Good Saturday morning Team 31, Elba/Clanton Alabama and my facebook Friends. This has been a week that I did not have to drive to Montgomery every day for Treatment for a bladder infection. I still woke up early so it was a week of trying to retrain myself to sleep late.
Well it is the day of the week that I try to come up with a story for my campfire chats. I see that the campfire is going so it is time for me to get with a story.
When I was a teenager in the 1950s I only wanted to grow up and leave the small town of Mounds Illinois. Back in the 1950s there were not to many things to look forward to when the weekends came around. After getting a drivers licinse the world opened for me. Yea it opened the world as far as Cairo Illinois. Come the weekend we would put a dollors worth of .29 cent gas in the car and head out for the wild night life of Cairo. This for the most part ment that we would head to the Club 1313 in Cairo and play pool for a quarter a game. After a while we decited that we would dress up in suits and a tie too act like we were grown up. I had a black sute and I would wear a black shirt and to top it off I would wear a white tie. I thought that it made me look like I was someone to look up two. On the odd time we had enugh cash we would buy a sixpack of beer and realy tie one on. Now one of my buddies was named William T. Campble Jr. or B.T. and he got us in a fix on one of the nights we were to get beer. designer collections for wedding in short
On this one Friday night I called B.T. and said that if he could get the keys to the gas pump at his dads Ford Tractor Company. We could get some free gas and have enugh cash to stop and get some beer. He said that he had the keys in his hand and was ready to tie one on. It took little time to pick up Charly Bough and Hoppy Hargus and head the 50 Ford pickup over to B.T.s to finish off the packed load for the night of fun and drinks.
When I arrived at B.T.s house every thing changed for ever. After honking the horn B.T. jumped in the truck and said , "See I have the gas keys". This was ok except The B.T. setting in my trouck was William T. Campbell Sr. , NOT Jr. You see I had forgot that Sr and Jr. both whent by B.T. and that they both sounded the same when talking on the phone.
B.T. said that Jr had a date for the night and he was glad to set in for him. Sr. made sure we stoped at the closed tractor shop and he even made sure that I filled the tank as this was a specal night. When we arrived "Fucture City" a gathering of colored homes and a juke joint just north of Cairo . He made sure we stoped for the six pack of beer. Back in those days you could get a six pack for a buck for the cheap stuff. Or if you were white and under age you could get the cheap stuff for only five bucks. And yes he made me go for the beer.
Not only did he drink two of the beers. He cleaned our butts playing pool.
After that night we had a code that we used to ensure I was talking to B.T. Jr. A few weeks later I asked my Dad to go out with us for a night of pool . I had asked him a lot of times and he always said no. Well Dad said that he would be glad to shoot pool with us. When we got to Fuctyure City he said for us to stop and he made sure I whent in to get the beer. He also drank two of our beer and this shocked me as he had stoped drinking after staying drunk fore a couple of years after coming home ftrom the second world war. Yes he also cleaned our butts in pool.
After I whent into the Army and B.T. Jr whent to collage I spent a many a night drinking with B.T. Sr at the VFW club. Sr and I became good friends and he told me that he never felt so good as when he showed up with the gas keys.
Yes we all could not wait till we grew up and left the small town of Mounds. You know what? As I have grown older, I think the time spent there was not so bad. It is a shame we can not relive those days.
Oh well the campfire is low and it is time fore to call it a night.
Love Doc.