Adventure in the Best Car Purchase I Ever Made

In the spring semester of my freshman year at Abilene Christian, I was recruited by a sophomore to be a part of his team that summer selling Bibles for the Southwestern Company. He drove a new Corvette which he had purportedly purchased with his earnings from the previous summer.

In June, we spent a week in Nashville for sales training. Then we went to our assigned location of Dothan, AL. Today, Dothan is a thriving small city, but in 1966, it was a poor, small Southern town. After spending a lackluster week working the neighborhoods in town, our manager decided the pickings might be easier if we worked in the countryside surrounding the town. So I found myself walking up to houses with dirt lawns, rips in screen doors, dogs lying around the yard, and mamas in soiled simple dresses rocking babies on the porch, shooing away flies, while toddlers played nearby with broken or no toys. After a while, it got to me and I began to think, "Who am I, and what am I doing trying to sell a $30 Bible [in 1966 dollars] to someone who might not know if they're going to have food on the table next week?"

We were living in a motel in Dothan. One morning after breakfast, the rest of the team went off to work. I went back to our room, watched the Art Linkletter show on TV, then packed my car with the book inventory for which I had prepaid and my personal possessions, then hit the road. I don't remember my excuse for not telling my manager that I was leaving. Perhaps I was afraid he would talk me out of it.

I had made friends with a couple of juniors who lived across the hall in my dorm. One of them was from Galveston. I needed a job for the rest of the summer and thought that would be a neat place to work, so I headed West.

I picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be good company. [I just had a mind flash that his name might have been Frank, so that's what I'll call him throughout.] His story was that he had been a moving van driver from Texas. He had taken a load to Florida and after he ruptured himself while unloading, they fired him without pay. So he was just trying to get home. Frank taught me, when meeting traffic on a two lane road at night, to look at the right hand shoulder. You can watch for irregular movement from the vehicle coming toward you with peripheral vision, but save your eyes from temporary blindness.

There was no I-10 then. I took US-90 across Mississippi. For miles and miles it goes right along the coastline. It was a beautiful drive. In many places, there was enough light that it reflected off the whitecaps in the Gulf. Somewhere in Louisiana, one of my bald tires went flat. The mosquitoes were so thick that while I was changing the tire, I could slowly move my arm through the air and feel them hitting against it. [As I've said before, adventures are not 100% good experiences.] In the next town we came to, I found a tire shop and bought another bald tire for $5 so I would have a spare. We needed to eat. Frank had no money and I had very little. I stopped at a country store and bought a package of bologna, a loaf of french bread, and two Coca-Colas. As I drove, he would hand me a slice of bologna, then break off a hunk of bread. Even without dessert, it was a good meal. The next morning, I dropped Frank off in Houston and went on down to Galveston.

The title says the best car purchase I ever made. It does not say the best car I ever purchased. There is a big difference and, as I continue, I think you will understand why I say it's the best car purchase I ever made.

I had ridden from Nashville to Dothan with my manager and for the first few days in the field, he would drop me off in the morning and pick me up in the afternoon. I desired more independence. I went to a used car lot where I found a '57 Plymouth for $75. That was 50% more than I had paid for my first car, a '47 Chevy, two years earlier. The Plymouth had four bald tires, but no dents, no rust, was not an oil burner, and the interior was decent. My plan was to drive it around Dothan, then sell it at the end of the summer and buy a new car with the fortune I was going to make. As we've already discovered, it didn't work out that way.

I drove that car from Dothan to Galveston, to Houston and back to Galveston. I was unable to find a job in either of those places. I went to Dallas and drove around there for about a week seeking work, again unsuccessfully. The end of July was nearing and I hadn't earned any money. I finally swallowed my pride and drove back to Tulsa where I was able to work through August as a janitor for the company where my Dad worked. Of course I drove it around town and made a trip to Dallas and back for a wedding. Then I drove it to Abilene in September and continued drive it for a few weeks before it died. Even in 1966 dollars, I think I got more than my $75's worth.