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Spring Break 1968

SPRING BREAK 1968

By Mary Lahaj

As the pampered daughter of an automobile dealer, cars were the center of our family life. I thought nothing of changing cars to match every occasion.  My father owned a Dodge dealership, and our life was all about cars. For example, if we planned a special event, like a picnic at the beach, he would bring home a car to suit the occasion. Slap a “dealer” plate on one of the cars in his new car inventory or choose a good used car trade-in and drive it home.

In 1968, my junior year at UMASS in Amherst, seven girlfriends and I planned a trip to Coral Gables, Florida, for Spring Break.  When my father heard that I was planning a trip to Florida, he brought home that year’s top-of-the-line model: a brand-new Dodge Monaco, a nine-passenger wagon with an eight-cylinder engine. It was a beautiful blueish-purple color. Anticipating that we girls would have an abundance of luggage, he even installed a roof rack on the car.

My girlfriends and I were thrilled when we saw the car. We had about twelve pieces of luggage between us and decided to tie each piece to the roof rack. However, after a few hours of driving, we saw a few suitcases dangling outside the car windows! They were slipping off the roof rack and hanging by the ropes.

Panic set in as we imagined our suitcases sliding off the roof, bouncing open, and spilling our underpants onto the highway. Stopping every few hours to tighten the knots lengthened our drive and made it nerve-wracking.

I’m glad to report that we had a great Spring break. But when it was time to leave Florida, we became obsessed with securing the suitcases so that our drive home would be much faster and less stressful. We decided to tie them all together and then tied the whole lot to the roof rack. One of the girls knew of a special knot we could use, and we drove off confidently, knowing that our suitcases would never ever come untied or slip off that rack.

While cruising back to Amherst, we had no suitcase problems. But a different problem beset us. We ran out of gas and money outside of Washington, D.C., with six more hours to go in our drive. We were stopped at a diner off the highway discussing the problem when one of the girls, Janet, sheepishly confessed that she still had five dollars.

“Wow! Janet. Come on, hand it over,” we cried. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”  In those days, the average price of gas was .34 cents.

Janet resisted our demands but finally declared, “I can’t. I’m sorry. Well, I suppose I could get it. . . I guess, but…”

“But what? What are you saying? Come on, Janet,” we pleaded impatiently.

She whispered and pointed to the roof. “Well,” she said, “it’s in my suitcase.”

There was a pause of disbelief before someone asked, “You mean your suitcase?” Then, out of despair, we screamed in unison, “NO! WE ARE NOT GOING TO UNTIE THE SUITCASES!”

Our leader, Deidra, one of the prettiest girls in our class, spoke up and offered to go into the diner and beg for a bit of cash to buy us gas. We agreed to the plan after she reassured us that she would promise to pay the person back. In less than ten minutes, Deidra came running out of the diner, smiling triumphantly and brandishing two one-dollar bills. She said our patron was a kind older man who had been sitting at the counter. She showed us his name and address written on a napkin. Overjoyed, we gassed up and set out homeward bound.

Unfortunately, though, two hours from Amherst, we ran out of gas again. With classes starting the next day, we were desperate. We pulled into the nearest gas station to ask the attendant for a donation of a few gallons and a promise to pay him back.

Deidra was in the driver’s seat, looking more tanned and beautiful than ever. We let her do the asking. The attendant was a tall, lanky young man with a baby face, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. He wore a wrinkled tee shirt and jeans as he shuffled to the window and leaned in to hear Deidra’s request. She immediately tried to hand him a pencil and paper, urging him to write down his name and address. But he ignored her, abruptly walked to the back of the car, and started pumping.

Watching as he filled the tank, we became increasingly anxious. We wanted him to be just a good kid, not a thief, nor did we want him to become a thief because of us. Furthermore, the young man’s cavalier attitude did nothing to soothe our nerves.

When he finished and walked back to the driver’s window, Deirdra thrust the paper and pencil at him again, declaring resolutely, “Honestly, sir, we will pay you back for this. Please just give us your name and address.”

            “Nah,” he said with a crooked smile. “That’s okay,” shaking his head. “You don’t have to pay me back.”

“Oh, no!” We all cried from inside the car.

Not wanting to be part of any stealing caper, Deidra spoke for all of us when she said, “Oh no, sir. You don’t understand. We don’t want you to get into trouble.”

The young man looked at Deidra and then glanced at the rest of us, staring back at him. Our faces told him to stick with the plan. Finally, he smiled and said softly, shaking his head again, “No, ladies. You don’t have to pay me back. Today’s my last day on this stinking job…

I just got drafted. . . and I’m going to Vietnam!”

“Vietnam,” he said. His tone sounded more like mocked patriotism. His words renewed our fears and burst our vacation bubble, reminding us that we had marched in protest against the war. And that we all knew boys like him, whether at school, in our towns, or in our families, getting drafted. We feared for each and every one of them.

We rode back to school in silence, steeling ourselves to face the turmoil of our times. Our thoughts were tied to that boy and his destiny. And once back at the college, untying our suitcases felt anticlimactic. The savored moments of Spring Break had rapidly faded into the past, although the bags hadn’t moved an inch.

 When the weekend came, I drove the Dodge Monaco home, proud that it was in one piece with at least half a tank of gas. But I couldn’t wait to resume my protests of a war that was not ours to fight and the debt of so many young lives we would have to pay to purchase it.

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