Global Raining

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Monte
One of these -- a bit inland, mind you -- would be nice about dusk.

One of these — a bit inland, mind you — would be nice about dusk.

This day reminds me of an old TV commercial hyping the songs of Brook Benton. It aired regularly, oh, 30 or 40 years ago and was common in the days of K-Tel and Wham-O, when records weren’t strictly “old school.” (Though, to NASCAR announcers, they are all new.)

It consisted of snippets from many songs. Somehow, I’m not thinking of the song “Rainy Night in Georgia.” I’m thinking simply of the line from it, in Benton’s baritone, “I believe it’s raining all over the world.”

In the commercial, I remember that this line was followed quickly by “you gotta have a home, you gotta have a home” from “The Boll Weevil Song.”

That’s how many times I saw it. I never ordered it. At one time, though, I had all the snippets memorized in order.

It was raining hard when I awakened. I piddled around, fixed breakfast, played guitar and sipped coffee right up to 11 a.m., when my TV was automatically programmed to switch to rain at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Rain is fairly likely tonight at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where the Sprint All-Star Race is to be run.

If it’s raining in Minneapolis tonight (where the Boston Red Sox are), it will be raining all over, well, my world of interest.

(Oh, good, the national anthem is being sung at Indy. Drivers are wearing uniforms. That’s got to be good news.)

I’m hoping the showers are scattered like a 10-hit shutout.

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He Didn’t Give a Damn in a Good Way

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Monte
Monte Dutton

Monte Dutton

Clinton, S.C., Friday, May 17, 2013, 9:32 a.m.

The first time I had an extended conversation with Dick Trickle was early in 1995. He was about to begin his only season in Bud Moore’s No. 15 Quality Care Ford. Bud’s shop was in Spartanburg, and I was the motorsports reporter at the Spartanburg Herald-Journal at the time. The Peach Blossom Diner was the local racers’ hangout back when there was such a thing. Several times I set out for some track like, oh, Martinsville, or Richmond, before the sun was up just so I could drop by the Peach Blossom and hear the likes of David Pearson, Cotton Owens and Moore tell tales and sip coffee.

It was perfect. I’d get them to talk about the track where I was headed. It was sweet as Carnation milk.

This time, though, was a scheduled interview, and it was Trickle who held court. He and Moore were as well matched as any driver and owner I ever experienced, but it was too late for both of them. Trickle qualified fourth twice during the season, but his best finish was a 10th at Pocono.

I sat there, tape recorder running, stirring two eggs, over-easy, into some thick grits. I chopped up the sausage patties with the fork and turned breakfast into one multi-flavored concoction. Trickle didn’t give his food nearly as much attention but drank at least three cups of coffee and smoked a couple Marlboros.

I couldn’t help but broach the subject of fitness. I asked Trickle how he stayed in shape to drive a race car.

“Well, I tell you one thing,” he said, giving the cigarette a small wave, “you won’t find me in leotards, dancing to the oldies.”

I had a thought – when was the last time I heard someone use the word “leotards”? – and a ridiculous image – Dick Trickle carrying on like Richard Simmons – and, not surprisingly, I laughed.

Trickle smiled. He liked to make people laugh.

Then he took a draw on that Marlboro – once, I watched him stuff Marlboros into Winston packs so he wouldn’t “make the sponsor look bad” – exhaled monstrously, and said, “You know how you get in shape to drive a [bleeping] race car? You drive a [bleeping] race car.”

I found some common ground in what he said. I thought of how I had been in the best shape of my life when I played high-school football, and yet the first time I played full-court basketball after the season, it nearly killed me. I remembered how, the first time I had ever played both ways in a ninth-grade football game, I had genuinely believed hospitalization was going to be necessary, and how from then on, it wasn’t that big a deal. Bodies acclimate to customized activities.

No one, not even at his then-age of 53, raced more often than Trickle. I was skeptical of the oft-repeated claim that he had won more than 1,000 races back in Wisconsin and around the Midwest. I didn’t see how a driver could average 50 victories a year for 20 years. Some drivers in his position, given his stature, would’ve gotten defensive. Trickle didn’t care.

“I got no idea,” he said. “I won lots of races. I never counted them up, at least not more than for a month or two. Nobody told me how to drive. I never told nobody how to count.”

At Darlington that year, Trickle was in contention up until a pit-road problem cost him precious time. He wound up finishing 15th. My notebook didn’t ascribe blame, but the desk man wrote a lurid headline, along the lines of “Pit-crew error dooms Trickle.” I never saw it. The next week I showed up at the track, and the crew was mysteriously distant. No one wanted to joke around. I asked around and found out what the problem was. I pleaded my case to Moore, telling him that I hadn’t claimed the crew did anything wrong in the story and that headlines were written back at the office.

Bud stared me in the eyes, thought a moment, and said, “Well, you gotta control that [goldang] headline.”

Trickle was nearby, never said a word and just chuckled watching me and Bud wrangle. I never knew him to complain about anything I wrote. I never had much indication that he even read it. He didn’t care, and it played no role at all in the interaction between us. Trickle had one of those functional “don’t give a damn” attitudes. He didn’t waste his time on anything he couldn’t control. He just did his job, bereft of ego, and let the chips fall where they may.

I can’t remember the last time I saw him. I vaguely recall passing him in a garage area and exchanging greetings five or six years ago. He and I weren’t friends. I liked him. I think he liked me. I think he remembered my name, and that was enough.

People are shocked he committed suicide. They wonder how in the world that ever happened to Dick Trickle, a man who never seemed to let anything get him down. They can’t imagine the man who used to party all night, holding court and claiming that he needed an hour’s sleep for every 100 laps he had to drive the next day, coming to the place where he felt compelled to end his own life.

I’m not going to dwell on it. I reckon he just got to where he figured he’d lived enough.

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The One My Brother Missed

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Monte
Every time I mow my mother's grass, this tree makes me think of my brother.

Every time I mow my mother’s grass, this tree makes me think of my brother.

Clinton, S.C., Thursday, May 16, 2013, 10:01 a.m.

My younger brother and I were (and are) vastly different. I am heavy. He is light. I have brown eyes. His are blue. I made better grades. He was a fine athlete. I am louder. He is quieter.

Growing up, we complemented each other nicely and mainly got along great.

As a boy, Brack was so quiet that our father nicknamed him “Possum” after catching him pretending to be asleep. He could play with his toys for hours. He especially loved to play with little Tonka trucks, hooking them up to horse trailers, loading the plastic horses on and off, etc.

One year Daddy decided to plant pine trees throughout our front yard. After the saplings were planted in rows, he left. Jimmy Dutton could burn a lot of time hanging out at curb markets, hardware stores, filling stations and beer joints.

Meanwhile, Brack was playing with his toy trucks.

When Daddy got back, he discovered that my brother had crawled across the entire yard – it’s probably 40 yards long, 30 wide – and carefully dug up the saplings and stacked them neatly on his trucks, taking several loads to a location near the porch, where they were all stacked just as neatly.

Daddy, of course, was, well, not as much livid as incredulous. What was he going to do to a three-year-old? Then, there was the matter of it being funny. My father had many faults but did not lack a sense of humor.

The pine trees never got planted. All except one.

Brack missed one, centrally located on one end, next to the driveway. That tree is enormous. It is also the bane of my existence when I’m mowing my mother’s yard because its roots stretch across that entire side of the yard. I have to manually lift the blades up and down, over and over, as I cross the roots, several of which are chipped from my lack of precision.

My brother and I rarely see each other. We, in fact, mostly communicate on Facebook. I think of him every time I mow the lawn at the house where we grew up. I think about Brack and his Tonka trucks and the pine tree he missed. I don’t blame him, though, because I’m glad he dug up all those saplings. I like that yard a lot better because the trees never got planted.

What my brother did was heroic, whether he knew it or not. I don’t know whether he wanted to play with his trucks, or he didn’t want trees messing up his front yard. If it was the latter, he didn’t complain. He didn’t pitch a fit. He just quietly took action. It was Vintage Brack.

As Robert Frost wrote, “And that has made all the difference.”

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Faster and Faster and Faster …

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Monte
The Oregon coast

The Oregon coast

Clinton, S.C., Wednesday, May 15, 2013, 9:46 a.m.

I don’t think there’s ever been any danger of the Justice Department seizing my emails. I doubt the existence of a NASCAR leak would unduly alarm those in the halls of government.

It concerns me, though. I’ve never been one to reveal sources, not even to colleagues. For some reason, people suspect that journalists can’t keep secrets. The rapid growth of the social media has only widened this suspicion. Yet many times I have told an interview subject, “If you tell me something is a secret, honest to gosh, I won’t even tell my mama, but if you don’t tell me it’s a secret, it’s my job to tell the whole world.”

In other words, we’ve got to be straight.

As time went on, the practical importance of secrecy did diminish. Informal conversations became less frequent. Most of the stories were written from group sessions, often formal media conferences, and private interviews became more and more difficult to schedule.

Not for TV, mind you. Those people pay big money, and sponsors just love free advertising.

Then there’s the social media. I’ve watched it go from MySpace – my interest there was always based on spreading my music, not my NASCAR – to Facebook to Twitter, and I was generally late to every party. Eventually, I learned the ropes, but I’m sure there’s another latest thing poised to make the existing means of communication obsolete, uncool and “so last week.”

Nowadays it’s a full-time job just ignoring LinkedIn invitations.

The world’s got a lot fewer secrets. Once upon a time, I’d have some sort of scoop, and everyone would talk about it a week later when FasTrack (the weekly paper I once edited) came out. A few years later, garage rats would talk about it a day later when it came up on the newspaper website, or “on Jayski.” For the last couple of years, the story became widely circulated within a few minutes after I finished writing it.

Unfortunately, nowadays, it often seems as if tweets are more important than stories. Hardly anyone has any secrets, in part because they can’t control themselves. Twitter is kind of an old ladies’ sewing circle gone worldwide.

Madge, did you hear about where Virgil Posey was seen last Wednesday night?

Not at church, Sue Ellen, at least not according to what Bonnie Lee told me at Dr. Ralston’s office.

Oh, heavens, no … I bet it was some poker game!

Sometimes it’s obvious that people respond to the slug without reading the link. It’s understandable. Writers are trained to write catchy tweets as a means of enticing people to click on the story. Sometimes the tweets are so catchy that people don’t bother.

Last week I saw that rarity, an insightful tweet. I didn’t copy it down, but it went something like this: Twitter is where you become best friends with people on the other side of the world. Facebook is where you come to despise people you’ve known all your life.

There’s some truth in that.

After initial dread, I’ve come to enjoy both Twitter and Facebook. As a general rule, Twitter is more professional and informational, while Facebook is more social. My Twitter following is more related to my NASCAR writing career. My Facebook (alleged) friends come from a wide array of interests: NASCAR, other sports, hometown, high school, college, writing, politics, etc., etc. My stories often get more hits on Twitter but more comments on Facebook. A higher percentage of people on Facebook have personal agendas, whether it’s politics, food, religion or a never-ending series of cute photos of dogs, cats and other beloved animals. I’m often asked to save puppies whose location I don’t know and pray for people of whom I’ve never heard, and there’s no telling how many free iPads I could have by now if I just clicked on the links instead of reported them for spam.

Social media has an effect on my life similar to snow skiing. When I went skiing as a young man, it seemed really simple. I’d go faster and faster and faster until finally I crashed. Then I’d get up, and go faster and faster and faster until I crashed again. Eventually I would reach the bottom of the hill where there was a warm fire and alcoholic beverages, and the next time down the hill wouldn’t hurt as badly.

That’s the way social media is, but I mean it in a good way.

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Flights of Fancy on Flights of Fancy

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Monte
No, it was not I. I've never even driven a Lexus.

Maybe I can write a song about it.

Clinton, S.C., Tuesday, May 14, 10:31 a.m.

I like movies. They make me a jolly good fellow.

Wait a minute. That’s not movies. That’s beer. Someone requested the Tom T. Hall song, “I Like Beer,” last Friday night. I played a verse and a chorus off the top of my head. I guess I left it on the backroads by the rivers of my memory … now I’ve got to apologize to Glen Campbell and John Hartford, too. Sorry.

Whisky’s too rough. Champagne costs too much. And vodka puts my mouth in gear. This little refrain should help to explain, as a matter of fact, I like beer.

I’ve got to get beer off my mind. It’s in the morning.

What was I writing about? Oh, yeah. Movies. I watch a lot of them on TV, though not as many now because of the nettlesome presence of baseball season. On the other hand, I’m watching a lot more baseball and movies because I never rush to the airport on Thursdays and rush back home to bills, dirty clothes and full trash cans on Mondays.

I’m reading more. Believe it or not, I’m writing more. Life is good. Imagine how good it will be when I start making a living again.

Movies. I’m having a hard time getting started here. My mind is flitting about. It wouldn’t make a good movie. At this moment, my mind is no better than “Bonfire of the Vanities.”

I probably like old movies more than new. I think the advance in special effects has made quality in spectacle more important than quality in plot. Lots of really bad movies do well at the box office nowadays just because their stupidity is spectacular. Hmm. Come to think of it, the same can be said for TV, radio, writing, singing and, quite possibly, architecture. If I knew anything about architecture, I’d probably grouse about it, too.

I had a debate in my mind about comparing movie stars of today to those of yesteryear, and the only real conclusions I made were that Tom Hanks is today’s James Stewart and Jim Carrey is today’s Jerry Lewis. This isn’t to say either is an impersonation. I just think they represent the same contributions to culture, whatever that means. I can’t imagine James Stewart playing Forrest Gump. Nor can I imagine Hanks chatting with Harvey the invisible rabbit.

Stewart and Hanks are similarly likable. Carrey and Lewis are similarly wacky.

Others merely remind me at times of others. For instance, Robert Duvall reminds me a little of Spencer Tracy in that it seems to come so effortlessly. But Duvall is more garish than Tracy, whose excellence was understated. Maybe Gene Hackman is a better fit.

No one reminds me of Cary Grant. Hugh Grant reminds me of David Niven, though.

I see a little of Jean Arthur in Reese Witherspoon, a little of Marilyn Monroe in Scarlett Johannson, a smidgen of Katharine Hepburn (whom she portrayed) in Cate Blanchett.

Clint Eastwood is a bit like John Wayne, though terse where Wayne was gregarious. Daniel Day-Lewis is a tad reminiscent of Peter O’Toole. Matt Damon channels a bit of Steve McQueen.

Gary Cooper? Bette Davis? Henry Fonda? Lana Turner? Errol Flynn? Elizabeth Taylor? Lee Marvin? Jane Fonda? I got nothing.

Not even Bridget Fonda. She wishes. There is a descending staircase of Fondas: Henry, Jane, Peter, Bridget … but there’s probably another staircase below. Bridget Fonda has her moments.

Al Pacino? Meryl Streep? Jack Nicholson?

Hmm. Streep may actually be the modern Kate Hepburn, now that I think about it.

Times change, and so do the actors. Cooper would either be lost or highly adaptive in this cynical age. His times shaped him as much as the weirdness of today shapes Johnny Depp.

In short, this debate can go on and on with little chance of resolution. I’m sure I can argue every point I’ve already made from the opposite side. Even if I couldn’t, others would because, being human, none of us has the exact same perception of anything, in spite of all the assaults on our collective consciousness by vast forces seeking to make us all think alike.

For this morning, this has got to stop.

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Monday Morning Coming to Mind

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Monte
I took this photo while driving down the California coast north of San Francisco.

I took this photo while driving down the California coast north of San Francisco.

Clinton, S.C., Monday, May 13, 2013, 8:05 a.m.

I’m so out of touch. Never once have I taken a photograph of myself in the mirror. Nor have I depicted my latest plate of food (though it does remind me that I haven’t had breakfast).

Timeout.

One of my coffee cups has a tiny crack, which in turn is causing a tiny leak. The coffee dries before it runs down the side. It’s a minor problem, easily cured by trashing the cup. Farewell, 2006 Allstate 400. I didn’t have this problem before I started drinking coffee.

I haven’t been paying much attention, but I think Benghazi may have gotten an NBA franchise. The Boston Red Sox have lost eight out of the last 10. Perhaps I should start paying attention to something else.

Am I the only person who thinks Don Imus looks like Andrew Jackson? They’ve never been in the same place, though I guess it’s likely the I-Man has some 20s in his wallet.

I bought some new shoes 10 days ago and they’re still in the trunk of the car. I like them. It’s just the old ones are comfortable. Soon. I promise.

Mac Sledge said, “I don’t trust happiness. I never did. I never will.” I don’t trust weather forecasts.

“Tender Mercies” (film referenced above) is 30 years old. That’s today’s evidence of my personal time warp.

It doesn’t matter who holds power. What Plato said is always true: “The penalty people pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by people worse than themselves.”

Everyone needs a dog or something to fill that role. My dog is a guitar.

Timeout. (Playing guitar.)

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Overcoming the Angst

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Monte
My iPhone wasn't at its best in capturing, from left, Peter Cooper, Eric Brace and Thomm Jutz.

My iPhone wasn’t at its best in capturing, from left, Peter Cooper, Eric Brace and Thomm Jutz.

Clinton, S.C., Sunday, May 12, 2013, 1:22 p.m.

Saturday felt kind of weird. The Southern 500 was two and a half-hour’s drive away at Darlington Raceway, my favorite NASCAR track. I didn’t go. In fact, I didn’t watch on TV. I heard the start on the radio.

What was I doing? Let me paraphrase my dead father, liberally imagining what he might say: “They racing in Darlington. You been writing about racing for 20 years. What are you doing? Sitting on your ass watching people play music!”

In spite of Jimmy Dutton’s ubiquitous ghost, I drove to Spartanburg to watch Peter Cooper and Eric Brace perform some really great country-folk music. (Messrs. Cooper and Grace might also be variously described as delving into the genres of Americana, alt-country or alt-something else.)

If it’s any consolation to my fanciful father and anyone else, I was a bit angst-ridden. I saw Peter before the show and asked him not to be insulted if he spied me in the audience, reading my Twitter feed (as if he had nothing to do but monitor my movements). I tried to look at the iPhone only while they were talking or performing songs I already knew well. In short, I felt bad about not being in Darlington and about thinking about Darlington when I’d made the decision to think about music.

Peter Cooper and I both have the Spartanburg Herald-Journal tucked a ways back in our resumes. In addition to being a really talented singer/songwriter, he continues to write about music in the Tennessean, Nashville’s newspaper. We became acquainted while I was working on my book True to the Roots: Americana Music Revealed. I have considerable regard for both his writing of columns and songs.

I know Eric only by chatting with him during the three occasions – twice at the Showroom in Spartanburg, once at Ashland Coffee and Tea in Virginia – in which I’ve attended their concerts. They form a remarkably compatible team, in terms of singing together, a relaxed, irreverent interaction onstage and in choice of material.

Once, years ago, I sat next to John Prine on a plane from Richmond, Va., to Charlotte. I was tired from a stock car race, and he was tired from a series of concerts. I didn’t want to be Mr. Fan but told him that, had I been selecting the songs on his In Spite of Ourselves album, mine and his would’ve been at least 80 percent the same. He thanked me graciously, I said “you’re welcome,” and both of us went to sleep.

I feel the same way about the songs Peter and Eric choose. I’m excited by their own compositions, but I’m gratified when they pull out a song – like, “Rain Just Falls,” or “I Flew Over Our House Last Night” — that I happen to love.

Not only are they great, but they match up with at least one guy in the audience. Me.

Let me close by extolling the virtues of live music. I expect many of you know nothing of Peter Cooper and Eric Brace. Had you gone to the Showroom, you’d know all about them. They mingled with the audience before show, during intermission, and afterwards. In fact, you’d know all about them from merely watching the show because they have an easy interaction that is undoubtedly more rehearsed than it seems but still predominantly extemporaneous. These guys know how to put on a show, and it’s pretty rare these days when the image projected involves much more than ego. Peter, in fact, likes to mock ego. Both poke fun at themselves to wonderful effect.

I talked about the Civil War with Thomm Jutz, whose guitar artistry enhanced the show. Peter and I chatted about my novel (The Audacity of Dope) and the next one. I talked with Peter and Eric about the greatness of Tom T. Hall.

Then I walked down the hill to my truck and remembered the stock car race. All the way home, I listened to Claire B. Lang breathlessly interview everyone affiliated with Joe Gibbs Racing who wasn’t either hoisting parts or hiding out in the transporter. When I finally arrived home, I spent most of an hour waiting for highlights of the race to be shown on Sportscenter.

I didn’t see the race but read all about it. By the time the whole excursion was over and I went to bed, the angst had comfortably dissolved and I fell asleep contented.

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The Little Guy (or Gal) Can’t Get Nowhere Today

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Monte
It's not often that I get this conservative. Maybe it's because I'm reading a biography of Barry Goldwater.

It’s not often that I get this conservative, though it’s not unusual for me to be a bit on the populist side. Maybe it’s because I’m reading a book on  Barry Goldwater.

Clinton, S.C., Saturday, May 11, 2013, 1:36 p.m.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how government picks on people, particularly those who are weakest. Oddly enough, I think this happens more at the state and local level than the national.

Governments are strapped. The anti-tax sentiment makes elected officials seek other sources of revenues. They’re raising utility rates not to pay for changes, but to use the extra money in other areas. They’re running their police departments for profit. Sheriff’s deputies troll the interstates, cherry-picking the motorists traditionally monitored by state troopers. Speed traps are on the rise and seem to have become quite respectable again.

A few days ago, I was driving in the mountains and came to a three-way stop with a police car sitting in the fourth direction. I turned right, at which point the deputy probably noticed the out-of-state tag and started following me, right on my bumper, for several miles. Then, finding no violation, he turned on his flashing lights and sped by, apparently because he got tired of me driving the speed limit and breaking no laws.

If you run afoul of the law – something I haven’t done in quite some time, knock on wood – the costs are unbelievable. If you call the fire department, you’d better have a blaze worth their time or they’ll send you a bill for allegedly “what it cost” to come to your house for a fire that was either out by the time they arrived or a result of an overreaction. My problem with this is that, in most courses, all those expenses are budgeted anyway. A fire department is funded to fill the needs. I don’t have any patience for hoaxes and false alarms, but I think that ought to be addressed in criminal proceedings, not by punishing people who had nothing directly to do with it.

Another objectionable tax is the one tacked on accommodations. Nowadays, when a sports team demands a new facility, the bill is often passed along in the form of taxes on hotel rooms and the like. Supposedly, people come to town to visit the huge buildings – the coliseums, the museums, the halls of fame – so theoretically they should pay their share (in addition to, oh, admission). What is really happening is politicians sticking it to people who won’t get a chance to vote them out of office. There’s a “taxation without representation” aspect to it. When I was traveling around on the NASCAR beat, I’d reserve a room for $89 a night only to find that it was $120 after three levels of accommodations taxes – city, county and state – had been added.

Hold taxes down for the property owners, but stick it to people least able to afford it. Having kids who get in trouble is incredibly expensive. Then there’s the reality that you can’t actually kill them for doing this to you. In fact, if you even discipline them, they may, in turn, call social services and thus lead you into another round of court fees, case studies and the like.

Government also sticks it to people who have vices, not to mention those who are ashamed to complain because they don’t want to draw further attention to themselves. Government often feasts on the backs of the poor.

One reason the poor are victimized – and by poor, I include much of the disappearing middle class, or what used to be middle class – is that they are not only taxed but targeted. Prominent people always get away with more than the ones who work for them.

The great American divide really isn’t between black and white, gay and straight, smart and dumb, or upright and sinful. It’s between rich and poor. Money conveys power and influence. Money cooks the books. Money fixes the outcome.

We equate money with goodness, which is an interesting theory but one to which Jesus definitely did not subscribe.

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Darlington a Long Time Ago

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Monte
"Little Bud" Moore, not to be confused with NASCAR Hall of Famer regular Bud Moore, raced this Dodge Charger in the mid-1960s.

“Little Bud” Moore, not to be confused with NASCAR Hall of Famer Bud Moore, raced this Dodge Charger in the 1960s.

Clinton, S.C., Friday, March 10, 10:04 a.m.

The NASCAR race at Darlington Raceway means more to me than any other. If there ever was any doubt, now the venerable track only has one race a year. I love Darlington the same way Tony Stewart loves Indianapolis. It’s home. It’s where my daddy took me when I was a kid.

I didn’t go to Darlington until I was 12. I’d conned my way into a trip to Bristol, with friends of the family, when I was seven. I’d seen the Grand National Division (now Sprint Cup Series) race several times at nearby Greenville-Pickens Speedway. Beginning in 1970, my dad and I went to Darlington every year. The first one was on Labor Day, the Southern 500, but afterwards I couldn’t go on Labor Day because I had to practice football. By the time I next saw the Southern 500, I was a freshman in college.

When I was a kid, what is now the front straight was the back straight. That’s where Daddy and I sat, surrounded by scouts – Cub, Webelos, Boy – who probably got more of a cut rate than we did.

Jimmy Dutton was no saint. He’d gone to Darlington with friends in the past and never took me until 1970, I’m guessing, because it inhibited his ability to, uh, celebrate. Knowing the wrath of my mother, he had to conform to some modest level of decorum with the kid along. Accessibility was much greater then than today. We’d sit in the back-straight sun, but long before the race, Dad and I would take a long stroll through the infield, where invariably he would find several straggly miscreants he knew from back home, and he might just take a swig of something if he could find a chaser. (I always could tell when the old man was drinking because he kept licking his lips. Chip! Chip!)

On race morning, lots of people didn’t seem to be feeling well. The smell was awful. I recognized beer and vomit, but I didn’t recognize some third smell. Several years later, I would discover it was marijuana smoke. The hard-core partiers are long gone now, mainly priced out of the market. In 1970, a camper shell on top of a Chevy pickup bed was top of the line.

In the Darlington infield – I never spent a night there – crew-cutted rednecks and their sometimes insignificant others predominated, but there was always an uneasy contingent of long-haired hippies, many of whom had motorcycles and tried to look like Peter Fonda. Signifying irony, they almost always had peace symbols emblazoned on their jackets, leather, denim and army surplus.

There were always stories of fights – “Some of them boys’ll cut you,” Daddy said – but the energy was mostly spent by race day. I sometimes wonder what it must have felt like to hear “Gentlemen, start your engines!” with a splitting hangover. I don’t miss knowing.

Back then the Southern 500 was billed as the largest spectator sporting even in South Carolina. Today the track has twice as many grandstands, and a sellout is a little over 60,000. Back then the attendance was generously estimated at 80,000. It was enough to be comfortably ahead of what Carolina and Clemson announced when they played each other in football.

I loved the public-address announcer, Ray Melton, who spoke in what can only be described as a Southern staccato. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to world –famous Darlington Raceway, the Lady in Black, for the 21st annual running of the Granddaddy of Them All, the Southern 500!” Melton referred romantically to brave drivers racing “high, wide and handsome” through the tight turns.

Buddy Baker won my first Southern 500 in a burnt-orange Dodge Charger Daytona with a flat-black roof that made it look like it had a vinyl
top. Back in those days, that was soooo cool. You think these new Gen6 cars are bad-ass? Get out of town. I remember watching Buddy wrestle that winged battleship through the turns. Maybe it was the absence of power steering or the presence of bias-ply tires, but Baker on the pavement at Darlington in 1970 looked a bit like a dirt track now.

Gosh, I loved those cars – the Plymouth Superbirds, the Ford Torino Talladegas, the Mercury Cyclones – with their huge (426, 427, 429 cubic inches) engines and fierce roars. That, though, was when I was 12, during the brief period when dinosaurs ruled the asphalt. The only way I could possibly consider the SS’s, Fusions and Camrys as cool would be to be 12 now.

For the record, I still doubt I would.

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Listenin’ Down the Highway

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Monte
Inexplicably, I suddenly want to "rent myself a house in the shade of a freeway," but I'll settle for a Michigan rainbow.

Inexplicably, I suddenly want to “rent myself a house in the shade of a freeway,” but I’ll settle for a Michigan rainbow.

Clinton, S.C., Thursday, May 9, 4:06 p.m.

As you may have gathered, I like music. I like to play it, even though I’m not much of a player, and I like to write it, even though I can’t read it. I’m blissfully ignorant of the many things I’m undoubtedly doing wrong.

It’s easy to get obsessed with one’s own music. The fact is, I don’t listen to others enough anymore. I’m playing my own. I hardly ever listen to music anymore just for the fun of it. I listen to it while going around and around my yard on a mower. I listen to it while driving.

I’ve been off on a short trip, which gave me some quality highway time to listen intently to some great music, and the experience has left me fortified now that I’m back home. For instance, I arrived back at the house with a deep hankering to play some Jackson Browne. There wasn’t much unpacking before I was singing “The Pretender” and plunking at the Pawless. I caught the tail of an easy Cleveland victory over Oakland, and then I watched rain take on the Yankees and Rockies for a while. The only detail I can remember is that the Indians’ win ended with the pitcher snagging a line drive. The TV was on. I wasn’t watching it.

I just felt inspired.

I listened to bootleg CDs of Steve Earle appearing on radio shows, playing his songs and lending great insight into his own beliefs, why he moved to New York and the great Townes Van Zandt. I listened to The Band. Then there was the relatively unknown Larry Jon Wilson, who, like Townes and Levon Helm, is no longer with us but should be remembered now alongside them.

I also listened to a couple Texans I know a little, Brian Burns and Bob Livingston, and Todd Snider’s collection of Jerry Jeff Walker songs. Occasionally I checked out the radio just to remind me how much mainstream FM, of all kinds, really sucks. AM, of course, is wall-to-wall sports, politics and Spanish language.

It’s enough to make a man love the road and eschew the airways.

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