ROUTE 66

                          Traveling Old Route 66

   It was 1958 and the biggest day of my life to that point—high school graduation.

    Graduating at the end of the January term meant no senior trip, but that wasn’t going to stop me. A few days after graduating, as the Everly Brothers were singing their smash hit “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” three friends and I had a dream of heading West

    On a cold, snowy, Detroit Friday night, we piled into my friend Paul’s 57’ Chevy and drove non-stop to LA, arriving exactly 48 hours later.  All in all, it was a 2,300‑mile trip driving from Detroit to Chicago and then onto the entire old Route 66 that, in places, was just a rough two-lane road with a fading stripe down the middle and Route 66 roads signs every so often. We followed trucks for 30-40 miles at a stretch, then they followed us. We learned the rules of the highway along the way.

    Stopping for gas at some small station along Route 66 was like refueling at the Indianapolis 500: We filled the tank with 25 cent a gallon gas, washed the windshield, checked the tires, bought a snack, switched drivers, and off we raced. We were timing our stops, frantically trying to beat our time from the last one. 

    Arriving in Hollywood, Route 66 officially ended a few miles west in Santa Monica. We got an inexpensive hotel room with two double beds near the famous Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the iconic Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. We were excited, taking in the usual tourist sites along Sunset and Vine, and amazed to see the new round Capitol Records building about to open. It was surreal to see all the places we had only heard about or seen in the movies and on TV. We drove though Beverly Hills searching for the homes of those elusive stars. Just a couple days earlier, we were cruising Detroit’s snow-covered streets; now, we we’re looking for movie stars.

    When we left LA for home, we planned it non-stop again.  Driving late at night along Route 66 with barely any traffic on the road near Amarillo, we were moving at over eighty miles an hour, when we saw flashing red lights coming up behind us. We pulled over and stopped.

    The sheriff’s deputy got out of his car, slowly walked up to ours, and cautiously peered in the window, asking, “Where you boys headed so fast?” Then, not waiting for an answer, “May I see your driver’s license?”

    Paul was driving and, while digging out his license, said, “We’re going back home from a trip to LA.”

    “Where’s home?” the deputy continued as his flashlight lit up the faces in the rear seat and then mine sitting next to Paul in the front.

    “Detroit,” we responded, almost in unison.

    Looking at Paul, he said, “The speed you were going is considered reckless driving—you know that, don’t you?”

    “No, I didn’t,” Paul quickly answered, handing over his license.

    The deputy studied Paul’s driver’s license.

    “I’ll hold onto this,” he said, as he made another sweep of the rear seat with his flashlight. “You boys just follow me up the road a way. Got that?”  

   “Yes Sir”. Paul immediately responded, sounding nervous.”

    The deputy walked back to his patrol car.

    The next thing we knew, we were standing in the living room of a small-town justice of the peace. He read the citation. We were sized up rather quickly as nothing more than four Yankee teenage boys racing through Texas near midnight.

    Speaking in a slow Texas drawl, looking at Paul (we were standing behind him), the justice of the peace said, “Son, you have a choice: pay a $150 fine now and we’ll reduce the speed on your ticket and call this done, or go to jail for reckless driving and appear in court tomorrow morning.”

    Paul, looking a little shaken, didn’t hesitate: “I-I’ll pay the fine, your honor.”

    We breathed a sigh of relief and pooled our money. Paul handed it to the deputy, and we quickly left.

    We resumed our non-stop trip home along Route 66, and that encounter with the law remained a fun topic. Mocking the sheriff— “Where you boys headed so fast?”—we burst out laughing when the radio just happened to play “Deep in the Heart of Texas.”

    After settling in back home, over the next few months, I began to ask myself, what does my future hold?  I was going to be nineteen years old and wanted more than a dead-end job.

    My older brother worked on the production line at the Cadillac plant in Detroit and offered to help me get a job there. “Working on the line pays well,” he said.

     I was tempted until my father quickly jumped in with a few compelling words that I believe changed the direction of my life.

    “Kid, whatever you do, don’t work in a damn factory.” He had worked in one for over thirty years.

    His words were compelling and I ruminated on them long and hard and decided a factory job was not for me.

At the time, events were unfolding everywhere. President Eisenhower broadcast on color TV for the first time. The country was in a recession. NASA was formed. The Soviets launched Sputnik 3. Castro began attacks on Havana. Five thousand U.S. marines were sent to Beirut, Lebanon.   There was no major war going on, although the North and South in a small country called Vietnam were taking swings at each other.  Elvis had been inducted into the Army earlier that year, as well.

    I was going to be nineteen years old soon. The words of my father continued to echo in my mind.

    Finally, I made a life-changing decision and look at the future from a new perspective.

    I went to the Army recruitment office in downtown Detroit, listened to the recruiting sergeant who was sitting there in his newly pressed uniform, and signed up. It was a shock to my family.

    Two weeks later at the induction center, I raised my hand swearing to “. . . defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” I signed up to give my life if necessary for three years. An hour later, I was on a train heading to Fort Knox, Kentucky. No Route 66 this time.

                                                                                                       -end-