Out & About Kentucky Style: Trips don’t always go as planned

Signs, advertising signs that is, can be somewhat misleading.

I learned my lesson fairly early in life while on a spring break trip to  Fort Lauderdale back in 1965. I had been there before, but this time it was different. This time I was driving my own car… a 1964 white Pontiac LeMans convertible with a baby-blue top.

It didn’t matter that there were six of us jammed into the two-door car. It didn’t matter that each of us was limited to one small suitcase. It didn’t matter either that we would be driving 18-hours with no wiggle and very little room to rest your head.

These things didn’t matter to any of us.

All that mattered was that we were heading to Lauderdale. I knew there wouldn’t be many stops. Maybe and only maybe we might stop to eat. But my game plan was to get there as quickly as possible. The interstate highways were not completed, so I had mapped my route.

I knew how many miles to the gallon I could get. I had even figured that at 29.9¢ per gallon, (Gulftane gas in 1965) how much the trip would cost me.

You see, I was charging my buddies $15 apiece. So by figuring the 2,400 mile roundtrip was going to cost $28.80 for gas. That meant I would have $46.20 for my share of the motel and food for five days.

I was making out like a bandit.

One of the guys thought so, too. It didn’t matter that I was providing him with a convertible to cruise the beach. He couldn’t have been thinking clearly. My car was going to allow him to meet a lot of girls. Once I explained it to him he felt a little better about giving me his three five dollar bills.

Yes, indeed, my new car was providing me with a way to get a free trip to Florida.

Of course my buddies didn’t know that the stops would only be at Gulf gas stations. That 29¢ Gulftane was my ace in the hole.

The plan was gas, restrooms and whatever snacks they sold, all in one stop. We would leave mid-afternoon on Thursday, drive all night and arrive before noon the next day just in time to get a full day on the beach.

Leaving a day early would allow us to beat the mad rush for motel rooms. After all, wouldn’t everyone else in the country be waiting until Friday afternoon to leave their respective colleges?

Our thinking was we’d already have a tan, and our choice of girls by the time the big crowd arrived.

We did decide to stop in Knoxville and see one of our friends from E’town who was playing football for the Big Orange. We couldn’t find him at the football dorm, but did manage to get some of his teammates so riled up enough to chase us out of town.

Finally we were underway.

One of the guys suggested we put the top down just to show off a bit as we were leaving Lexington where we attended the University of Kentucky. It was April and it was cold. We’d put the top down in the morning when we hit the Florida state line.

I had it figured that as the sun came up we should be seeing some palm trees and be somewhere near Lake Okeechobee. One of the guys thought it would be Lake Pontchartrain. He obviously wasn’t a geography major because a couple of us informed him that particular lake was just outside of New Orleans. It didn’t seem to matter to him.

By my calculations we would be 350 to 375 miles closer to Florida before we had to stop for gas… somewhere in Georgia and sometime after night fall.

When the fuel gauge finally did approach the E side I was right on it as to where we would be.

What I wasn’t right on in my plan was where the Gulf stations would be, and when we found them they were closed.

Finally we had no choice. It was a Standard Oil station or run out of gas. I had already pushed an extra 15 miles and my buddies were saying some not-so-buddy-things to me.

The fill-up was at a cost of 39.9¢ a gallon. I had lost a couple of dollars on this one. It was money I couldn’t get back.

That’s pretty much the way it went the rest of the way on gas. Whenever I did find a Gulf station it was more than the 29.9¢ per gallon back in Lexington. I thought all prices would be the same. They weren’t. Another miscalculation.

Finally, we arrived at mid-morning in Fort Lauderdalde. At least I was right about this.

But instead of being the first there for spring break, we soon found out that thousands were already there. Of course, we didn’t have reservations. Guys don’t do it that way. Girls make reservations.

We finally found a motel, not right on the ocean, not even across the street from the ocean, mind you, but nevertheless a couple of blocks anyway. I can’t remember the name of the motel, but I do remember its partially broken sign displaying a seahorse on it.

Two of us went into the small office. Its crank-out windows were open and we could at least smell the ocean from here. This was good.

No loud parties, no more than four in a room, and absolutely no drinking in the rooms. My buddy and I assured him we were not the partying kind. We were there strictly for rest and relaxation. Yes, indeedy, we could make this work.

When we got back in the car and waved the two room keys it was as if they were lottery winnings, and they might as well have been.

In 1965, the $49 room rate was steep, especially for a room that would probably go for $19 except for spring break. I was already behind on my budget. Surely it would get better.

It didn’t.

Three days into Lauderdale and the Elbo Room, we were having fun. Forget the movie “Where the Boys Are,” the girls were there, too. I tried to forget about my finances and my rapidly decreasing funds. Surely the worst was behind me.

It wasn’t.

On the fourth day as we prepared to take my Pontiac LeMans to the beach, disaster struck.

While backing out of my parking space, all of us heard a clanking noise coming from somewhere near the rear of the convertible. I pulled forward and it stopped. Backed up again and there it was. Forward, no, backward, yes.

What was it? We all got out and looked. One of my passengers suggested I only go forward and there wouldn’t be anything to worry about. I looked at him with disgust. Everyone laughed, but me.

I had to find out what was wrong, so I offered to drop them off on the beach while I went looking for a mechanic. Almost in unison they said okay. I don’t know why this didn’t surprise me.

I found a service station quickly. I was told there was a mechanic shop a couple of miles away. I used the phone and called.

“Bring it on over and we’ll take a look,” the voice on the other end said.

After a couple of wrong turns, both of which forced me to have to back up, I finally found the garage. Yes, the clanging was still there.

The mechanic slipped behind the steering wheel, pulled the car forward a bit, slipped the automatic transmission into reverse and backed up. He heard it. I heard it.

“Yep, that’s the universal whatchamacallit,” I remember him saying. “Oh you could drive it.”

“You might be able to make it back to Kentucky,” he said, as he glanced a look at the license plate. “But, if it were me I wouldn’t want to try it.”

That was reassuring.

I had no choice, really.

“How much would it cost,” I asked, really feeling the pressure by now. “I don’t have much money and I’m in a jam.”

After he assured me he could fix it for $35, I gave him the go-ahead and headed for his office to wait for the repair to be completed.

I was glad I had the $35 to pay. After all, it was my car and my problem. My profits and dreams of a free trip to Florida were gone.

I wasn’t sure I could make it home without borrowing money from someone, and  there were two days left.

For a fleeting micro-second, it crossed my mind to tell my buddies I was out of money and it was time to head back to Kentucky. No way. I valued their friendship more than this and I had to just get through it. Food would have to wait.

After seven days of R & R we headed home. We had arrived on a Friday morning and were leaving on a Friday morning.

Fun in the sun was just about over. But not quite. We decided to keep the convertible top down as long as we could in order to capture those last rays. We all had tans, and this would just add to them.

About three hours into the return ride and with everyone’s cash running a little light, we saw the sign.

“All the orange juice you can drink… only 10¢. Next Right.”

I put my turn signal on and eased into the right lane.  I didn’t want to miss this exit. Funds were low and we were thirsty. Finally a deal, finally something we could afford.

We all laughed when someone said, “I hope they’ve squeezed enough oranges.”

Yes, absolutely for sure they were going to have to squeeze a whole lot of oranges for this car load.

There it was, just off the exit, a partially gravel and blacktopped parking area. We were out of the car quicker than you can say, “Another glass, please.”

We plopped our quarters down on the makeshift counter covered by a torn umbrella with faded Sunkist lettering drooping down on the edges.

The man behind the counter raked the change off and dropped them into a carpenters apron around his waist. And almost in the one motion began setting small plastic cups out.

I was thinking how I wished we had a chair, stool, anything to sit on. Even one of those nearby orange crates would do. After all, we were going to be here awhile.

As quickly as he filled one of the cups, one of us grabbed it and in a gulp it was gone. The empties went back down and a couple of us said, “Fill it up.”

“That’ll be 10¢,” he said with a slight grin, that all of us being smart college students quickly realized this might be a scam.

But the sign says…  “All you can Drink for 10¢.”

“That is all you can drink for 10¢,” he said loudly. “So if you want another cup it’ll be 10¢.”

I’m not going to say what or how the following dialogue went, but it was not pleasant. Something tells me the juiceman had had similar conversations like this before.

Although we were six college students, who on occasion did wild and crazy things, for once as a group common sense prevailed. We kicked a little gravel, used some sign language, and as we drove away, peeled a little dust and rocks in the juiceman’s lot.

We all learned a lesson that day, and I got a story that over the years have told at least a 100 times. Truth in advertising – there are laws today that just might cause the juiceman to enter another profession or just advertise, “Orange Juice 10¢.”

Forget the “all you can drink.”

Perhaps our not so flattering remarks to some of the Big Orange football team came back to bite us in another form of oranges.

There’s no excuse, get up, get out and get going! Gary P. West can be reached at westgarypdeb@gmail.com.