Barbara Drive #1. The first Barbara Drive was a rather nice house that Allan rented and later bought. This was where we watched the first news stories about Elvis’ death. We had several great Halloween parties in this house, including the one that doubled as a reception following Barb’s and my wedding. Our next door neighbor had a teenage daughter that had seen the Cool Hand Luke scene once too often and delighted in torturing Allan and me.
Barbara Drive #2. When Allan announced he was leaving Kennett it dawned on me that he wouldn’t always be around to find us a place to live. So I bought the little house next door from Johnny Tant. Barb and I lived and entertained there for some great years. Joanne lived across the street for a couple of those years. It was quite a little enclave.
Carroll Drive was in Watson Addition. And not as nice as AJ’s place on Barbara Drive but a big improvement over Church Street. Just a rent house but the site of some awfully good parties. It seems like Connie and Eileen also lived in Watson Addition.
Dillard’s Trailer(s). Looking back, I wonder if Don lived there because it was inexpensive or because it was adequate for his needs. This was years before luxurious doublewide modular homes. These were small trailers, meant to be towed behind a vehicle. But Don opened his home to us. While many of the evenings were quiet by our standards (a few guys drinking beer and playing cards), some were larger affairs. Dillard’s trailer was where I first saw someone put a funnel in their mouth to drink a beer while lying on their back. It was Dillard’s where we mixed grain alcohol (from the hospital) with fruit juice(?) in a large plastic trash can. Not a new one, mind you, but the one Don used for his trash.
Flint Hill Road was little more than a shack on the outskirts of Cape Girardeau, MO. I lived there with Dennis Kackley and Mike Smith the last two years of college. The location has little historical significance. I believe, however, it was one of the places RP stayed during an unscheduled leave from the Air Force. It may have been during one such stay that we collaborated on Statisticsville. I think Flint Hill had the additional appeal (at least for RP) of a nearby garbage dump where he could shoot rats. Or I may have imagined that.
Henderson Street was the location of a boarding house where RP lived during his first and last year of college in Cape (1967). An older home divided up into half a dozen rooms shared by one or two people. The house was populated by an assortment of characters and RP fit in perfectly. A couple of the older guys were from St. Louis and had just come back from Vietnam . They brought with them –and shared with us– an appreciation for some of the more exotic pleasures of the time. Music by Cream and Ultimate Spinach. And our first brush with semi-exotic substances. Pretty mild stuff by today’s standards but just wicked enough for the time. We turned on.
LT’s, Miller’s, West End, and Sullivan’s were just a few of the (dozens, hundreds?) package stores we frequented during the early days of The Basement Diaries. I’m certain there must have been others. There are probably lots of stories surrounding these but it must fall to someone else to tell them. I just don’t remember any. Drive-through liquor stores were as common as used car lots in Kennett but –apparently– a source of great wonder to friends from larger cities. Hmm.
The Log Cabin, McGhee’s, Southern Kitchen, and Tommy’s North End Café were regular (or semi-regular) destinations during those years. The Log Cabin was famous for its barbecue sandwiches and curb-service beer. You simply pulled into the pot-holed parking lot surrounding the tiny building… tooted your horn… and a waitress could come out to the car and take your order. If it was dark enough or the waitress was in a good mood… it was possible to buy a beer before reaching legal drinking age. I have no idea what kind of license allowed them to do business this way. The Southern Kitchen was flat-out honky-tonk and I can’t remember ever being inside. McGhee’s was the hang-out during high school. I don’t remember if it survived into the Basement years. I include it here because it’s rich with memories and I have a replica of the menu.
Tommy’s North End Cafe was owned and operated by Tommy Pritchard. Tommy’s was next door to the livestock sale barn. Tommy probably welcomed our little group as the farm economy waned. I cannot recall anything about this place that qualified as a “cafe.” There was a pool table, a couple of pen ball machines and one of the bowling machines that used real balls about the size of a grapefruit. It was at that very bowling machine that I first courted Barb Miltenberger. Tommy was no absentee owner. In fact, his bedroom opened right off the main area of the bar. He often lay on his bed with the door open, jingling a huge key ring. It still sounds spook.
The Shop was a tin-sided shed behind the Peck house. Chester used it to house and work on his antique cars. RP inherited it after Chester died. There was something wonderfully soothing about sitting out there with RP, breathing the sawdust and glue fumes. This was RP’s domain. The walls were lined with shelves and bins and boxes, all clearly labeled in bold Magic Marker so the “hopelessly ignorant” could find things. We played a game in which I would look for some obscure part (3/16 inch, counter-sunk, reverse thread metal screw) and ask RP where they were. And he’d instantly point to the precise location. This was an organized boy. A small area off the main part of the shop was later transformed into a love nest (for lack of a better term). Since RP was living at home, he needed such a place for romance. And surely the legend grew beyond the reality, but those who insisted they’d been inside told stories of amazing luxury and ingenuity. But only RP and Becca know the truth of the matter.
Tommie’s Drive-In was the local drive-in theatre. Cotton fields on all sides and mosquitoes that defy description. I don’t know that we spent much time at the drive-in once the Basement was open. One night, a bunch of us were going to Tommie’s Drive-In. To save the cost of admission, a couple of the guys got in the trunk of the car. We stopped at the local drive-in liquor store on the way. On this occasion the guy at the window insisted on ID. Bud was the only one with a fake ID so we had to go back, pop the trunk, let Bud get out and show the guy some ID and then get back in the trunk. The guy never said a word.
We often amused our self while waiting for the featured attraction, by having a smoke-out. We drank a few beers…rolled up the car windows… and started smoking. Just cigars and cigarettes in those days. First one to jump out of the car lost. Fears about second-hand smoke were still years away. The best smoke-out story has to be the time two of our group took the “trunk option.” We arrived early and it was much too light to risk letting them out of the trunk. One apparently couldn’t go 15 minutes without a cigarette and lit one up. In the trunk. When the other began tearing his way through the back seat, we were forced to open the trunk. Busted. No idea what was showing.
The Brown Derby
“Speaking as we have from time to time about the Brown “Durby” (that’s the way Kirk usually spelled it, he didn’t want any trouble from a Hollywood Restaurant with the same name), and in response to Buddy’s (Shively) story, Kirk’s last name was Roland.
There was, for a time, a copy of an old issue of the Detroit Free-Press posted on the wall at the Durb. Kirk had once lived in Detroit and his picture was on the front page. Since all were skeptical of his story, Kirk wrote to the Free-Press for a copy of the paper to prove that he really was once robbed by John Dillinger.
The back bar at Kirk’s place was filled with boxes of records Kirk had kept of race performance of thoroughbreds all over the country. Every day, Kirk’s bookie dropped by to pay off or collect. Kirk was, all in all, a pretty successful horse player.”
– Gene Overall, December, 1998