would start looking for a nice motel with a restaurant and a pool. Somewhere south of the Florida-Georgia line, a twenty-foot sign in the shape of a Thunderbird had all the right information: Vacancy, Air Conditioning, Restaurant, and Swimming Pool. No pool, no stop. Mom had our backs on that one. We were usually in our bathing suits and in the pool of before Dad had fully unloaded the car.
Bob Hill believed in getting off to an early start but he was always partial to a full restaurant breakfast. Eggs over easy, bacon, grits, biscuits and gravy, biscuits without gravy…Dad loved it all with several cups of coffee. He was never happy when Holiday Inn required him to dip scrambled eggs out of a vat and cook his own waffles. That day we traveled down US 1 to hit the high spots of St. Augustine and to drink from the Fountain of Youth but for me, the best was yet to come.
Silver Springs! Home of the famous glass-bottomed boat rides where giant bass and tarpon swam in the invisible water! I knew a special secret about Silver Springs. It was the home of Sea Hunt and haunt of The Creature From The Black Lagoon. Both were my favorites and were filmed in the clear springs. Throughout the glass-bottomed boat ride I kept my eyes peeled in the hope that Mike Nelson or the Creature himself would rise from the depths beneath us. There were a couple of mermaids who made an appearance but I was old enough to know they were regular ladies wearing costumes.
Beside the springs were two attractions that, sadly, are lost to the past. Ross Allan’s Reptile Institute and Tommy Bartlett’s Deer Ranch were booming attractions until 1971 when Disney World opened its gates. I was a big fan of the Mickey Mouse Club and a few of the Mouseketeers held special appeal even for an eleven-year-old but until then Disneyland had been a continent away.
When Disney World appeared, small attractions all over Florida dried up and disappeared. That is too bad. I have been to the Magic Kingdom a couple of times and have never seen anyone milk a rattlesnake. At Ross Allan’s Reptile institute there were dozens of rattlesnakes, some six and eight feet long in a large pit and several times a day some insane snake lover would walk around among them and snatch one or two up and milk them for their venom. Beat that, “It’s a Small World” lovers. The thrill of death by venom, not just an occasional plastic witch.
In those pre-PETA days, your narrator took a brief spin on a Galapagos tortoise. Sure, it is considered tortoise exploitation now, but how many of you got to ride in that slow reptilian rodeo. Can’t do that now, not even on an animatronic tortoise. I was also chosen to hold the snake, a six-foot long Indigo Racer. I was proud of holding the snake. I pictured myself as Jungle Jim with the great serpent writhing in my hands. I felt like we bonded when it was reluctant to unwrap himself from around my neck.
This was a time when my mother still bought my clothes. Harry Belafonte, Jamaica and all things island were in style. In an attempt to keep me fashionably current Mom purchased a pair of white “Calypso” pants for me. I guess she read that the cool kids wore them. Maybe somewhere, but South Carolina cool kids wouldn’t be caught dead in those mud-calf atrocities and no, I did not look like Mary Tyler Moore. When the photos came back from Roger’s Drug, there I was, fearless tough guy snake handler from the waist up but betrayed by those white thinly disguised pedal-pushers
Thankfully I did have on a pair of Keds. Dad drew the line well before sandals. At the time, any self-respecting Southern boy was barefoot or fully shod.
Dad was complicit in making those wretched demi-pants disappear just after the vacation. I think I have hunted down all the pictures and shredded them. One of my biggest fears is that my sister, Connie, in retribution for all the rear seat squabbles as we rode backward from Florida, will discover a lost copy and post it on the internet.
Some of my friends who have passed away would come back from the grave just to beat me up for looking like that.
Comments