photos by chris thibaut
“When buying a used car, punch the buttons on the radio. If all the stations are rock and roll, there’s a good chance the transmission is shot.”—Larry Lujack
My current car, a 2003 Cadillac CTS, is getting old, just like its owner. The Silver Shadow has been with me for ten years now and disturbing signs of dissipation are beginning to appear. Indecipherable little noises are rising up from its innards. Heretofore quiet symbols on the dashboard are lighting up. First, of course, it was the Emission Control beacon, but nobody worries about those. But then the Anti-Lock Brake light came on, quickly followed by the Traction Control signal. Worse yet, the radio antenna was dislodged by an incompetent car-wash attendant and remains inert. The engines never flame out in these Cadillacs, it’s always the attendant mechanisms. The first of these was the windshield wipers, which one day decided to remain on in spite of any measures taken. I had to pull the fuse and apply Rain-X, which works great unless you get stuck in a monsoon. This will eventually happen to everyone, as it did to me one Miami night as I waited for Stuart Bentler to remember I was spending the night at his South Florida residence. Stuart was lost in song and drink at some posh Fort Lauderdale event, which would have been fine if his voicemail was not full. After about an hour, I decided to head for my regular hotel near Calder Race Course, twenty agonizing, sloshing minutes away and demanding Herculean concentration to peer through the blitzkrieg of insistent raindrops. After that episode, I got the damn things fixed, four hundred dollars or not.
Alas, after a decade of good times and faithful service, the handwriting is on the tachometer. Trade-in time is near. I am not one of those people who takes this sort of thing lightly, whoop-de-doing all the way to the used car lot in celebration of the departure of an old friend. No, indeed. While there are people loose in the world who foolishly think automobiles do not have souls—and I hope you are not one of them—they are gravely in error. Tell that to the poor schlub driving in the dead of night from Dubuque to Bemidji with no one to talk to but his loyal vehicle, certainly not the spouse swaddled in mountainous bedding back in the warm belly of suburbia, nor even the faithful schnauzer unwilling to be roused from his dreams of ocelot-hunting in the Serengeti. That driver will tell you a different story.
Facts must be faced, nonetheless. Noone wants to be stranded in 95-degree heat on the desolate plains of the Florida Turnpike, waiting for a pokey AAA saviour to finish his cheeseburger. Action must be taken. Randy, down at Auto Max has been alerted and he’s on the prowl for a proper replacement. The End Days are here. I’ll try to see to it that the Silver Shadow is placed with a good family, but these things can be tricky. There’s always the chance you wind up with a high-school girl prone to excessive texting and that’s where worrisome problems can appear. We’ve discussed these matters extensively, the Shadow and I, and we’d like to find an older couple who drive mostly to the lottery store on Saturdays. Semi-retirement, you could call it. Whatever happens, we’ll never forget the good times driving back from winning races in Miami or the Gator victories along the pumpkin-lined roads near Auburn. Ten years of fun. A decade of untarnished compatibility. Heck, that’s better than I did with two wives.
You Never Forget Your First
When we were kids, driving was a pipedream. Nobody drove. The one car in our expanded family was owned by my grandmother, a shiny black Chevrolet, and it was parked in the driveway ninety percent of the time, used primarily in the early evening to motor down to South Union Street to pick up my grandfather from his bar. Occasionally, we’d go to the beach or to visit relatives, nothing frivolous. My mother was well into marriage before she got her first car and woe betide anyone who cast covetous eyes on her vehicle. I “borrowed” it once to drive to a basketball game in Lynn, twenty miles away, and she followed me there with a boyfriend, located me in the grandstand, held her hand out, received the flipped key and left me there to figure out a way home, entirely disinterested in whether I made it back or not. So much for car thieves.
I finally got my own first car when I was about 19 and had a short-term job with IRS. It was a 1953 Buick Special, complete with portholes, a shiny Kelly-green, dazzling to a rookie owner. The second time I drove it, I was heading back from Boston to Lawrence on Interstate 93 and found myself racing with some other miscreant, speeds reaching 100 miles per hour. Suddenly, just ahead, my exit appeared, U-shaped, a challenge even under normal conditions. Inexperienced as I was, the very notion of pulling off there was pure folly but I tried it anyway. Ever been in an accident? They’re very noisy. And they seem to take an awfully long time to finish up. I took out about half a dozen of those skinny reflector poles, pushing the fender in against the tire. The car filled with rubber smoke all the way home, which, fortunately, was not too far. My perfect vehicle was compromised. The service station guys hammered the fender back out but the result was not aesthetically pleasing. Live and learn, they say. What I learned this time was that it was not really necessary to drive down the interstate at 100 miles an hour. And if you did, for God’s sake take the following exit.
My Kingdom For A Hearse!
For some reason, around age 20, I got a great notion that buying a hearse might be a good idea. By that time, of course, I had published four editions of the Charlatan and come in contact with a vast number of abnormal colleagues possessed of odd behavior. The people who staff college humor magazines are not like everybody else. Texan Gilbert Shelton, for instance, decided it was very important to inform the population of Houston, Texas that PODDY RULES THE WORLD! So he got some disciples and a few cans of paint and ran around town painting this message on all available surfaces, especially including giant water towers. Meanwhile, the erudite staff of the M.I.T. Voodoo was busily rolling the world’s largest snowball—about twenty feet in diameter—out onto Memorial Drive in Cambridge, effectively blocking up the heavily traveled artery. Close communication with people of this ilk on a regular basis can lead to brain wave impairment, thus the mere purchase of a Death Cab For Billy should not be considered extraordinary. But where to look? There’s not a used-hearse lot on every corner, after all.
I eventually found the appropriate vehicle, a 1950 Cadillac Superior model in a fashionable steel gray, at a hearse graveyard a few towns away. The sales lot was awash with ambulances and hearses of every description, many with exorbitant price tags, but mine was a mere $300. When I drove it home, my grandmother was waiting in front of the house. “You can’t put that thing in the driveway,” she balked. Well, why not? “Because people will talk.” Gee, what will they say? I think after the first day it will be clear there’s nobody dead in there. “Maybe if you take those curtains down and paint it a nice color, it will look like a station wagon,” she hoped. I don’t think so, Nan. We settled on parking it on the street in front of the house.
Now, the average person would have little knowledge in such matters, but there are several benefits to owning a hearse. For one thing, you can carry thousands of magazines in the back, as we did when distributing the lone Massachusetts issue of Charlatan. For another, you can transport vast numbers of people back to their dorms before curfew when no other transport is available, as we did with a dozen or so Tufts girls, late leaving a raucous off-campus party. You can sleep in the back on long trips, saving money on expensive motel bills. You can carry a bazillion filled water balloons into battle without danger of rupture, as was accomplished in Austin, Texas, a mere two years later. There’s no end to the vast array of benefits. Just don’t expect to find too many parking spaces. And, for God’s sake, don’t get a flat tire.
On The Road
During most of my hearse adventures, I was accompanied by a fine fellow named Jack Guerin, a student at nearby Merrimack College and a son of the United States Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago. Jack would be moving to the University of New Mexico in the Summer of 1962, where he had a large, paid-in-full apartment waiting. He encouraged me to go along with him and publish the Charlatan in Albuquerque. I agreed, and began my drive west in July, making it all the way to Oklahoma City before my radiator began circling the drain. The repairman did what he could but advised that Albuquerque, 1000 miles in the distance, was now an impossible dream. I remembered Gilbert Shelton’s offer of a free spot on his hair couch if I’d come to Texas to help him put out the Texas Ranger magazine. “Can I make it to Austin?” I asked the garage man. He weighed the situation gravely, calculated the remaining distance at 400 miles and told me “Mebbe. If you fill that radiator every fifty miles.”
I drove the rest of the way with one eye on the road, the other on the temperature indicator, religiously filling the radiator every fifty miles. I gave the old girl a break for the night in Waco, where I parked behind a roadside fruit stand. In the morning, I woke to muffled voices, chattering in Spanish. The Mexican family which operated the stand had arrived and was surveying the hearse from a distance. What kind of ill omen was this? Dare we approach? Best to wait things out, perhaps. This couldn’t be good for business.
Not wishing to stand in the way of commerce, I decided it was time to rise and shine. Now, with this particular vehicle, egress from inside via the back door was not an option. It was necessary to roll down a side window and climb out. The Mexicans watched the window wind down with no little apprehension, ready to bolt if the need arose. When they saw a foot, then a leg coming through the window, they moved back several steps. I finally got out of the car, made no move to advance toward them, doffed my hat and said, “Buenas dias!” “BUENAS DIAS!” the chorus gratefully replied, happy to be spared another day. I bought some orange juice, the family smiled and everybody waved merrily as I disappeared down the highway. Customer of the day, I reckon.
Austin And Beyond
Bill’s Adventures In Austin have been depicted elsewhere in The Flying Pie, notably in the four-part “1962” column from November 27-December 18, 2014, retrievable in the Blog Archive, above. The mighty hearse, of course, played a key role as an ammunition depot in The Great Austin Waterballoon Wars, a never to be forgotten era in local counterculture history. Then, several months later, a long-forgotten insurance check appeared as if by magic. The radiator was repaired, other improvements made, and on the morning of December 26, 1962, the silver beast carried Bill Killeen and Marilyn Todd out of Austin and eastward toward their destinies. To Bill’s parental home in Massachusetts the hearse roared, then south to Adventures in Florida, where it charged over a bridge into downtown Daytona Beach, brakeless and carrying 10,000 copies of a magazine called The Old Orange Peel. Then, on to Tallahassee to begin another chapter in the saga of Charlatan.
Nothing lasts forever, of course, nor did the faithful hearse. Gas costs were astronomical, the sales trips to Gainesville expensive and our heroes low on resources. Eventually, Bill yielded to a redneck car trader looking to use the hearse for a wood truck, swapping Bill a modest Ford coupe in return. It was the worst deal since Jack traded his mother’s cow for some magic beans. The brake pedal on the Ford went to the floor and the first time the Charlatan duo headed for G’ville they were stopped by a highway patrolman irked by a defunct tail light. When it took Bill five minutes to stop, the cop investigated further and put the kibosh on the trip. The Ford was towed back to Tallahassee, eventually repaired and served its purpose in an unspectacular manner for a couple of years. The wonderful hearse? Well—who knows? Sometimes, it reappears in dreams, floating down the highway with grace and power, freshly painted, drapes pristine. The windows are down and the radio is belting out a tune. If you listen carefully, you can almost make it out. It sounds a lot like “She Do Run Run.”
Next Week
The adventure continues in “Cars—Part II.” Bill experiences his first NEW car, then his second, which is promptly seized by despicable attorneys. There are four-wheel-drive Toronados, three of them, there are slick Lincolns and a raft more Caddys, including the current inamorata, all with interesting stories to tell. Be with us then as we return to those thrilling days of yesteryear with the Lane Ranger. “Hi-yo SILVER, awaaay….”
That’s all, folks….
The Winter Park Mafia
The photographs which accompany today’s column were taken over time by Chris Thibaut, extraordinary portrayer of vehicles, who once worked at the Subterranean Circus. But then again, who didn’t? For some reason, in those days days you graduated from Winter Park High School, moved to Gainesville and went to work at the Circus. In addition to Chris, we had the world-famous Mike (Jagger) Hatcherson, Johnny Bolton, Danny Whiddon and the Golden Girls—Patty DeFillips, Debbie Adelman, Gail Thomas and Linda Hughes, a quartet of lookers which would be at home in any Miss Whatchamacallit contest you might mention. I can’t swear they were all from WPHS, but most of them were, and any outliers were close by. Several of them are still in Florida, though Jagger and Johnny have traipsed all the way out to Idaho and Linda is learning to be a farm girl in North Carolina. Jack Kerouac famously said the prettiest girls in the world lived in Des Moines, but Iowa has nothing on Winter Park. Hey, even the boys were pretty.
