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By Lloyd Albritton

Columnist

In the days of my youth, most parents believed that an idle mind was the “devil’s workshop,” and they did their best to keep us young people busy with productive tasks.  My father once observed that there was nothing more disgusting to him than to come home from working hard all day to find a bunch of lazy teen-age boys lying around in the house doing nothing.  “When I get home from work,” my father used to say, “I want to see you boys doing something, even if it’s nothing but digging holes and filling them back up!”

When I later joined the Marines and was assigned to police details with instructions to pick up all the cigarette butts on the base parade deck, I felt well trained in that task, for whenever I had complained to my father that there was nothing left to do around the house, he would command like a drill sergeant, “There’s trash all over this yard! I want you boys out there picking up everything that ain’t nailed down!”

There were five boys in our family with one sister who was the baby.  Keeping us all busy and out of trouble was no easy job.  But Daddy tried.  He was wise to our ways and he knew that a young’un with nothing to do would soon be up to something, and it would usually be no good.  When we wanted to go somewhere, Daddy would often quote his own father and say, “Going is seeing, and seeing is wanting, and if you see something you want, I know you don’t have any money to buy it, so you would probably just steal it and I would have to come and get you out of jail, so you’d better stay right here at home and out of trouble.”

As I got older and was allowed more liberties, I occasionally did get into trouble, just like Daddy said I would. Sometimes Daddy never found out, but sometimes he did, and a licking with his belt was the usual punishment.  Other times, Daddy would seem to muse about some of his own childhood pranks and would administer mercy.  In those instances, I always felt lucky to get off with only a warning.

Atmore teen society in those days revolved around three main events: (1) the movie show, (2) John Dixon’s Record Hop at the National Guard Armory and (3) riding ‘round ‘n ‘round McMurphy’s Dairy Bar looking for girls.  When I was about 14 years old, I persuaded my father to let me and my buddy, Art Gunn, use his old 1947 Fleetside Chevy to drive to town on Saturday night to go to the movie show at the Strand Theater.  I did not yet have a driver’s license, so Daddy agreed that we could use the old car if we would drive to town on the back dirt roads and leave the car parked in Faircloth’s Parking Lot on Trammel Street, then return home directly after leaving the movie show.  “I don’t want you boys driving that old car around that Dairy Bar,” was Daddy’s final warning.

After an hour or two at the movie show, Art and I grew bored and soon concluded we were not where the action was.  We quickly discussed the matter and agreed that my father was always in bed by eight o’clock and would surely never know if we took the old Chevy for just one cruise around the Dairy Bar to look for some girls.

Now, this old Chevy was a long, gawky-looking thing, pea green in color, with high windows that barely exposed the driver’s and passenger’s heads.  The shocks and main springs on the car were well worn and when the brakes were applied the old car would bounce along like a stagecoach on a bumpy road.  Though hardly a “Girl Getter,” no one could possibly not notice a conspicuous cruiser like this circling the Dairy Bar, especially with its name painted boldly on each rear fender, i.e., The Green Hornet.  The old car also featured another highly valuable asset for getting attention.  I could make it backfire loudly by switching the ignition on and off while it was gearing down.  Art and I were proud to be men-about-town in such a high-class automobile.

As we made our second or third circle around the Dairy Bar, Art suddenly ducked down and shouted, “There’s your Daddy!”  Without hesitation, I jammed the short vacuum shift lever into second gear and sped directly back to Faircloth’s Parking Lot without looking back.  I parked the car and Art and I ran back around the corner to the movie theater.

“Are you sure that was Daddy?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Art replied, but it sure did look like him and it looked like his car too.”  I suspected Art was either lying, joking around, or just plain mistaken, but he would not own up to any of those possibilities.

Feeling a little discombobulated, we waited a reasonable time and drove the old car home.  The lights were off at my house and all was quiet as a mouse.  Daddy’s car was parked in the yard.  We quietly sneaked into the house and went to bed, feeling reasonable confident that we had been mistaken.  After all, we reasoned, what in the world would my father be doing at the Diary Bar on a Saturday night at such a late hour?

The next morning at Sunday breakfast, Daddy seemed cheerful and never said a word all through breakfast.  Just as Art and I had relaxed and assumed we were safe, Daddy pushed his chair back and began to muse, “I saw a funny thing last night,” he began.  “I drove over to Flomaton to visit a friend in the hospital and on my way back through town, I selt a little hungry and decided to stop at the Dairy Bar for a burger.  As I was sitting there, what did I see but two young fellers who looked just like Lloyd and Arthur in an old green Chevy that looked just like mine cruising around the Dairy Bar just a’bouncing and a’popping along as pretty as you please.  But, of course, I know it could not have been Lloyd and Arthur because they promised me they would leave my car parked in Faircloth’s Parking Lot while they went to the movie show.”

We sat quietly and, not daring to express a single word of excuse or protest.  We just hung our heads and awaited our punishment.  Daddy sat for a few minutes looking at us, then without another word, forgot the whole affair and got up and walked away, leaving Art and me alone at the breakfast table.  We looked at one another, two idle minds which never learn, and our faces beamed the same scheming thought.  Then Art raised his eyebrows inquisitively and expressed our shared thought, “Y’reckon your daddy would let us use The Green Hornet to go to the Record Hop next Saturday?”