I’ve been a traveling man almost all my life, and I’ve been studying on it and I believe I’ve figured out where it started. Up to the age of 14, I had never ventured out of the Ozark Mountains. Late at night, I would lie in my feather bed in the upstairs attic of our farm house and listen to the train whistle, as it echoed over the mountains around our farm, taking people to places I could only imagine. I had a little radio on the table next to my bed, which was usually kept on WSM-650 on the dial, Nashville, Tennessee, or sometimes to XERF, Del Rio, Texas, or WCKY, Cincinnati, Ohio because all of these stations carried country music all night long. The train whistles of the old steam locomotives and the country music coming from exotic places like Tennessee, Texas and Ohio just made me burn with desire to travel and experience these places. Then, in 1950, I finally got the chance to hit the road…..
My Mother’s brother, Uncle Bob Johnson, was buying cars and taking them to Amarillo, Texas to sell at the big car auction. He lived in Springfield, Missouri, about 14 miles from our farm, and one day he came out to visit and turned to me and said the magic words…”Stanley Edward, how would you like to go with me to Chicago and help me drive cars I’ve bought and drive them down to Amarillo, Texas?” Now, I know what you are thinking…shoot, the kid is only 14 years old, how’s he gonna help drive all the way from Chicago to Amarillo? Let me explain how it was when I was growing up in the 50’s….
Farm kids grew up operating tractors, trucks and cars almost from the time they could walk. When I was 6 years old my Dad would sit me up, on my knees, in the seat of an old 1930’s International flatbed truck, and I would steer the truck down the field between the rows of hay bales as the farm hands stacked the hay on the truck. Course, there was a couple of times when Dad didn’t get to the truck in time to stop it and I ran it through the fence, but shucks it was no big deal, figuring as how I never actually ran over any people, squashin’ them flat as betsy bugs, I figure that was a dang good record. Now, in the growing up years I had my share of mishaps, turning over an Allis-Chalmers tractor on the ice and snow that was piled up around the barn and silo, and then there was one time, turning Dad’s 49 Dodge livestock van over in a ditch off a gravel road right on top of a fence row, driving the fence posts right up through the cab of the truck and missing me by about three inches, but all-in-all I had a pretty good record, uhh, other than blowing the engine on Dad’s new Mercury hard top doing 110 miles an hour (boy, what a noise they make when the crankshaft breaks and goes through the block)and leaving a trail of oil and locked up tire marks for half a mile before I got her stopped But, shoot, once we got the tractor and the livestock truck turned back over (and the fence posts and barbed wire out of the cab) they both ran almost good as new. No, I can’t say the same for the Mercury. So, my point being, I was a tried and true, blue ribbon champion driver by the time I was 14. Now, when I was 15, and worked in the hay fields one summer to make enough money to buy my first $300 car, which happened to be a 1936 Pontiac Sedan, and which I happened to be driving with the lights off on a gravel road, playing tag with my friend, Bucky Goss, who was driving his folks 50 Chevy, and which we accidentally happened to find each other, at about 30 miles an hour, head on collision finding each other, it is a wonder what one of them 1936 Pontiac’s will do to the front end of a 50 Chevy at that speed….., but, that was on down the road, and we are talking about the year before at 14 years old, when I was a tried and true, blue ribbon champion driver, by doggies. Stay with me now, don’t be rushing on ahead.
So, Uncle Bob and I headed off on Route 66 for Chicago the next morning. From the first mile I loved that old road headin’ North-East out of the Ozarks. I did most of the driving up to Chicago, just to prove my natural driving talent, stopping at country stores along the way for bologna and cheese sandwiches (still my favorite)and washing it down with an ice cold Grapette (I still miss them). I hadn’t started drinking coffee yet, so I just stayed awake on adrenalin and the excitement of the road.
When we arrived on the outskirts of Chicago, Uncle Bob took over and drove us to a local Ford dealer that he had dealt with in the past. The dealer had three, brand new 1949 Fords left over when the new 1950’s cars came out and Uncle Bob had called and bought them on the phone so they were ready to hook up and go. My Uncle hooked up one of the cars behind the car we had drove up in, and then hooked two of the new cars together for me to drive. We took off, with our little caravan and headed out….like the Hank Snow song….naming every town, we hit Springfield, Illinois, St Louis, MO, Rolla, MO, Lebanon, MO, Springfield, MO, Joplin, MO, Miami, OK, Broken Arrow, OK, Tulsa, OK, Oklahoma City, OK…..and finally Amarillo, Texas. It took us most of two days of the two lane 66, but it was like Tom Sawyer and Huck going down the Mississippi to me, with my first road trip. And, I never did get over it.
I come from a long line of restless ancestors, so I reckon I get it natural. My Great, great Grandfather Wallis left Tennessee in the 1820’s headin’ for Indian Territory and ended up building a log cabin on top of Boat Mountain in North Central Arkansas…when it was still Indian Territory. Trouble is, when the surveyors came through years later to settle the Arkansas property lines, he was too far over on another piece of property. Old Pop Wallis, unfazed, just took the cabin apart and moved it, piece by piece, over to his rightful property. Weren’t no hill for a climber.
My Great, great, great Grandfather Lyman Hitchcock, was 20 years old and just married in 1800, left the area in Connecticut , where he was born, and went to New York State, stayed for 15 years, moved to Painesville, Ohio for 20 years, then moved to Peoria County, Illinois, stayed there for 20 years, moved next to Jackson, Michigan for 5 years to be close to his daughters. By this time, in 1860, he was 80 years old and he boarded a train in Jackson, Michigan headed for California to visit some of his kids who had moved out there. He stopped to rest in Omaha, Nebraska and got a Hotel room with a big window facing the street. Lay down to take a nap, got up sleep walking, walked right out the window and fell 4 stories to his death. But, I’ve always believed great, great, great Grandpa was a happy man, following the trail of life, wherever it leads, although out a 4 story window might be a little extreme.
Years later, at the steep end of life’s trail, I still enjoy the trip. My wife, Denise and I, still can’t wait to see what is over the next hill, around the next curve in our adventures along the blue highways. I have been blessed to spend my life in the pursuit of music and entertainment, and getting to travel the world while doing it.
As we wind down to the end of another year….and, the start of a brand new one, I have enjoyed, once again, sharing the music, musicians, songwriters and singers with you, the lovers and supporters, fans and audiences that continue to keep alive the American Dream, with our music as the soundtrack. Thank you for being so solid and so faithful through the years.
I wish you a very Merry Christmas and wish for you the very best New Year with good health and happiness.
God bless us all.
Stan
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