Cross one off, near the top of The Bucket List.  After sixty two years, I finally followed the exhortation plastered on the roofs of barns to birdhouses across the Southland and Americana.  I Saw Rock City.  Jackie and I walked the whole Fairyland Trail.  We started up the Grand Corridor and through Needle’s Eye.  We then went under the Gnomes’ Underpass, past the Lion’s Den, Shelter Rock and through the Cave Of The Winds.  We decided to throw caution to the wind (literally), and crossed The Swinging Bridge out onto Lover’s Leap.  From there we saw Seven States and took a lot of pictures.  We don’t take very many selfies at all.  But, this was one time we wanted one, and that particular feature on the stupid iPhone decided to not function properly.  A nice lady took our picture with seven states in the distance behind us and on either side.  On the way back down we went past Tortoise Shell Rock.  We made it through Fat Man’s Squeeze, even with Jackie’s camera hanging around her neck.  Then it was through the Goblins’ Underpass and Fairyland Caverns.  We finished up at the Gift Shop, where I bought a See Rock City birdhouse.  A tourist all the way, all I needed was a pair of Bermuda shorts, sandals and a Hy-waiian flowerdy shirt with a See Rock City Guide in the pocket.  I didn’t care.  I was beginning to think that I may not see Rock City in my lifetime, so I was thrilled.   

Please don’t laugh.  As far as traveling, I really don’t get out very much.  There are great chunks of the world outside of the southeastern United States I have never seen.  I have never seen the Grand Canyon, Old Faithful, Disney World, the Giant Redwoods or the Pacific Ocean.  I have seen Ruby Falls, and now Rock City.  I rode the original Starliner Roller Coaster in Panama City.  I have been to the United Kingdom thrice, where I saw St. Andrews, Loch Ness and Land’s End.  I have played golf in Scotland.  I have snorkeled in the Caribbean and fished in the Gulf of Mexico.  I have ridden in an airboat across The Everglades, where we also saw some guy who was a few balls shy of a bucket stick his head into the open mouth of an alligator.  There are a few other things here and there, but that is pretty much the short list.

When I was a kid, the family vacations my parents and I took always consisted of one of three things.  We either went to Dallas, Texas to visit my mother’s family.  Or, we went to Fort Pierce, Florida to visit my aunt (my mother’s sister), uncle and cousins.  We went to New Orleans a couple of times because her daughter lived there.  At times, on holidays we would remain close to home.  We would stay in a cabin at the City Of Atlanta Firemen’s Recreation Area at Lake Allatoona.  We didn’t didn’t do that very often, though, because my mother couldn’t swim, hated boats and was afraid of the water.  Beginning to see a pattern here?  

We never went to Panama City, Gatlinburg or Washington, D.C.  We never went on a train trip or a cruise.  I was fifty-plus years old before I ever saw Savannah, and a young adult before I crossed the Mason-Dixon line.  I went to Trevose, Pennsylvania for a work-related seminar in 1978.  I have crossed that line exactly twice since.  We went to Indianapolis in 2010 to see the 500, and this summer flew into Newark, New Jersey to go on a cruise.  From what I can tell, New Jersey is all that it is cracked up to be.  I saw New York and The Statue of Liberty from the deck of the cruise ship.  We then sailed to Maine and Nova Scotia.  Maine is indeed all that it is cracked up to be, absolutely gorgeous.  Nova Scotia, not so much.  Atop the bucket list now is taking a driving trip through New England.

I had only been to Chattanooga twice before, both day trips.  It is beautiful.  I love the small city atmosphere.  We stayed in the Hampton Inn downtown and became fast friends with Tina, the manager who checked us in.  The downtown area is very clean, with a lot of restaurants and shops.  We walked to dinner each night and never once felt threatened.  We also walked to the Hunter Museum of American Art.  We then crossed over the Tennessee River via the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge to Coolidge Park and rode the carousel.  The gentleman who ran the carousel told us that it was built in 1894 and was in Atlanta’s Grant Park before going into storage and eventually being moved to Chattanooga.  The carousel featured a lot of unique animals including a fish, a frog, a seahorse, an ostrich, a rabbit, two different cats, a Scottie dog and a brontosaurus.  I rode Otis The Pig, while Jackie opted to be more conventional and rode Jordan The Pony.

Our first morning in town, we got up and turned on the local news before heading down for breakfast.  When the traffic report came on, we both fell out laughing.  There were a few cars going by on the Traffic Cam, all at a speed limit ride.  No pile-ups or overturned tractor trailers.  None of the sheer volume congestion like the nightmare that is Atlanta traffic.  I woke up in the middle of the night several times, and it was very strange.  We were in the middle of downtown, and it was still and quiet.  No sirens.  No gunshots.  No honking horns.  No loud music.  No screaming or yelling, although we did hear the street cleaners come by a couple of times.

As our newfound friend Tina was checking us out of the hotel, we asked for directions to Brainerd Road.  We told her we were meeting our friends Wayne and Jan for lunch.  She asked us where, and we told her Ankar’s.  Her eyes flew open wide and she shouted, “That’s my family!!!”  She told us that her cousin had opened the restaurant around forty years ago.  She also told us where her elderly aunt sat every day, and suggested we tell her that Tina told us to come to lunch there and see her.  We did so, and the family could not have been more gracious.  The food was excellent, and the place filled up in a hurry.  Apparently, the restaurant is very well known in the Chattanooga area.  Wayne is a regular and on a first name basis with everyone there.  If you are in the area, I highly recommend it.    

As beautiful as Chattanooga is, I fear for her.  As time passes, and more and more Boomers retire and flee the monstrosity that Atlanta has become, I hope that she does not expand, sprawl and choke on herself .  I hope that she retains her beauty, charm and Small Southern City atmosphere.  

There is still a part of me that longs to chuck it all and buy a Volkswagen bus.   A part that longs for Jackie and I to load up my easel, her camera, our dog and take off.  There is whole world out there to see, to paint, to capture on camera and to write about.  But then, my practical side takes over and reminds me of my daily commitments and responsibilities.  I am well aware that the clock is ticking.  As we grow older we learn that the most precious resource is time.  So, I will have to wait a few more years until such is feasible.  The Good Lord willing, I will have to squeeze what I can into the time that I am fortunate enough to have available to do so.  Until then, though, I’ll continue to be Writing and Rolling and Still Cruisin’!  –J.              

Allow me to vent my spleen here.  I am talking about the growing trend of driving around in the dark with no lights.  No headlights.  No taillights.  No parking lights.  No fog lamps.  No lights, period.  I have heard the stories of it being a gang ritual, that if you flash your lights at them they will turn around, chase you down and do mean things to you.  Personally, I think it is something much deeper than that.  I think it delves into the psyche, in particular the realm of human stupidity.

A couple of mornings ago I was driving to work on I-285 at about a quarter of six in the morning.  It was raining.  I came upon a black crossover in the right center lane, running about 50 mph with no lights on.  To me, this discounts the Gang Theory.  I don’t know anything about gangs, but I’m pretty sure they don’t drive black crossovers in the pre-dawn hours, presumably on the way to work.  I did not see the vehicle until the last second and swerved to avoid hitting them in the rear end.  Thank goodness no one was in the other lane.  I sat on my horn and they, in turn, sat on theirs.  Let me get this straight.  This genius is driving on a major interstate in the dark and in the rain with no lights on, and if I blow my horn at him (or her), then I’m the jerk?  I suppose if I rear ended them it would be my fault.  One Call, That’s All.

This leads me to the bigger question.  Driving  in Atlanta these days is harrowing enough.  What kind of an idiot drives up I-285 at six in the morning with no lights?  I see it all the time.  If I’m lucky enough to spot one of the Stealth Motorists, I hit my brights and go around them.  I would rather drive with them behind me than in front.  I have actually seen cops drive by and go around these idiots and not pull them over.  I certainly am no expert in any areas of law, but doesn’t driving with no lights in the dark constitute at least a warning ticket?

Doug DeMuro of autotrader.com offers this opinion which has a lot of validity.  Modern vehicles come from the factory with instrument clusters that are illuminated.  Motorists enter and start the vehicle. They must figure that the lights are already on, because the instrument panel is lit up.  There are no warnings or reminders like there are with seat belts.  I’m sure that this is the case many times.  But when you see a 1978 lime green Caprice with wagon wheels come by with no lights and the bass box thumping and rattling, that theory doesn’t hold water.  The other evening I saw one of these type vehicles traveling down the expressway, no lights, speeding up, slowing down and swerving.  As I cautiously went around him, I look over and the “driver” has his cell phone up, texting.  Now, that’s a real mental giant right there.

Okay, I’ll admit, I’ve done it.  I’ve climbed in my car, pulled out of the driveway and started down the road, forgetting to turn my lights on.  But, long before you get to a well-lighted major thoroughfare or interstate, you first have to drive down darkened side streets.  This is where you realize what you have not done, and turn on the light switch.  The graphic above is courtesy of 2CarPros.com.  It demonstrates the proper technique for turning on the headlights and taillights.  You simply grasp the knob, turn it all the way to the right and, wah-lah!  You and the people around you are much safer.

Mr. DeMuro offers a solution which, in my opinion, makes the most sense of all.  And, that is to make it mandatory for manufacturers to make the lights come on automatically whenever the car is started.  When it comes to cars, most everything is done for you today.  Cars can park themselves, and in some cases, drive themselves.  That may be a good thing, because the car may drive better than the idiot behind the wheel, but that’s beside the point.  How hard would it be for automotive engineers to implement a feature such as the lights coming on automatically?  I think it’s a great idea.  And after that, maybe they could perfect making the turn signals function automatically… Still Cruisin’!  –J.  

Before streaming, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon there were movie theaters.  NBC introduced “Saturday Night At The Movies” to television in 1961, but the movies aired were usually five or six years old and well past their run in the theaters, re-runs included.  If you wanted to see a movie, you went to the theater.  Or, the drive-in theater.  In South DeKalb, we were lucky.  We had a drive-in theater right around the corner.  The Starlight Drive-In, located on Moreland Avenue.  Drive-in theaters were plentiful in the second part of the twentieth century, and really did not begin to disappear until the late Eighties or early Nineties.  Some of the ones in the Atlanta area that I remember were the Thunderbird Drive-In on Jonesboro Road in Forest Park,  The Glenwood Drive-In on Glenwood Road, The North 85 Twin Drive-In at I-85 and Shallowford Road, and the Northeast Expressway Drive-In, located down in a hole at the intersection of I-285 and I-85 North.  The Thunderbird was under a landing pattern and, since the Atlanta airport was only a couple of miles to the west, the planes were regularly passing overhead on their final approach, engines roaring.    All of these drive-ins are now all dead and gone the way of the dodo.  All, that is, except for The Starlight.

Built in 1949, the Starlight is still thriving today, sporting six screens.  I know people who drive all the way from Paulding County and beyond to the Starlight to take their kids to the drive-in.  In the summer the theater hosts a “Drive-In Invasion” featuring live music, classic cars and B-movies from the Fifties and early Sixties.  The “Rock and Roll Monster Bash” is also featured each year showcasing local artists, organizations, vendors and, of course, horror movies.

I remember going to the Starlight with my parents when I was a kid.  My mother would pop a big container of popcorn.  We would take that along with Cokes, iced tea and my father’s thermos of coffee.  I remember seeing a Doris Day and Rock Hudson movie with them where he drives a convertible into a swimming pool full of soap suds.  They also took my cousin and I to see “The Blue Max” in 1966.  By then we were becoming much too cool to sit in the car with my parents, so we sat in the folding wooden movie seats on the patio outside the snack bar.  The sound was piped over speakers, and you didn’t have near as far to walk to the snack bar or the restroom.

Then came the teenage years and, along with them, mild juvenile delinquency.  The big thing was to try to sneak into the Starlight for free.  I really don’t know why, seeing as that most of us had part time jobs and could easily afford to pay for a ticket.  Drive-in tickets were about half the price of a conventional theater ticket.  We did not think twice about going to a movie theater and paying full admission for both ourselves and a date.  Maybe it was just the challenge, the thrill of the conquest, the wanting to see if we could pull it off.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t limited to my general neighborhood.  I went to the drive-in with my cousin in Fort Pierce, Florida once and we went through the same ritual.

The Starlight had secondary exits for both the North and South theaters, so one of the tricks was turning off your lights and driving in through them and sliding into a space.  This was dicey, at best.  It would work if you came in about halfway through the first movie and were able to find a parking place immediately. If you had to ride around and look for a space, you were making yourself conspicuous.  It also helped if you were driving your parents sleek black Ford sedan that was quiet as a mouse.  When you tried to do it in a jacked up yellow Fairlane with glass packs, sneaking in quietly and stealthily was not an option.  Especially after the owners got smart and began stationing a DeKalb County cop car at each exit.

Of course, the age old tried and true method was to put one or two guys in the trunk.  Notice I said “guys.”  Sneaking into the drive-in was strictly a male activity.  You never, NEVER asked a girl to get in the trunk.  If there was a group of guys and girls and one or two guys got in the trunk, that was okay as long as they didn’t have dates.  I would hazard a guess that if you went to the drive-in with a girl and either asked her to get in the trunk or got in the trunk yourself, that would be your last (or only) date with her.   And probably your last date with any other girl, once the word got out.

On paper, the Get In The Trunk Technique seemed pretty foolproof.  Until you got into the drive-in, and then the next step was the Getting Out Of The Trunk Technique.  If it was still dusk, things were considerably more difficult.  Trying to hide behind the snack bar and do it was dangerous, because there was generally too much foot traffic.  The easiest way was to park away from cars where you were kind of isolated.  The driver would then get out, discreetly unlock the trunk and head for the snack bar.  The refugee(s) inside would hold the latch to keep the trunk from popping wide open, then open it slowly and just enough to slide out.  Then they would stay low and go around the car and slide into the back seat.  If you popped the trunk, jumped out, high fived and yelled ,”Hey, man, we did it!” you might as well have blown an air horn and lit up sparklers.

The last time I went to the Starlight was in 1989.  A bunch of us from the neighborhood took the kids to see “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and “Batman.”  We took a grill and lounge chairs.  We backed our S-10 Blazer into our spot and opened the rear hatch.  We folded down the rear seats and spread out sleeping bags for the kids to lay on and watch the movie.  We cooked hamburgers and hot dogs.  It was fun, a lot of fun, but it wasn’t the same.  It may sound crazy, but it seemed too luxurious.  It didn’t seem like the drive-in.

The last time I went to the drive-in was in 2005.  It was in Blue Ridge, Georgia.  We had friends who owned a cabin there.  The Swan Drive-In is in downtown Blue Ridge.  Built in 1955, it too is functional and thriving.  They have strict rules, though.  No grills, and all hatchbacks have to be tied down.  It was a double feature.  A mountain fog rolled in and we could hardly see the screen throughout either movie.  The movies we saw?  “War Of The Worlds” and “Batman Begins.”  The last two trips to the drive-in, two Batman movies.  Holy Popcorn!  Still Cruisin’!  –J.        

The Sugar Dog was old and crippled.  He had a terrible pain in his tummy and in his back.  One day, while in The Back Yard with Elvis The Puppy,  The Sugar Dog laid down and went to sleep.  When he awoke, all of his pain and stiffness was gone.  The lake was still there.  But Elvis The Puppy was not there.  There were four others in The Back Yard when The Sugar Dog awoke.  There was Charlie The Siamese Cat, Dan The Horse, Penny The Pony and Sluggo The Solid White English Bulldog.  The Sugar Dog noticed a large concrete statue of a seated bulldog that he had not seen before.  The statue was at the edge of the woods, facing the lake.  At the far, far end of The Back Yard was a long bridge.  The Sugar Dog could not see the other side of The Bridge, but there was a big and beautiful Rainbow above it every day.

There was always plenty of food, water and warm sunshine in The Back Yard.  The Sugar Dog and Sluggo The Solid White English Bulldog played together every day.  Charlie The Siamese Cat basked in the sunshine, licked her paws and purred.  Penny The Pony and Dan The Horse grazed in the field and would often gallop from one end of The Back Yard to the other.

As time went by, other friends came to live in The Back Yard as well.  There was Otto The Orange Tabby Cat, who was allergic to himself.  He sat around and sneezed all the time.  Then came Elvis The Puppy, who had grown big and strong and was no longer Elvis The Puppy.  He was now Elvis The Dog.  He brought a lot of rubber squeaky toys with him, but their squeakers were all missing.  After Elvis The Dog came Shorty The Scent Hound.  Shorty liked to sit around and bark for no particular reason.  But his barking did not bother The Others.  Not too long after Shorty The Scent Hound came Georgie The Cat.  He would sit snuggled close to The Sugar Dog and doze.  You see, Georgie The Cat thought that The Sugar Dog was his Momma when he was a kitten.  He also liked to walk around the edge of the yard, stopping to sit on the bench by the lake and look at the water.  When he meowed, it sounded like “Hel-lo!  Hel-lo!”  Lelu The Grey Cat came next.  She was a very pretty and nice cat, but she was a bit jumpy and slow of foot.  She liked to lay close to the ground behind a rock and watch.

The last to come to The Back Yard was Maggie The Whippet.  She was white with two large black spots on each side of her chest and face.  She was the most beautiful dog that The Sugar Dog had ever seen.  Maggie The Whippet had big brown eyes and was lean and athletic.  She could run very fast and jump very high.  She was very sweet natured, and liked to lay in the grass with her front paws folded in a very ladylike manner.  Maggie the Whippet thought that The Sugar Dog was the most handsome gentleman she had ever seen.

Everyone in The Back Yard was happy and content.  But something was missing.  They each missed The Boy And The Girl.  The Boy And The Girl were very special to each and every one in The Back Yard.  But The Boy And The Girl had to be left behind, you see.

One day, as they were all running and playing together, The Sugar Dog sensed something.  His ears perked up and he peered intently into the distance.  His stubby tail began to wag.  His hips shook and his body quivered.  Suddenly he began to run from The Group.  The Others sensed something as well, and took off after The Sugar Dog.  He was moving so fast that even Maggie The Whippet could not outrun him.  They were side by side, flying over the green grass with their legs stretching and their hearts racing.  Elvis The Dog was right on their heels, with Penny The Pony and Dan The Horse were right on his.  The cats ran as fast as they could, with Lelu The Gray Cat lumbering along behind them.  Shorty The Scent Hound and Sluggo The Solid White English Bulldog ran as fast as their short legs would take them.  Shorty The Scent Hound was barking the entire way, his wagging tail propelling him forward.

It was then that The Sugar Dog realized that what he thought he saw was indeed what he saw.  It was The Boy And The Girl, standing at The Brigde!  He leapt through the air and landed in The Boy’s arms.  Maggie The Whippet leapt at the same time and landed in The Girl’s arms.  The Sugar Dog kissed The Boy’s face over and over again.  The Boy hugged The Sugar Dog ever so tightly and laughed and laughed, rubbing the happy dog’s head.  The Sugar Dog sensed The Boy telling him he was sorry for the times he had scolded him.  The Sugar Dog let him know that it was all right and that it did not matter because they were together again.

Maggie The Whippet rained kisses on The Girl as well, then bounced and bounced to show her how high she could jump again.  Then she laid on her back with her feet in the air, waiting for The Girl to give her a belly rub.  The Girl and then The Boy rubbed her belly, and her back foot started kicking the air as if she were starting a motorcycle.  The Boy and The Girl then hugged each other and Maggie The Whippet got in between them, barking loudly and happily.

“Hel-lo!  Hel-lo!” meowed Georgie The Cat, rubbing against their legs.  Otto The Orange Tabby rubbed against their legs as well, then sat down and started sneezing.  Elvis The Dog then jumped into The Boy’s arms and almost knocked him down.  Elvis The Dog, you see, was a bit of a lummox.  Penny The Pony and Dan The Horse whinnied and snorted until The Boy and The Girl hugged them.  The Girl rubbed Penny The Pony’s forehead and nose over and over again.  Lelu The Gray Cat jumped bouncily about, and Shorty The Scent Hound barked and barked.  Then he sat on his side and showed The Boy and The Girl his hurt leg.  His leg was no longer hurt, but he showed it to them anyway.  Finally, Sluggo The Solid White English Bulldog sat at The Boy’s feet and pawed The Boy’s leg.  He looked up at The Boy with his big brown trusting eyes, smiling at him through his underbite.  The Boy picked Sluggo The Solid White English Bulldog up and gave him the biggest hug of all.  For, you see, The Boy had not seen his stocky friend in a long, long time.

Then, The Sugar Dog ran ahead of The Group and looked back, wagging his stubby tail and shaking his hips.  Then, Maggie The Whippet ran up to The Sugar Dog.  They both went a little further and looked back anxiously at them again.  The Boy And The Girl then knew what their beloved pets wanted.  The Girl swung up onto Penny The Pony’s back.  The Boy swung up onto Dan The Horse’s back.  With The Sugar Dog and Maggie The Whippet leading, they all started across The Bridge.  The Sugar Dog could now see the other side of The Bridge with The Rainbow above it.  It was the place where they would all be now, together forever and ever.   

I was introduced to auto racing at a very young age.  My father raced on the old dirt tracks of the South in the late Forties and early Fifties.  I remember him listening to the stock car races on his transistor radio while flying his model airplanes in the early Sixties.  He and my uncle used to take my cousin and I to the races at the old Peach Bowl racetrack in Atlanta.  But I really was introduced to racing when I was sixteen years old, thanks to a gentleman named Bob Buchler.  Bob was an art teacher at Walker High School.  He was also the sponsor for Jr. Civitan, coach of the swim team and in charge of The Bookroom.  The Bookroom is capitalized because it was one of, if not the, coolest (and I don’t mean temperature wise) places in all of Walker.  If you were lucky enough to land a job in The Bookroom, you really only had to work twice a year.  Once at the beginning of the school year, distributing books to classes and again at the end of the year, collecting and inventorying books.  The rest of the year we basically loafed.  We sat around listening to music on the school’s record players, read magazines, played Ping Pong on the table which was set up in the room, ate lunch from McDonald’s and created artwork containing announcements, proverbs and philosophy which was posted on the wall outside The Bookroom.  And we would talk racing with Mr. Buchler.  Most of us called him Bob.  Or, Buchler.  Or, Buckley Duckley.  Very few, if any, of us called him Mr. Buchler.  He was really more of a friend than a teacher.  He also owned and raced a Formula Vee car and introduced many of us to sports cars and road racing, a passion which many of his charges still hold to today.

My buddy Chip and I worked in The Bookroom and made our first trip to Road Atlanta in the fall of ’71.  We drove up there in my father’s Chevrolet Apache pickup truck, taking two sleeping bags, a pop tent, two packs of bologna, a giant loaf of Colonial bread, a jar of mayonnaise, a container of mustard, a case of Schlitz and a pint of Mogen David 20/20.  For a pair of sixteen year olds, we were well prepared.  We camped along the fence between Turns 4 and 5.  After that race we were hooked, and didn’t miss another race for years.  We began to bring friends, neighbors and acquaintances, and over the years our accommodations upgraded significantly.  We began to bring pop up campers and grills, burgers and hot dogs, steaks and potatoes, guitars and transistor radios.  Our camping locations changed over the years as well.  Chip and I moved from Turn 4 to the top of the hill at Turn 5.  Camping was eventually prohibited there because of the fact that the hill was the track’s prime spectator point.  We then moved across the track to the fence along the back straight for a couple of years.  The picture shown below of myself, Chip and Jeff Landers photo bombing us is from that era.  The top picture is from sometime in the Eighties, taken at the straight away coming out of the Turn 7 hairpin.  As you can see, my beverage of choice had upgraded from Schlitz.  There wasn’t a bottle of Mad Dog in sight.

We used to get paddock passes and go down to watch the crews working on the cars.  You could walk right up to the cars.  The drivers were often in the paddock areas and were generally always friendly and accessible.  Paul Newman raced at Road Atlanta a lot, and we would always hope to catch a glimpse of him in the paddock, but never did.  The man who started it all for us, Bob Buchler, moved from Formula Vees to the Trans Am series, driving a Chevrolet Nova sponsored by EZ Wider (yes, those EZ Widers) and a Dino Ferrari.  It was really cool partying with someone you knew at the track and then seeing them drive by in a race.

The crowds at Road Atlanta were always generally very laid back, although there were moments.  One year a group of hillbillies camped behind us.  Their tent was along the dirt road that ran around the perimeter of the camping area.  I don’t think any of these guys ever walked over to the fence or saw one race car.  All they wanted to do was drink and fight.  With each other, thank goodness, although we did our best to avoid them.  One of them was a big red headed guy named Abner.  He was the only one that we ever heard called by name but, as I said, we didn’t exactly go over and socialize with them around the campfire.  On one occasion Abner and one of his buddies were outside of their tent.  Abner pushed his buddy by the shoulder.  His buddy pushed Abner back.  Abner then shoved his buddy and his buddy shoved him back.  The fists started flying, and the two of them wound up on the ground, rolling, kicking and punching.  About that time a pickup truck pulled up next to them on the road.  The driver obviously knew Abner.  He was wearing a cowboy hat and smiled revealing a missing front tooth.  “Are you ready to raise some hell, Abner?” he said in a drawl that would make Bill Elliott sound cosmopolitan.  Abner jumped up, yelled “BLANK YOU!!!” and gave the driver the finger.  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh”, grinned the driver, returning Abner’s one finger salute before driving off slowly.  Abner chased after him and kicked the truck’s rear quarter panel with his bare foot.  “Are you ready to raise some hell, Abner?” became a catchphrase in our group of friends for years afterwards.  Later on, from inside of their tent we heard Abner’s buddy exclaim, “ABNER!  AH’M GITTIN’ TARRED O’ YOU SMOKIN’ ALL MAH BLANKITY BLANK CIGARETTES!!”  “AH AIN’T SMOKED BUT TWO!” said Abner, to which his buddy retorted, “THAT’S A BLANKITY BLANK LIE!!”  Then there was a loud smack, which presumably was Abner putting his fist in his buddy’s eye.  The tent started rolling and jumping, the two of them settling their argument in the only way they knew how.

We managed to avoid Abner and his pals that weekend, and that was the only time I ever saw such behavior at Road Atlanta.  I went to the Atlanta 500 once and camped in the infield.  Notice I said once.  That was enough.  The infield at a NASCAR race back then made Road Atlanta look like a spiritual retreat.  In all of the years I went there, the only fights I ever saw at Road Atlanta were between Abner and his pals.  We pretty much always got to know the people camping around us and would see them again at subsequent races.  However, Road Atlanta could get really wild and crazy as well.  I saw guys dancing in exploding packs of firecrackers and young ladies exhibiting bare parts of their upper bodies.  Once a State Patrol trooper rode through and we all piled onto the hood and trunk of the prowler and rode around the camping area.  The troopers didn’t mind.  When we jumped off the car, we shook the trooper’s hand and thanked him for the ride.  He just smiled and told us to be careful.  One Sunday morning, I woke up halfway out of the tent with my head in an open and scattered pack of Oreo cookies.  I felt like I had been run over by a Can-Am car, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

The stories about Road Atlanta are manifold, far too many to cover in this space.  There’s lots of pictures as well.  A lot of them I would never share.  Too incriminating, and not just to me.  The last time I was at Road Atlanta was in the fall of 2009.  I was invited to exhibit my car art in the Vendor Village at the Petit LeMans race.  Things had certainly changed.  We camped along the back straight.  A friend had brought his camper trailer and we stayed there with him and his two sons.  Plugged into electricity.  Running water.  A bed.  A bathroom.  A kitchen.  A television.  A golf cart.  All the luxuries of home and a lifetime away from a pop tent, a loaf of bread and a pack of bologna.  We rode up to our old camping area at the hairpin.  There is a skid pad there now and a racing skills school.  That weekend all of the high dollar motor homes were parked there.  Some things never change, however.  On Friday night we almost got arrested for driving the golf cart on the track… Still Cruisin’!  –J.    

It’s the middle of August and my guess is that Two A Days started this week.  Maybe they start earlier now, seeing as school starts about a week before it lets out.  But for those systems who still start classes the first week in September, high school Two A Days are probably cranking up.  For those of you who might not know, Two A Days are just that, two practices a day.  Two full, two hour practices.  One starting at 8 o’clock in the morning, the other at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.  Right slap in the middle of the Dog Days.  Two A Days go on right up to the start of school.  If you play or have played high school football, you know that by about halfway through the second week you are praying for school to hurry up and start so that Two A Days will be over.

I never had the honor of serving in the military, and would in no way compare high school football to boot camp, but I would guess that Two A Days are the closest I ever came.  It was four weeks of sheer hell.  The first week started off in gym shorts, t-shirts and helmets.  A lot of calisthenics.  And a lot of running.  Hitting the ground for pushups on fresh rye grass covered with dew at 8 a.m. is something you can only appreciate if you have experienced it.  The coaches would allow us to lay there for a minute or so to allow the dew and the itch to soak into our legs and bellies.  Then we got to do ten pushups.  Or run in place, then hit the ground when the whistle blew and stay there until it blew again.  Then we got to jump up and do it again.  After calisthenics we would run a lap.  Walker High School was on three levels of Georgia clay.  The top level was the school itself and at the back, the tennis courts.  The level below the school and tennis courts was the baseball field and a dirt access road from the parking lot.  The third level, below the baseball field, was the football field.  A lap was around the football field, up The Hill, down the access road, around the baseball field, back down the steps and out to the 50 yard line.  The Hill was a drainage ditch from the access road to the football field, complete with ruts, holes and rocks.  Imagine forty guys running up this thing in cleats and full pads.  If you fell, you would get trampled.  We would run at least three laps per practice, once at the beginning, once somewhere in the middle and once at the end.  The lap at the end of each practice would be followed by ten 20-yard wind sprints.  If you weren’t in shape by the the time Two A Days started, you got in shape in a hurry.  The laps were not just confined to practice in shorts and shirts, either.  They continued on into the second week and beyond when we were in full pads, although they did occur less frequently as we began to get into full contact drills and scrimmages.  Sometimes the coaches would feel compassion for us and allow us to run at least three laps of only The Hill, the access road and back down the steps.

This was a time when it was thought that too much water coupled with hard physical workouts would give you stomach cramps.  So, we were allowed two water breaks per practice and the coaches stood by monitoring our intake.  One year one of the guys read that a healthy dose of Vitamin C was good before a workout, so he drank a quart of orange juice right before the first practice of the year.  Halfway through the first lap he was spewing orange liquid and making roars that would have attracted more than a few dinosaurs, had any been in existence and nearby.  

Then, there were the drills.  The drills were just that, agility and contact drills.  They were usually set up between two or four tires and consisting of two, four or six players.  In the two player drill, each player laid on their back inside the tires, headgear to headgear.  One player had the ball.  When the whistle blew, both players would jump to their feet, turn, and the player with the ball would attempt to run over the other player.  The other player would try and prevent him from doing such.  In the four and six player drill, there would be either two or four down linemen, a linebacker and a ball carrier, again all inside the tires.  When the whistle blew, the down linemen would attempt to open a hole and the ball carrier would then hit the linebacker.  All inside the tires.  No fancy moves allowed.  The premise was to teach agility, blocking and tackling.  There was The Monkey Roll, an agility drill that was a lot of fun and involved no contact.  Then there was Bull In The Ring.  Everyone would get in a circle and be given a number.  One lucky player would be put in the middle.  The coaches would then call a number, and the player with that number would rush the player in the middle and hit him.  The numbers came from all around the ring, quickly.  About every fifth or sixth hit, the players rotated out.  The premise was to teach a player to feel and be aware of incoming contact and to keep his feet moving.  It worked, but the drill, like dodgeball, Red Rover and most everything else, has since been banned.

Somewhere around the end of the second week, the team split up into the varsity and the B-team.  The B-team consisted of ninth and tenth graders, and would play a six game schedule as opposed to a full ten.  During Two A Days, the B-Team would practice separately for an hour and then go up and scrimmage the varsity.  I say scrimmage.  It was more like just being live tackling dummies.

I played football for five years in school, and the hardest I ever got hit was the first scrimmage of my first year of Two A Days.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  They put me out on the left corner and on the very first play ran a sweep right at me.  Terry Ennis was the fullback.  He and the Ricky Bennett were leading the ball carrier.  I squared up to meet them, and Ricky yelled “Watch the corner!”  Terry yelled, “I got him,” and hit me so hard my chinstrap and one shoe flew off.  I literally flew backwards and, I swear, in mid-air I was laughing.  I hit the ground on my butt and skidded along before coming to a stop.  I  found my shoe and knelt down and put it back on.  On his way back to the huddle Terry grabbed my arm and pulled me up just as I finished tying my shoe.  “All right, little man,” he said, “good hit, good hit!”  I was sure he was talking about his hit on me, but he slapped the top of my helmet and my shoulder pad.  I found my chinstrap, buckled back up and took my place at left corner, ready to go again.

And in my opinion, that is the essence of football.  Hit and be hit.  I played with some guys that didn’t want to get hit.  If you don’t want to get hit then you shouldn’t be playing football.  It’s part of the game.  I can’t tell you the number of times guys would come out for football and last one practice.  Some wouldn’t even make it through a whole practice.  Coach would start yelling, “Where’s So and So?”  “Don’t know, Coach.”  So and So had split.  He got hit one good time and decided that was that.  Then at school the next day you’d ask So and So, “What happened to you yesterday?”  “Oh, I’ve got asthma,” So and So would reply.  Yeah, I had noticed that about So and So when he was smoking in the bathroom.  

I believe if a kid wants to play football, he should be allowed to play.  A guy I once knew said, “I wanted to play football, but my mom wouldn’t let me.”  To me, that is just wrong.  My nephew wanted to play in middle school.  His mother wouldn’t let him.  I told her, “You’ve got to give him the opportunity to get knocked on his ass.  Then one of two things will happen.  He’ll either love it or decide it’s not for him.  But he’ll get to decide for himself.  He won’t go through life knowing that he wanted to play but his mother wouldn’t let him.”  She gave in and let him play.  He played one season and said, “I don’t think I’m going to play football next year, Uncle Jimmy,” he said, “Baseball’s more my sport.”  The following spring he went out and made the All Star team as a pitcher.  Have a great week, keep your head up and your feet moving! –J. 

The 99th PGA Championship is being played at Quail Hollow, a beautiful golf course in suburban Charlotte, North Carolina.  At one time, I played a lot of golf.  And when I say a lot, I mean a lot.  I watched it.  I studied it.  I played it.  My late wife Marie were members at Lake Spivey Golf Club, and would play there at least once a week.  In those days, I got off work at 2:30 pm.  I would make sure I had all of my chores at home taken care of, and at least three, sometimes five days a week I would leave work and head straight to Spivey to practice, take a lesson or walk nine holes.  I was obsessed.  However, over time, I came to realize that I was never going to be good enough other than to win a few bets.  I shot 80 twice, but never could break that barrier.  I scored a hole-in-one as Sapphire Valley in 2012.  So, while I still love the game, I don’t spend anywhere near the amount of time and money on it as I once did.  That being said, I stood with my wife on the Swilcan Bridge in the eighteenth fairway of The Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland.  I have been to The Mountain Top.

As I said, I used to watch golf pretty much every weekend.  There’s a big problem with professional golf today.  TV golf ratings are plummeting, and the PGA Tour is having a cow because it believes nobody is watching because Tiger Woods isn’t playing anymore.  I don’t think that’s the case at all.  I think it’s because golf is boring.  Granted, the game doesn’t translate well to TV unless you play it.  But I’m talking about professional golf in general.  It’s boring, and the reason is simple.  It’s because there aren’t any characters in golf anymore.  Back in the day, before it was on TV all the time and had it’s own channel, golf was loaded with characters.  Tommy Bolt was nicknamed Terrible Tommy because of his temper and his propensity to throw clubs.  I don’t mean just tossing them back onto the bag and muttering a few F-Bombs.  I mean helicoptering them down the fairway.  Once, after a particularly poor tee shot, Tommy launched his driver into a nearby lake.  Immediately realizing what he had done, he jumped into the lake to find the driver, but a kid had beaten him to it and emerged with the offending club.  Tommy begged the kid to give him the driver back, but the kid was having none of it and ran off, with Tommy in hot pursuit.  Seeing something like that would be the price of admission alone.

Chi-Chi Rodriguez and Lee Trevino were two pros that understood that not only golf, but all of professional sports, is show business.  Chi-Chi would wield his putter like a sword after holing a putt.  Or, he would run up and throw his hat over the hole, then lift the brim up and peek in to make sure the ball was still in the hole.  I read an interview with Chi-Chi once, and he said, “if your clubs are acting up, go out and buy a set of new ones.  Bring them home and take them out of the box in front of your old ones.  Then, put the old clubs in the closet for three months.  I’ll guarantee when you take them out of the closet, they won’t act up anymore.”  He also was asked how he stayed in such great shape.  He said he did a hundred sit ups a day, an hundred pushups and drank two scotches before he went to bed each night because, “alcohol is the only thing bacteria can’t live in.”  I’d love to hear Tiger say something like that about his workouts.  Usually when he’s asked a question like that, he just glares at the commentator.  As a matter of fact when he’s asked anything, he usually just glares at the commentator.  The hilarity is killing me.  Speaking of which, Tiger may have been the greatest golfer of his time, but every time he talks I can’t help but think of that guy in Beverly Hills Cop that told Eddie Murphy, “We’re not going to fall for the banana in the tailpipe.”

Lee Trevino is a legend of golf, and not just because of his major titles and that splay footed, flat, inside to out swing.  He was a true showman who knew how to play to the galleries.  “At the first U.S. Open I played in, I told jokes and nobody laughed,” he once said.  “Then I won the thing.  I came back the next year and told the same jokes and everybody laughed like hell.”  He also is famous for saying, “Pressure?  There ain’t no pressure out here.  This is gravy.  Pressure is standing over a putt for fifty dollars with only five in your pocket.”  He would hustle at the Dallas golf courses by playing the entire round with a quart Dr. Pepper bottle.  He would throw the ball up and hit it like a baseball.  Then he putted with the thin neck.  Try throwing a golf ball up and hitting it with a bottle sometime.  I would hazard a guess you couldn’t even hit it, let alone hustle golfers using conventional equipment.  

Wearing a safari helmet and carrying a hatchet, Lee threw a rubber snake at Jack Nicklaus on the first tee of a playoff at the 1971 U.S. Open.  I’m trying to imagine someone throwing a rubber snake at Tiger Woods today.  He’d probably get ran off of the Tour.

The last true character in golf was John Daly.  The stories about Long John are legion.  You never know what you are going to get with Daly, and that’s what makes him so much fun to watch.  He may shoot a 65, or dunk five balls in the water on the way to an 18 on a par 5.  A self taught genius, he drank a lot, played the guitar, smoked like a fiend, hit drives off of the tops of beer cans and tees in the mouth of trusting TV commentators lying on the ground.  Completely impatient, in disgust he slapped balls back onto greens while they were still moving, said exactly what was on his mind to the press and gambled away millions.  Every spring during Masters Week, he sets up tent in the parking lot of Hooters on Washington Road down the street from Augusta National, hawking souvenirs and signing autographs.  Now THAT’S a character!  He also possesses a brilliant short game and has won two Majors and eighteen times as a professional.    

The players today are all like cookie cutters.  Since the Tour is all exempt now, there are no Monday qualifiers.  So nobody has to finish a tournament and drive all night to the next stop and tee it up with no sleep and try to play their way into the tournament.  Nobody sleeps in their cars or in bunkers.  I read an article once on this particular subject, and an anonymous pro said, “These guys out here are completely coddled.  Most of them can’t get out of bed in the morning, tie their shoes, take a pee and go to the range without first calling their swing coach, sports psychiatrist and agent.  There’s a lot of people getting rich off of these guys.”  And it’s true.  Trevino said of swing coaches, “When I find one of them that can beat me, then I’ll listen.”  Too bad Tiger didn’t take that approach.

Nobody works on their own equipment anymore.  Greg Norman played with a sand wedge he’d had since he was sixteen, and would bend it to different degrees as needed.  Same with Arnold Palmer.  Arnie would grip his own clubs and grind his own irons and as he saw fit.  Nowadays, equipment trucks follow the tour and if a player breaks, bends or just doesn’t get along with a club, he goes to the equipment trailer and they give him another one.  They all have sponsors, from equipment to apparel, automobiles to financial institutions, sports drinks to golf equipment and on and on.  The days of players having to barnstorm in the off season and play exhibitions, open new golf courses or work out of a club as a Touring Pro are over.  Their agents wouldn’t let them, anyway.  Not enough money.  Besides, a player can play for five or six years making cuts and finishing in the middle of the pack and be set for the rest of his and his kid’s lives. 

But, I will continue to watch.  I’ll check the leader boards on Monday morning and see who won.  Master’s Week will always be a National Holiday, as far as I am concerned.  And, I’ll continue to tee it up.  I’ll bust my little 250 yard drives from the Senior Tees.  Then, I’ll climb in my cart and take off to try and find where it landed… Still Cruisin’!  –J. 

Well, here we are slap in the middle of the Dog Days of Summer.  The Doldrums, if you will.  In other words, it’s hot.  Atlanta finally cracked 95° for the first time this year which, seeing as it took until July 20th to do so, could be considered a mild summer so far.  Time to crank up the A/C.  But what if you don’t have any A/C?  Believe it or not, there are places in  the South where buildings, residences and automobiles are not equipped with A/C.  Hard to conceive, right?  But, as Paul Harvey said, “It’s true!”  Last week the A/C went out in the plant at work (yes, I have a day job…).  You would have thought the world was coming to an end.  The building is an old building and things happen.  And when the air goes down it is a major problem, due to all the computer equipment.  But let’s be honest, we have become so conditioned to the comforts of Carrier that whenever the system goes on the fritz, so do we.  People were on the verge of falling out, losing their minds or just plain melting in the swelter of a fifty year old printing plant with a busted thermostat.  

Now, I realize that I am going to sound like Dana Carvey doing his Grumpy Old Man routine (“that’s the way it was, and that’s the way we had it, and we liked it!”), but I grew up in a time in Georgia when houses, cars, schools and businesses were built without air conditioning.  Hard to fathom these days, isn’t it?  But that’s the way it was, and there are a million plus Boomers out there who will vouch for it.  My high school, Walker High, was the first school built in DeKalb County that had air conditioning.  Columbia High was built soon after Walker and was the first school in the county to have an indoor Olympic sized swimming pool.  Columbia got the better end of the deal.  The air conditioning units at WHS were located in each classroom and were largely non functional.  By the time I enrolled there in 1968, about all they were good for was for juvenile delinquents to stuff paper wads in them and watch them blow up in the air.

The house I grew up in was built in the mid-Fifties and had no built in air conditioning system.  Nor did any of the houses in my neighborhood and beyond.  A smattering had window units, but those don’t count and we will discuss those later.  Our house had an attic fan, as did many of the other homes of the era.  They worked by opening the windows in the morning and evening, and the fan would draw cool air through the windows and blow the warm air out of a vent in the attic.  We also had window fans, and falling asleep at night to the drone of the fans is a memory that is forever etched in my psyche.  Our furnace had one large vent in the middle of the hall.  I remember standing on it on winter mornings in my socks to warm my feet before putting on my shoes, then wrapping up in my sweater and coat and riding my bike to school.

Thank goodness for Clifton Springs, the community swimming hole.  Nobody, and I repeat, nobody in my neighborhood or beyond had a swimming pool in their back yard.  I only recall one.  The Ware sisters, Gail and Jane, had one in their back yard on Clifton Springs Manor.  So, how would those of us without the luxury of a backyard abyss cool off in the summer?  We would play in the sprinkler.  Yes, the sprinkler.  The oscillating kind were the best.  We would put on our swim trunks and play for hours in the sprinkler, just like the kids in the attached video.  It was fun and to us it was just like going swimming.  I can only imagine suggesting to my grandkids today that they go play in the sprinkler.  They would look up at me from their iPads like I had aliens crawling out of my nose.

My parents bought a brand new Ford Fairlane in 1965.  A Sport Coupe, three on the tree.  Fully loaded.  A 289 V-8, three on the tree, leather bucket seats, console, AM radio and no A/C.  A/C was not standard equipment back then and what was sold as a factory installed option wasn’t factory installed at all.  It was an under the dash unit that was installed at the dealership after the car was delivered.  My ’69 Mach 1 had such a unit.  It didn’t work.  At all.  So, I took the unit out from under the dash, the dead compressor out from under the hood and chucked them both.  Suddenly there was more leg room under the dash and arm room under the hood.  Wah-lah…

I told Jackie’s grandson Gavin last week that when I was growing up our car had a Four-55 Air Conditioning System.  “What’s that?” he asked.  “Four windows down at 55 miles per hour,” I said.  “Are you serious???” he asked incredulously.  Yes I’m serious, and I remember going out to Dallas for the summer and it was beyond comprehension that all of the houses out there had central air.  And the cars had air conditioning as well.  And, speaking of Dallas, don’t ever let anybody tell you that’s a “dry heat.”  I remember being out there and for two weeks straight it was 105° and 100% humidity.  That makes Georgia feel like Bah Hah Bah, Maine.  I knew a guy whose in-laws lived in Tucson, Arizona.  He and his wife went out to visit them.  It hit 115° and stayed there the whole time they were there.  He said nobody went outside during the middle of the day, everyone stayed in their houses.  You know why?  Because 115° is 115° any way you slice it, even if it is a “dry heat.”   

Back to the window units.  As I said, a few of the houses in my neighborhood had them.  They were usually located in the parents bedroom.  We finally got a window unit in our house in 1967 when I was twelve years old.  It was in the dining room.  After running full blast for about twelve hours it would eventually cool down most of the house.  Our next door neighbors, the Carnes, had central air conditioning installed in their house.  This was a huge deal in the neighborhood.  I remember walking over to their house with my parents and Mr. and Mrs. Carnes proudly showing us the thermostat and the vents before taking us out in the back yard and showing us the unit.  It was fascinating to reach down and actually feel cool air blowing out of the vents.

My friends Tommie and Nan Ennis moved from Gresham Park to Cedar Grove in 1973.  Their new house was a large split level with central air installed.  Tommie wouldn’t run the air because it cost too much.  So they installed a window unit, not surprisingly, in their bedroom.  Keep in mind they had five kids, four bedrooms, two baths, a living room, a den, a kitchen, two cats, a dog and a deck.  Their daughter Stacey told me that the kids would line up in their parents bedroom and get dressed for school because they would be wringing wet by the time they got dressed anywhere else in the house.

I do not think it is because we Boomers are aging that we cannot handle the heat.  Our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents spent their twilight years without the luxury of air conditioning.  And yes, it is a luxury.  It really is not a necessity, although today you cannot convince most people of that.  I think we have all become so conditioned to cool air blowing out of the vent in the wall that when something happens and it doesn’t work, we have a literal meltdown.  If the A/C goes out in our car, we spend hundreds or thousands having it fixed.  And I am guilty as charged.  A few years back I inherited Jackie’s 2000 Beetle.  The A/C did not work, and it was going to cost four figures to have it fixed.  “Forget that,” I scoffed, “I’ll just roll down the windows.”  The first day I drove it to work the temperature hit what felt like 150° in the shade.  I got stuck in Atlanta traffic on the way home to Conyers from Smyrna.  About halfway there, I called Conyers Imports and informed Lee I would be bringing the car by the next day and having the A/C fixed.  Lee fixed it and I gladly gave him four figures.  Then I climbed in the car, rolled up the windows, cranked down the temp and headed happily to the house.  Dry, cool, calm and collected… Still Cruisin’! –J.