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MEMPHIS, TN - Spring Break! It's hard to think about that when The Weather Channel is filled with threats of a major winter storm headed this way as I write this. They are predicting 2-4 inches of snow for the Memphis area and more for close by. Still, the young heart thinks back to the days of sunshine and sand - even if it was just a dream then.Please include your class year with your e-mails.
I guess I am one of the lucky ones that still gets a Spring Break. That's the benefit of working at a University, although I must admit that this year my Spring Break consisted of one day - Friday. Still, that is better than most of my former classmates who still hold down a full time job. I guess everyday is Spring Break for you retirees - just wait. But, being a staff member, and not a faculty member, means that I get one day off for Spring Break. So, to celebrate, I got up on Friday, put on my Hawaiian shirt, had a cup of coffee, and turned on the sounds of my surfing music collection. Since Sue did not even get the one day off, I piped the music through the Internet to my living room stereo and it is blasting loud enough for many of my neighbors to party with me or maybe to invite the local police to join me for noise pollution. I dance around the house like Tom Cruise and am having a great time - alone. But, in my mind, you are all here with me. I miss my friend Bob Walker, Class of '64, since this is the week of his birthday, but he still lives on in my writings and my memory.I smile, thinking of the offer that Dianne Hughey McClure reminded me of last year. I did not record it or remember it, but her sister Exie had offered to loan me the $40 I needed to go to Florida with the Hi-Y / Tri-Hi-Y group. It was an offer that I could not accept, knowing that I would never be able to repay $40 when I did not have a job. Still, I delight in the idea that someone cared enough to make the offer, and I can't help but wonder what life would have held for me if I had made that trip. I would have loved to have gone with her and Carolyn McCutcheon, and all the others who made the bus trip South. Perhaps the rumors about my old girlfriend's conduct on the trip would not have haunted me or tainted my thoughts about her. Maybe Lehman Williams and I would have become best friends. Maybe my lifesaving skills would have allowed me to rescue a damsel in distress. Who knows. Ah, the road not taken puzzle! The haunting rhythm of "Pipeline" by the Chantays fills my ears at this moment - the one surfing song that I tried to master when I was still trying to learn to play the guitar. I got it down pretty good - at least the opening chords for a while. I was going to include a photo of me wearing the flowery shirt, but I know that the camera could only capture the image of an old bald-headed man, and not the inner soul of the 17-year-old that I am today. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we didn't have mirrors to show us what we really look like and we could spend the days being the person inside?So, to let you help me celebrate and relive the days ago, I will share with you the entries which I made and the comments I made about them when 25 years later I wrote my Great American Novel, "A Million Tomorrows...Memories of the Class of '64". The italics are the comments in the journal made by the 17-year-old and what follows it are the reflections made in 1989 when I wrote the book. I remind you that the names were changed when I wrote it - to protect the innocent. Weren't we all innocent back then - compared to today? I hope you enjoyGot up at 3:30 A.M. Troy came over and we went to Janice's to tell her bye - she left for Florida at 4:30 A.M. Arrived at the houseboat around 7:30 A.M. and cooked breakfast. The weather cleared up nicely. We took a nap till 12:00 A.M. then ate lunch.Rode over to Pickwick Dam and saw what the tornado did to it last week. Earlier Paul and I drove back to Alabama - at Buzzard Roost to get him some fishing license. After we left the dam we went to a little store then went back to the boat.Started up Junior our fishing boat and went riding around. Ate supper and at 9:15 P.M. we went to bed. Getting up at 3:30 A.M. makes a person sleepy at night.Beware the Ides of March! Watch it Julius, or everyone will go off to Florida and leave you alone. It was on the Ides of March when all of Caesar's friends turned on him and left him lying in a bloody lump on the steps and then got in a bus and left for Florida. One other thing was memorable about the Ides of March - it is Bob's birthday.Bob was not available to go to the lake with us that morning nor did he have the money to go to Florida. He wouldn't have gone with the Florida crowd anyway. They were not Bob's type of friends. He thought they were too snooty. Today, he lives in Florida where all the high school students drive up and down his street raising hell and having fun on spring break. It somehow isn't the same. Even though we were not catching the early bus to Florida, we got up early too. We all went to where the bus was being loaded to tell all our friends goodbye, and for one brief moment be a part of the crowd. We mingled, helped load the luggage onto the bus, and laughed and talked with everyone. Then we watched the crowd crawl onto the bus, and with a "whish" the door closed and the bus disappeared into the darkness - Florida bound. We waved into the night. With the smell of bus exhaust fumes in our noses, we climbed into Paul's car and drove off ourselves. There was nobody left to wave to us. We didn't go south; we went north and west. There we would have the water, but would not have the beaches, nor the sun, nor the girls. Still, it was better than staying in town and doing nothing. The houseboat was located at State Line Boat Dock, on Pickwick Lake, near the intersection of Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi. At that time, nearly all the boats docked there were older, mostly home-built boats. Those were the days when houseboats were built on old fifty-gallon oil drums or homemade pontoons. One or two of them were made from surplus Air Force jet tip-tanks, long since discarded from the sleek jets to which they used to be attached, giving up their Mach-two performance for a slower speed of two knots or less. The whole State Line Boat Dock was built on oil drums with wooden decks attached. The dock rocked precariously up and down whenever a boat came by. The monthly charge for keeping the houseboat there was ten dollars.In 1964, the State Line Boat Dock was not a tourist attraction. Hundreds of love-starved students were not arriving by bus or car. Still, our trio arrived from Lee and started our vacation with breakfast. We followed that with an energetic nap. Then lunch. What excitement! To spread out the fun, we went to the dam to see the tornado damage. The tornado that had spared Huntsville the week earlier had not been so kind to Pickwick. One of the electrical yards looked like it had been used in a Godzilla movie. The steel towers were bent and twisted in a tribute to the force of the winds and a permanent reminder of why people are afraid of tornados.The big excitement of our day was a trip to Buzzard Roost for an Alabama fishing license. Buzzard Roost was just across the state line and was the first place inside Alabama with a store. It had one store. It was not too far from the famous Coon Dog Cemetery. Needless to say, it was not a big place, but they sold fishing licenses and Paul needed one to fish. It looked like fishing would be the big activity of our trip.The first day of my senior year spring vacation ended at nine-fifteen. In Florida, the parties were just starting, people were wearing crazy T shirts, playing loud music, dancing, and taking moonlight skinny-dips. The vacation romances were already starting and beautiful girls in two-piece bathing suits were spending intimate moments with boys they wouldn't speak to a week earlier. At Pickwick Lake, the frogs were croaking and the lights were going out. Paul was snoring on the front cot.Spring vacation had started.I was only forty dollars and 500 miles away from a great time.
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