Sexy Six Go South in ‘62
When I was 16 my brother Bill, then 17, and I, and four friends decided to travel to Pensacola, FL from our Prairie Village, KS home for the four-day Easter break from school. John and I were juniors in high school. Dave, Bill, Jim, and Fred were seniors. My only distinction among this august group was to have more than four letters in my given name. For our sendoff, we hung a bedsheet painted Sexy Six of ’66 and ’67, on the car, an alliterative shoutout to our presumed dates of college graduation. Rarely in human history have there ever been assembled any less sexy boys, with the possible exceptions of Dave and Jim, but what did we know.
Dave Campbell’s family owned a Ford Falcon station wagon, and they graciously, some might say insanely, agreed to let us use their vehicle for this adventure. This was clearly in the days preceding ‘helicopter’ parenting. Progenitors from that era had endured the aftermath of WWI, the grimness of the great depression, and young adulthood during WWII, so what’s the big deal with a 2,000-mile road trip for one’s teenage offspring. What could possibly go wrong?
In addition to this being my first trip east of the Mississippi River and my first time to see the sea, it would turn out to be my first crack at becoming a chronic chronicler. A few weeks ago, my brother uncovered the notes I scribbled during this great adventure and emailed a copy to me. The first of three pages is pasted as is below. A typed version follows. It brought back such fond memories, that I actually tried to read / interpret the notes. This took some doing as my handwriting then was as bad as it is now. A careful observer will note that this is written/printed in an outline form, presumably a new skill acquired from Ms. White, my excellent English teacher at Shawnee Mission East, and, as I would learn in later life, the life partner of my favorite and equally excellent geometry and trigonometry teacher, the gangly Ms. Hogan. My spelling was actually quite good. I even got goulash right.
Here is a typed version of my notes from 61 years ago. I’ve taken the liberty of adding some commentary throughout which is distinguished by the use of red italics. The use of xxx indicates indecipherable writing.
Sexy Six Go South in ‘62
I. Going – KC to Pensacola. Had 973 cookies. (Friends who happened to be girls, as distinct from girlfriends, gave us a sendoff gift by baking a veritable shitload of cookies.)
A. Left Wednesday 5:15 pm – April 18, 1962
B. Jammed Falcon station wagon
C. Missouri
1. Springfield – Record time 3 hours 30 minutes. Arrived 8:45. Stayed with Grandparents. (My grandmother Mayme Welsh, prepared a pancake breakfast for us and asked how many pancakes I could eat. I boldly and stupidly replied, “A gazillion”, and she complied leaving me embarrassed as I could only eat three.)
2. Ozarks – slow going – forest fire
D. Arkansas – Little Rock
1. Central High School – took pictures, saw Capitol – Met student from Central (Some may recall that a few years earlier, President Eisenhower called out federal troops to enforce the desegregation of Central High in Little Rock. It was in all the papers. We wanted to see the famed spot for ourselves.)
2. Heavy traffic – Arkansas starts getting real green
3. Won 12 free games at pinball – Pine Bluff, Arkansas (ate too) (The reader will note herein several references to pinball, a game to which we were mightily attracted. I presume this was a precursor to today’s teenagers’ affinity to more sophisticated games.)
E. Louisiana – arrived at border at 4:00 April 19
1. Met cute girl (not bad). Had lousy coke
2. Saw cotton fields – real green
3. Xxxxx
F. Mississippi
1. Crossed Mississippi River – Arrived at 5:20 April 19
2. Beautiful state – green forests, grass, and Spanish Moss
3. Got nickel popsicle and peed on railroad tracks
4. John (the ex-navigator) got us lost – eventually got to McComb 7:45 April 19
5. Dinner Bell in McComb – Fair grub. All you could eat for $1.30. Tremendous southern hospitality. Southern fried chicken, smoked sausage, chicken dumplings, biscuits, goulash, corn, green beans, fried eggplant (which I mistakenly though was an oatmeal cookie and ate with my hand) (carrier of death), etc. Met southern colonel. We are really meeting people. Batista ate in this house. (Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator deposed by Castro was proudly pictured with the proprietress.) It was a converted southern mansion. Ate at a table with everyone in the restaurant. (It was a giant table with a lazy Susan. I also remember being hostilely glared at by the young African American women working at the restaurant. I inquired why only to learn that we were late arrivals eating the food that would have otherwise been the leftovers available for their families.)
6. Decided to go all the way to Pensacola. We had our air mattresses blown up. A and S went out of our way to state park where there were a million parkers. Loaded up on 6 cent pop and went on our way.
7. Hattiesburg – home of Mississippi Southern University. Had quite an experience – met football players from MSU. Told us Pittsburg State was a F – tramp football team. Boy were they loaded.
8. Yelled at every bridge. John slept all the time
9. Ran into some fog – mist. Met some girls who were Florida bound. They didn’t xxx. Made a xxx then slept through it.
G. Alabama
1. Saw first palm trees and the ocean
2. Went over series of draw bridges. Real weird. Xxx
H. Florida
1. Arrived at Pensacola 3:15 am April 20, 1962
2. Saw onion man – Drive through town – John still asleep
II. Pensacola
A. Going to Santa Rosa Island
1. Biggest bridge I’ve ever seen. Toll required
2. Started going down island. Pulled over to the side. Sand all over the place. Surf roaring. State park closed at sunset. Slept on the beach instead. We were awake for 28 hours straight and drove 20 hours of it. Got up at 5:30 to go pee. Got up at 8:00 April 20, 1962.
3. Went to inquire about Fort Pickens Park. Have to have an adult with you. We were stranded.
B. Friday
1. Went to get some grub. (Presumably this choice of words is a consequence of watching too many westerns from which Bill and I adopted the lame lingo. I remember distinctly once asking Mom ‘to prepare us some victuals’ at which she rolled her eyes, shook her head in dismay, and walked off.)
2. Set up camp behind sand dunes. Added camouflage to prevent detection from enemy aircraft. 11:00 went to the beach. Stayed all day. Played football, xx xxx, chased birds, Bill and Dave went xx xxxxxx. Jim, Chuck, and John laid in the lagoon. Threw sand at Fred. Ocean is great. Played mock warfare games. We were burned to a crisp and didn’t want to crawl in the sand.
3. Friday night went to town, ate at cafeteria, didn’t leave tip, started riot. Went to bus station so Fred and John could use the John. Jim, Dave, and Chuck walked the streets and a band played for us. Played pinball.
4. Bill and Dave went to use the bathroom and get a drink in a restaurant. Went to miniature golf course. Best one in the world. John and Fred went to the car in the drive in and went to sleep.
5. Had to pay $2 to get back on island. Jim, Bill, and Chuck sleep xxxx xxxx. Slept in tents. Poles fell on Chuck and Jim when tent fell down. Went to bed at 1:30 woke up at 8:30.
6. Went to get some grub. Played pinball for an hour. Dave and Chuck inquired about waterskiing, and we went skiing. Dave went first, fell once, then made it. He used a slalom ski. Bill made it up on 4 tries. John tried it 8 times failed all eight. Jim made it on second attempt (xxxx xxxx xxxx). Chuck made it on first try. Fred made it but wobbly, on his elbow most of the time.
7. Went back to beach. Waves were enormous, undercurrent strong, and it was a blast. Everybody went swimming, but John went to sleep. The waves picked you up and crashed on you. It was great. Saw a body in the street.
8. Planned a miniature golf tournament. For that event Bill won, Jim second. Played baseball pinball, went to Dairy Bar, twisted, ate, used xxxxxx. (The reference to twist here presumably alludes to dancing to the Chubby Checker tune of the day.)
9. Went back to camp and listened to surf. By the way, Chuck is a great water skier, swerved and everything.
III. Return Trip
A. Packed stuff. Took forever to get sand out. Have beach full of sand in back seat of the car. Peed our names in the sand and said goodbye. Oh, and we saw the Blue Angels and an aircraft carrier on Friday and Saturday.
B. Drove to Citronelle, AL – 35 miles north of Mobile and heard a church bell. It was a small Presbyterian Church so we went. Everyone was real nice. All the deacons shook hands with us. We talked to the people, and the minister mentioned us in the sermon. (It was Easter Sunday, and we serendipitously arrived in Citronelle just as services were beginning. We had to have appeared somewhat bedraggled, wearing Bermuda shorts, tee shirts, and tennis shoes, and being bereft of bathing save swimming in the Gulf for the past four days. But we were welcomed warmly.)
C. After church, an elderly man and his wife (Mr. Byrd) invited us to dinner with him. It took us 3 hours, but it was worth it. He paid for all our lunches and said that since his sons were out of town, we would be his sons for the day. (Five members of our fellow travelers attended the Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, primarily because it was a requirement if one wanted to play on the church basketball team. Fred was a Methodist, but I don’t think the brief exposure to Presbyterianism caused him any lasting harm. I’ve often thought of Mr. and Mrs. Byrd and their kindness to us on that day. He was the local postmaster, and he listened to us attentively as we shared stories about our trip. Judy and I stopped through Citronelle a few years ago en route to FL, and the same church still stands, although it is much smaller than the one that lived in my memory.)
D. Stayed in motel in Memphis. Cost $6 apiece. First motel we went to couldn’t use their pool, so the owner took us to another place. Played water polo in pool. The team of Chuck, Jim, and Dave won by 8 to 7.
E. Stopped inside Missouri line at hamburger place. Saw AZ, AL. Privy was already full, but we peed in it anyway. Saw a mule. Talked to it for a while. It didn’t talk back. John fed it some ice.
Miscellaneous
1. Fred read lousy books the whole trip. Talked all night Wednesday.
2. Sang da da da da da da da da Granada every time we crossed a bridge. (Don’t ask me why we chose the 1932 song ‘Granada’ written by the Mexican composer Augustin Lara as our bridge crossing anthem. I just don’t recall.)
3. Shot imaginary guns at cows, skunks, mules, and squirrels.
4. Saw 37 license plates. Sang the whole trip.
5. Started with 13 lbs. of cookies. Threw Margie’s cookies to sharks. (Sorry Margie if, by some set of circumstances, you ever read this. I’m sure your cookies would have been delicious had we eaten them.)
6. Fred went six days without going to the john.
7. Dave has a sore posterior. (Dave did all the driving, a kept promise made to his parents.)
8. John broke his air pump that we used for our air mattresses.
9. Jim the living alarm clock
Nicknames
Jim – The alarm clock, the flipper
John – The Sleeper
Bill – The farter first class. Also, the putting farter
Fred – The talker, farter second class, and the joker
Boob – The singer, water skier, and carrier of death (I thought of concealing the fact that my nickname at that time was the exceedingly unmanly moniker of ‘Boob’. Instead I stayed faithful to the original manuscript. I remember one girl would always call me ‘Boo’, like a timid ghost, unwilling to give voice to the second B. This may partially explain why I turned out the way I did. BTW, the origins of ‘carrier of death’ now escape me.)
Dave – The driver and pee printer
Seating order (going)
Motor
Chuck 5234 Dave Shotgun 1
Bill 4152
Jim 3415 2 3 4
Fred 1523
John 2341 Way back and gear
5
The End
All of the boys in this trip went on to graduate from college in ’66 and ’67 and eventually became semi-productive members of society as an Air Force colonel, college professor, electrical engineer, KPMG partner, retail exec/salesman, and me.
A picture of a red c. 1961 Ford Falcon station wagon similar to the one that carried six boys and their gear from KC to Pensacola appears below:
It’s now pretty difficult to imagine how we were able to cram six boys, along with camping gear and luggage into what was then known as a compact car. I was a very subcompact boy, but the other five lads were quite large, four being six footers+. Fortunately, this was before the advent of seat belts, and we were unconstrained by concerns about safety or the foresight to envision the consequences should the passenger nestled atop the cargo in the back be launched missile-like towards the other occupants in a frontal crash.
Notice how the female model in the photo below towers over the car. Even the tiny tyke with the stupid birthday hat would have difficulty stretching out in the way back. The Ford Falcon was an exceedingly small conveyance.
