March 2001                                                         The Megaphone                                                                 Page 8

  The Car

  The plan was to drive our car to Travis Air Force Base, my point of debarkation, and where the car would be shipped to Guam for free.

  THE CAR was, to this day, the most beautiful car we ever owned and the largest. It was a two toned green, hardtop, '57 Ford Fairlane with a gold strip on the side. It was the only car we ever bought that we didn't need. We simply saw it and wanted it. It ran fine, but to be on the safe side, David had it gone over very well and had fixed anything and everything that might have gone wrong for my trip across the United States.  I needed to continue working and kept the car for that reason alone after he left.

   Just as soon as he was gone, someone hit a golf ball through the front windshield. Finally having that fixed, we loaded the car with luggage, toys and things to keep a three year old busy for the week required to get there. My mother went with us for several reasons. She had never been happy with our marriage or my choice of a husband and was against the trip all together. Having me close for a week, she might be able to persuade me to change my mind.

   So one day in the last week of August we set sail for California, an adventure right out of hell! But ignorance is bliss and I was blissfully happy to finally be leaving all known ports and heading into the unknown, even with my mother.

    As soon as Illinois, we began to hear a "noise." Stopping at a gas station, a mechanic checked under the hood and found nothing wrong, so we continued our journey. The foreign sound increased with each passing hour and finally we stopped for the day and another check up. This time it was the tappets. Later, after paying in the neighborhood of $75, we went to a motel for the night.

   Feeling much better about "THE CAR," we had a good breakfast and continued our trip west. The noise reappeared in Missouri and I found that when I went faster, it would stop. We breezed across the state and by nightfall we were in Kansas. I really felt like The Wizard of Oz's Dorothy. "We're in Kansas, Toto, and it's really different than Indiana!"

   As I remember back, I don't remember if we stayed one or two nights before getting out of that state. I do remember Kansas and eastern Nebraska were much the same, flat...flat...flat! It was like traveling all day and  getting nowhere.

    Also, in Nebraska, it started again, the noise...tap, tap, tap. along with vibrations that were getting worse. Stopping, this time, at a Ford garage, the mechanic proceeded to tell me how I'd been ripped off back in Illinois.

   I have to give credit to my mother.  She said to me in a low tone, "Maybe it's this person, and not the one back in Illinois that's trying to cheat us." I asked at a restaurant for a local mechanic and was directed to a good man that said he'd tightened up something and we'd soon be on our way, no charge.  Well, maybe Nebraska wasn't so bad after all.

   The flat land disappeared as we found ourselves in Wyoming, with wind and sagebrush. Hey...! This sure ain't Indiana!!! Gosh was I happy. We stopped to see a great Aunt that had come to Cheyenne in a covered wagon. In her late 80s I thought she looked about the same age as Methuselah. An afternoon with her and we soon were gone...no car noise.

   My first real mountains were wonderful to gaze at as we spent two days traveling the state. Utah and Salt Lake City where we stopped for the night and a tour of the Mormon Tabernacle. This was my mother's idea and boring to me until I heard the organ. The sound was different and big...BIG...B I G !!!

   Real mountains, snow capped, the Rocky Mountains. We were in the old West, hooray! Next came Nevada, where I just about lost my mother and discovered a surprising side to her.

Julie (Stout) Duffitt  '57