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MOONLIGHT
SONATAS
From the
chapter "The Gentlest Decade"
MOONLIGHT SONATAS
The
Varsity restaurant and drive-in was the center of the social
world for most of the students in
Americus
.
A favorite pastime in the late 1950s and early
1960’s was “riding around.”
A bunch of kids would pile into a car and just ride
around town, until the driver asked for gas money.
They would then pile out of that car and
find another car in which to make the circuit.
On a good Sunday you could make fifteen or
twenty turns through the parking lot of the Varsity. If your
car had a big enough engine, and a good transmission, you
“laid rubber” when you left the Varsity. There
has been many a strip of rubber laid on the street outside
the Varsity by teenage drivers who thought spinning their
car’s rear wheels somehow made the driver more virile and
desirable to the opposite sex.
My problem was I never had a car with enough power to
actually “lay rubber,” although I could lay down a
pretty good puddle of oil on demand.
I
used to take my two-year old, cute as a button, sister with
me to the Varsity. She
stood in the seat next to me and attracted more females than
an Elvis look-alike. I
finally gave up the practice as it got to be embarrassing
when my dates began insisting that my cute little sister
come with us on our social outings.
You
could take a date to the Varsity and park in the large
parking lot out under the pecan trees.
The carhop would bring your cherry cokes and slaw
dogs and then leave you to your own devices until you blew
your horn again. If
your car had a decent radio and a strong battery, you could
stay out under the pecan trees for a good part of the
evening and “make out” without being bothered.
Clear channel radio stations provided the musical
entertainment. WSB
in Atlanta, the “Clear Channel Voice of the South,”
never had anything on worth listening to late at night,
except, once in a while, the “Mull Singing Convention,” a
family gospel show sponsored by the sale of gilt-edged
bibles with the words of Jesus written in red for three
ninety-five. The
deluxe edition with a leather cover with your name engraved
in gold on the front could be had for a mere five dollars.
You
hit Big Casino if WSM in
Nashville
, WCKY in
Cincinnati
, or WLS in
New Orleans
were
featuring Johnny Mathis.
His mood music increased your chances for romance
more than an Ace increased your odds for winning at
Blackjack. We dreaded when country music was the only music
the radio would pick up.
It was down-right difficult to get your date into a
romantic frame of mind while listening to Little Jimmy
Dickens singing at the Grand Ole Opry on WSM, especially if
he was singing, “Take a Cold Tater and Wait,” or the
equally non-chimerical, “Sleeping At the Foot of the
Bed.”
If country music was all you were able to pick up,
you took your date home early, came back to the Varsity, and
went inside to hang out with all the other losers at love.
Nothing serious ever happened under the pecan trees;
the owner of the Varsity saw to that by making frequent
tours of the parking lot to see that, “the proprieties
were being observed at all times.”
Romance just didn’t have the chance to blossom if
there was the possibility some guy would start knocking on
your window with a flashlight just as things started to get
interesting. The
Varsity provided a safe place to park, play kissy-face with
your date, and not worry about a sex-crazed serial killer
with a hook for one hand who had just escaped from
Milledgeville trying to break into your car and kill you
both.
High
school mythology had it that a couple was parked out in the
country one fair evening, off the main road in a bucolic
setting under a large tree, and was having a grand old time.
The radio reported the escape from Milledgeville of a
maniacal killer who had a hook for one hand.
After hearing this announcement the girl got skittish
(imagine that) and insisted the boy take her home, or at
least to the Varsity where she wouldn’t be so scared.
In
a fit of anger the boy cranked the car, threw it into gear,
peeled rubber, and was gone.
The boy evidently drove away just as the escaped
maniacal killer went for the girl’s door handle.
The couple, who had been parking at Murphy’s Mill,
didn’t know anything was wrong until they got to the
Varsity, drove out under the trees, and honked the horn for
the carhop. A
carhop walked by their car on the passenger side, stopped,
tapped discretely on the girl’s window, and asked her,
“Excuse me, but is this your bloody hook hanging from your
door handle?” Urban
legend has it that if you park in just the right area under
the pecan trees on a night with a full moon, you can still
hear the echoes of her screams.
Not only that, but if you listen very carefully you
can also hear the sounds of her fists beating the dog stuff
out of her date.
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