Daytona Beach, 1960

 

The end of May 1960 I graduated from Marietta High School, along with 299 other co-seniors. Many of us that night went to Daytona Beach.

My friend Monty, two others, and I left about that night. We figure we would make better time with less traffic on the roads. There were no Interstate expressways then. We all drunk beer on our trip down.

In mid-south Georgia in a little town with a square that you had to drive around had confusing conflicting signs. I think one of us had to pee and there was a public park with no one around, so we stopped the car to let the guy relieve himself. Just as he was coming back behind a tree a policeman walked up to us wanting to know if he could help us. We told him where we wanted to go – so which road should we get on? He leaned over and was telling us when he saw beer cans in the car. He said, “Are those beer cans? Get out of the car!” Instead, Monty turned on the engine and sped away. The urinator was standing by the policeman. Monty circled the Square (it was one way) and we headed back towards the two. The urinator started running and we pulled up and he jumped into the car and off we went… south.

Note: I’m not sure about the above paragraph. I may have got the year and location confused, and may be a collage of other events, if it happened at all.

We arrived in Daytona Beach. I did my homework. I reserved some rooms for a bunch of us at the Renee. The Renee was a green stucco building directly across the street from Daytona Beach’s giant Orchestra Opened Concert Shell).

The manager was a little short bald headed name we nicknamed “Wart”. He seemed highly nervous and at everyplace at once. A regular stayer at the Renee was an elderly gentleman who had dignity about him. We thought he might secretly the owner, he too, seemed to everyplace at once watching us, but he was wittier than wart.

Before arriving I found an ad for breakfast for less than a dollar, I mean not just 99 cents, but maybe 75 cents. It was about three blocks inward away from the beach. That worked fine for two or three visits, but the novelty wore off of getting up early just to eat breakfast to save some money.

There was a lot partying going on among us Mariettans. There were hundreds of us that decided to go to Daytona Beach that year.

One unique scene I saw was a fellow graduate in her Metropolitan driving down the street of downtown with Bubba Johnson standing on the back bumper, leaning back, with a large straw-hat flopping in the breeze and urinating. He was holding “it” with one hand and a can of beer in the other. It was amazing he did not lose his balance and fall. Bubba died early as a young, but old enough to be married with a child. I know of one child I don’t know if there were more or not. He died in Texas on a business trip for Shamrock Mills, which his father owned.

The Metropolitan he was riding on the back of, if it belonged to who I think it did, when she needed a gas cap or whatever, her and girlfriends would scour Lockheed Aircraft’s huge parking lot until they found the identical car and help themselves.

At the Renee several groups of Marietta bunches stayed there because it was cheap. Three or four spent the whole time in Daytona Beach in the same Renee room, only leaving to get more beer. They had a huge pyramid of empty beer cans. They were so proud of it they would ask their fellow Mariettans to visit them to marvel at their creation. Then the cleaning help came and try to take it down, to them empty cans meant trash. They had strong words and the cleaning people threw down their towels and left their jobs. What was not known until then, there were a strife between motel and hotel workers and the owners and managers. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. All the workers in all the inns got word and walked off the job. Martin Luther King came down. So did NBC News.

That wasn’t the only show that was erupting.

Atlanta School’s teenagers were also parting at Daytona Beach. I don’t know about now, but then, cars were allowed to drive up and down the beach. Marietta people would ride up and down the beach hooting and hollowing at the Atlanta students and visa versa. Then someone in a big shiny new car that received it for graduation got keyed when it got too close to a group. I don’t remember who’s side the keyed car was on but I do know all hell broke loose. A whole lot of screaming and threats. It looked like a rumble was about to take place. Then, as far as I know, without any reason, it fizzled, and people returned to having fun.

I sighed in relief. I can only suck in my stomach and protrude my chest just so long.

There was a sheltered pier that played rock and roll music and hoards of teenagers went there, us included. I remember one of my Marietta friends had a new red Camaro. He parked on the beach out in the opened so he could keep an eye on his car. He didn’t want it keyed. He met a girl and they found themselves someplace to go. Then high tide came in engulfing his car. I don’t remember what happened about that.

At the Renee, there was sort of a patio outside the ocean’s side with chairs and tables that we sat around a lot. Mainly, we picked that place to sit a lot because some of the Marietta girls had a room with the windows right there at the patio. Beside the patio I think there was about a 40” high wall separating the patio and the sidewalk, then the street, then another sidewalk and then the Daytona Beach Bandshell.

We were sitting on the patio when a car with two teenage girls drove by the Renee very slowly. The windows were down all the way. I am usually more shy and timid but this time I had a surge of hyped up – I ran up to the car and leaped through the back side window into the car. I didn’t know it at the time nor anybody else knew it, but that leap changed the lives of two people forever. Wait, it is not what you are probably thinking. When I resituated myself, I used the oldest pickup line ever, at resorts” “Where are y’all from?”

They said Cartersville, Georgia.

My friend Larry Holcomb saw it all and walked over to where the girls parked the car. I introduced the Cartersville girls to Larry. Larry hit it off with one, I think her name is Sheila. After Daytona Beach they dated, and after he graduated from college they got married and stayed that way until death parted them. Larry died in the year 2000. They had a 40-year relationship.

One night one of the Marietta group of girls had a party at the beach house they rented. Several us went. It was about a two mile walk down the beach. Later that evening and half drunk walking back down the beach to the Renee there was two women walking, that appeared to be drunk also. As we walked alongside them and talked to them we learned that the older woman was the mother of the other woman, who was pregnant. Ronnie Witcher was in our group and he tried to flirt with the two women, I remember him saying, that he knew they both knew how to really make out, being that one was pregnant and the other one was the mother of the second. When Ronnie was on to something, I remember he would nervous flick the ashes off his cigarette. Ronnie died about ten years ago in Mexico while skin diving.

One guy about our age from Chattanooga started to hanging around with us. We called him “Hambone” because he was very good slapping his opened hands across parts of his body in a rhythm and of course sung, “Hambone Hambone, where you been?” and other songs with a beat.

I do not remember the reason, but I rode back to Marietta with David and Bobby I think. Someplace near Waycross and on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp we rode off the road. It was quiet a scare, but we managed to ;get back on the highway.

At a roadside tourist trap they were selling monkeys. I would have bought one but they were costly.

Back in Marietta we had a new friend. Monty brought Hambone home with him. He hung around for a few weeks and I suppose went back home in Chattanooga.

I do not remember going into the Atlantic Ocean at all that trip.

There are probably some things I forgot, so it is left out, and I will probably remember, as soon as I post this.

Pictured: The Renee Hotel and the Daytona Beach Bandshell, both Googled.

8Bradley K. Martin, Vickie Turner Hunt and 6 others

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