Thoughts and Perspectives
Many Friday nights we'd load up the car and head to the drive-in theater across the Wabash River in Westport, Ill., where one of the films we saw in 1959 was "The Legend of Tom Dooley." By being so young, the fact that the lead character was played by Michael Landon, later of "The Little House on the Prairie" fame, was lost on me until a little research was completed.
When Grandpa Douthitt got his Social Security check, we'd have to travel to Vincennes, which had a Kroger store. Grandpa always had a few things on his shopping list that he didn't believe he could get at Warren's store at home.
So, the trips to Vincennes became the highlight of the week as it allowed a break in the perceived monotony of small town life. Vincennes, the oldest city west of the Allegheny Mountains, was a wonderland of about 14,000 people with a JC Penney, sears tires, Kresge and other such big brands of the late 1950s and 1960s.
One of the cool things was that sometimes Dad would sit me on his lap and "let me drive" the car as we drove south out of Emison. Of course, I never really had control but what a thrill -- and it made my brother and sister jealous.
Naturally, Vincennes became the promised land after a teenager had cruised up and down every street and alley of our little town. We just needed a change in scenery. So, we'd run down U.S. 41 to Vincennes, stop at the Frostop Drive-In for a root beer and check things out. In reality, there really was not much more going on there but the scenery was just a little different -- the old routine broken.
One day sitting at the kitchen table after supper, my dad started talking about his days as a youngster. The Morrison family lived five miles west of town on a farm that provided the sustenance for what grew into a family of 13.
On Saturday night, Grandpa Morrison would load the kids up and take Grandma to the grocery store where she'd stock up on all she needed that was not raised on the farm. Grandpa and the older boys would go over to the Town Tavern for some refreshment.
But the thing which struck this young mind was Dad talking about how the town's streets and sidewalks were packed with people and it was often difficult to find a parking spot without leaving your car or truck a couple of blocks away.
Seriously?
That didn't look like the Oaktown I experienced on Friday and Saturday nights in the early 1970s. It was a pretty sleepy place in which the final neon light flickered off at the same time each night -- and not very late at that. The only things moving were over at the tavern or Cliff's Card Room across the streets and church kids didn't go there. They might get corrupted like my Uncle Judd Douthitt did in the 1930s down at the cabins south of town. They always had plenty of alcohol, and women, during the height of Prohibition. Legend has it they even had the gangster John Dillinger as a guest for a few nights as he hid out from Melvin Purvis and the FBI.
Dad explained that driving that five miles into town was a major adventure. It was like my weekly trips to Vincennes -- the highlight that broke one out of their usual environments.
A trip to Vincennes was a major expedition -- something we could not image even before U.S. 41 went from two lanes to four. Vincennes lay 13 miles to our south and it could take all morning to get there, and all afternoon to return -- depending upon how many flat tires one had.
Roads in the 1930s were nearly as smooth and pothole free as we expect today. Neither was the quality of the cars and even the tires. Dad talked about many times they might have to fix a flat two or three times on a simple trip from Oaktown to Vincennes. I often wondered if that was the reason Dad never wanted to drive places for sightseeing or family visits -- the fear that he'd break down with his wife and kids in the car and something go horribly wrong.
As I grew older and bought a new car, it was nothing for me to drive three or four or eight hours to a see a race two or three states away. The biggest change between the 1970s and the 1930s or 1940s was the improvement in the quality of vehicles and the roads used in the transportation system.
Today, my sister's children think nothing of piling into the car and driving from Vincennes to Evansville or Terre Haute for an evening of shopping. That's like going from Vinton to Davenport or Des Moines in Iowa. We don't give it a second thought.
And we don't think of just how big an impact the interstate highway system fostered by President Dwight Eisenhower changed our world.
It's common for people in a smaller community to the big box stores and the number of local people visiting the bigger cities for their offerings.
Maybe of bigger importance is the ability of people to travel to them.
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