Everything Fred – Part 23

21 April 2021

U.S. Highway 80 once ran from Savannah, Georgia (technically from Tybee Island, Georgia) to San Diego, California. It was part of the old Dixie Overland Highway auto trail and was considered by some to be the first coast to coast highway across the United States although that honor probably belongs to the Lincoln Highway. The zero in the number is significant because only coast to coast highways have a zero as their last digit (think I-10, I-20). Probably no other two lane ribbon of concrete has played a more pivotal role in my life.

I was born in Meridian, Mississippi at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Meridian, at one time, the second largest city in the state, sits along the highway. Most of my childhood years were spent around Morton, Brandon, and Jackson, Mississippi, all along the highway. I was Temporary Assigned Duty (TAD) while in the Coast Guard to Savannah. Boy Scout Camp was at Clinton, Mississippi – Highway 80. Vicksburg with its national battlefield is on Highway 80. The way back to my ship in Corpus Christi went through Monroe, Louisiana – Highway 80.

My earliest memory of the road was sleeping in the front room of my Grandmother’s house in Morton whose front yard led to – the Highway. At night, you would watch the lights of cars and semis march across the ceiling as they traveled either east or west. Back then, the road was built in distinct sections. A section is long as the two lane is wide (24’x24′) and formed from poured concrete. Each section laid down is joined by an expansion joint. Traffic traveling the highway running over those expansion joints would put me to sleep at night. The rhythm of the front and rear wheels hitting those joints was hypnotic (click, click). Today, modern interstate highways are laid down in a continuous concrete pour and their are no expansion joints. No sleep near modern highways.

My cousin Jimmie and I loved playing along the highway. You had to cross the highway to get to our Great Grandparents’ house, to Aunt Delia’s and Uncle George’s, to Aunt Alice’s and Uncle Owen’s. Uncle James’ Shell station sat at the junction MS 481 and Highway 80. Across from the station was a fruit stand and after the station closed, Jimmie and I ate our weight in potato chips and cokes pretty much every day so we crossed that ribbon a couple of times a day.

The road was also the scene of our “arrest” by the town constable, Lauris Sessums. We couldn’t have been much older than 7 or 8 but we got in a habit of standing along the highway and trying to get semis to sound their air horn as they roared past. You would make the motion of the driver pulling the cord for his air horn and if you were lucky, the driver would give you a couple of blasts from his horn.

We graduated from that to deciding it would be great fun to have the trucks run over something and squash it flat. I came by that idea honestly. When Dad was stationed in Havre de Grace, Maryland at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, we always took the train. Archie and I would put a penny on the tracks at the station in hopes of getting the train to flatten the penny (don’t try this at home, kids).

Jimmie and I quickly tired of flattening cans and boxes so one of us (I’ll blame Jimmie) came up with the idea of making a ramp for the tires of the semi to roll up. Actually, the ramp was a brick with a board propped on it. We had no idea what that might do to a tire. The trucks would barrel through that part of town and only have to begin slowing at the light in downtown Morton. Fortunately, only one truck made it up our ramp and fortunately our ramp didn’t cause any damage. So what to do next for two bored kids in the summer evening?

How about lie down in one of the lanes and play chicken by getting up out of the way before you got squashed? I think we did that about two or three times when a police car pulls into my Grandmother’s driveway with lights flashing. One truck driver must have stopped at the Gulf Cafe (also on Highway 80) downtown and called Lauris.

Lauris was an imposing man. He rounded up me and Jimmie and marched us up to Ruby’s house and presented us to my Grandmother. Let’s just say that after the threat of being locked up by Lauris (jokingly, of course) and the talkin’ to we got from Ruby and Aunt Mabel, we no longer played in the highway. We still tried to get the trucks to honk their air horns but didn’t put anything else on the road to be flattened.

So nostalgic is that road to me that on my last cross country trip, once I got to Morton, I pulled over to the side of the road and took a photo of my Grandmother’s old house. For years, as a kid, I dreamed of leaving from there and heading west. By now, I had plenty of experience out west with boot camp in Alameda, California, a tour of duty in Corpus Christi, Texas, a job in Miles City, Montana with the Bureau of Land Management, and a previous cross country tour. However, it was totally symbolic for me to start my last journey out west on Highway 80 at my Grandmother’s house.

In the past, I’ve entertained the idea of traveling from Tybee Island, Georgia to San Diego on Highway 80 but the road now terminates in Dallas. It’s pretty much been replaced from Dallas westward by modern interstates.

The road still goes from Dallas to Savannah and there are portions all along the southern U.S. that you can drive on “old Highway 80.” As a matter of fact, behind my Great Grandparents house was a section of old Highway 80, so in effect, the house was bounded on the north by the old road and on the south by the “new” road. I used to hike that section of old Highway 80 to my Scoutmaster’s house 2.5 miles west. If you completed a round trip, that was a required five mile hike. Several of us in Troop 28 of Morton would make the hike, camp out on the area next to our Scoutmaster and then hike back the next morning. That way, we met one of the requirements for 21 nights of camping for the camping merit badge.

It was along that old section that I learned to look at nature. You’d find dragonflies impaled on the barbs of barbed wire by loggerhead shrikes. Our Scoutmaster Mr. Polk clued us in on the dragonflies, snakes, and rats staked out in the hot summer sun after we questioned him about it. It was along that section we caught and identified some of those same snakes. My love of botany was furthered when we learned to collect and press plants for a Scout exposition, many of which were collected along old Highway 80.

Going west where old 80 met new 80 just before you reached Pelahatchie, Mississippi you found the infamous Tiptoe Inn. Other than Ma Fortenberry’s on new 80, Tiptoe was the closest to get bootleg beer and liquor. Ma’s was closer to the town of Morton but you had to be pretty brazen to pull up to her drive and risk being seen by the locals. My parents were pretty brazen and I was often brought along for the ride. It was interesting to see who went to my church (Methodist) in town and who you could see at Ma’s. I once saw our minister.

Tiptoe had a seedier reputation than Ma’s. There were rumors of knife and gun fights and loose women (funny how women are considered loose but the men approaching them are not). I’d only been inside Tiptoe once and that was in broad daylight. It seemed like a clean but tired bar to me. The downstairs was just a long room with a bar that ran the length of it. The house of ill repute was upstairs. The saying about Tiptoe Inn was “tiptoe in, stagger out.”

It augments sperm volume, sperm count and sperm motility. cialis properien check out this now Why erection-helping medicines?If you get a look on available treatments for treating this condition there are some permanent surgical options available. viagra pfizer 100mg According to a study funded in large part to her tax haven status. generic sildenafil india Tadalafil is an effective medicine for people suffering from weak erection often feel shy in revealing their problem with friends and family. effects of viagra

Highway 80 ran directly through the center of Brandon. It split to either side of a confederate statue. The running joke was “Did you hear they took the statue down last week?” When you said no, the joke was “They had to let him down to take a leak.” OK, it’s small town humor in the 50’s. I think I was well into adulthood before people quit using that joke around me or me springing it on someone else.

As you continued west, 80 fed into Jackson. You crossed the Pearl River bridge just as you entered the Jackson city limits. Just before you crossed the bridge was another bootlegger. I knew all the bootleg places from Morton to Jackson as a kid. As you crossed the bridge, there was Dennery’s Seafood House.

At the time, that was pretty much the only place in central Mississippi you could get fresh seafood – they shipped it up daily from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I ate many a meal in that old building. Years later, they moved the restaurant near the Coliseum in Jackson. It was a brand new building with larger seating but it never caught on. By the way, I was in summer camp as a counselor and met the young son of the owner. I was invited for a free meal at the old restaurant after he passed my merit badge course.

Just under the Pearl River bridge was a place that made the absolute best hot tamales. Mom and Dad would often make a special trip (first stop the bootlegger on the other side of the bridge) to get the tamales. I’ve never had any since as good as those were. Of course, that could simply be the nostalgia talking but they were really good.

If you keep going west, you find yourself in Clinton, Mississippi. That town holds two memories for me: Mississippi College and Camp Kickapoo Boy Scout Camp. I was only on the campus of MC a couple of times in my life but it had a stately look to it. The only trouble in my mind was it was a Baptist supported college and everyone had to attend Chapel. Not for me.

If you broke north of Highway 80 in downtown Clinton, you hit a road that took you to Camp Kickapoo. I spent many summers there as a camper from Troop 28 in Morton and as a staff member and camp counselor.

Once you reach Vicksburg along Highway 80, you come to the western terminus of the state of Mississippi. Vicksburg’s claim to fame is tied up with someone named Grant. There’s a national battlefield but for some reason we were never encouraged to visit by the school systems in the state – something about a loss. It was full of Yankee monuments. Even so, I’ve visited it about three or four times. I guess I’m a traitor.

Vicksburg was also where my Grandfather Hollie often went to fight chickens. It was then, and is now, an illegal sport – but then so was beer and liquor at the time and that didn’t seem to stop anyone. My Grandfather was well known in chicken fighting circles common throughout the south (Florida still breaks up chicken fighting rings in the Hispanic communities of Miami). He’d even made the cover of some regional magazines.

I don’t know that this photo (from Jo) was taken in Vicksburg or not but it’s him at a chicken fight. He had many prized roosters.

Make no doubt about it, it’s a bloody, cruel sport. The roosters are fitted with sharpened steel spurs to do as much damage to the competition as possible. It’s often a fight to the death. Regardless, I think he thought more of his fighting cocks than he did about the family, in general. I used to walk with him to feed the chickens when I was a kid and was a little shocked that we often fed them – wait for it – left over chicken.

It was at one chicken fight in Vicksburg that I was with Hollie and Ruby when tornado warnings (fire sirens) went off. We left and headed back to Morton (along Highway 80, of course) and made it back safely. The next morning’s newspaper, The Clarion Ledger was full of articles about the devastation to Vicksburg by the tornadoes. I was always a little frightened about tornadoes after that point in time to the point I was close to anxiety attacks as a little kid. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not fond of them now but I understand them a little better and we certainly have a better warning system now than we did then – which was no warning system other than a fire siren.

By the way, the Lincoln Highway starts in New York City and ends in San Francisco at the Legion of Honor Museum. I’ve been to the starting point and the end point several times. It was also where a young lieutenant by the name of Dwight Eisenhower led a contingent across the country to open up highway travel to the nation. Even though the Lincoln Highway is the first transcontinental highway in the U.S. it doesn’t hold the same cachet to me that Highway 80 does.

Stay tuned and stay safe!