Tube Tops and Camaros

The summer of 1981 contained my first glimpse of adulthood, sort of. My parents, sister and I lived within the city limits of Washington, Indiana, “Home of Mr. Basketball Steve Alford 1983”, although we didn’t know it at the time. A few miles south of us was a small rural community called Cumback. No shit, how could I possibly make up a name like that? Cumback consisted of a church and few small homes along a long stretch of gravel road. Washington was considered “the city” to my two cousins, Tim and Bryon, who lived in Cumback, and my family considered Cumback “the country”, for obvious reasons.

During the summer between my fourth and fifth grade of school, Tim and Bryon asked if I could spend the weekend with them. I did this often. Tim was a year older than me, Bryon a year younger. It was great in the country. We would ride our dirt bikes all over “hell’s half-acre” as my Aunt Susie used to call it, fish for bluegill and bass in the various ponds, and sneak cigarettes from my Uncle Daryl to take up to an abandoned cabin in the woods. Pall Malls, non-filtered. We had stumbled upon the cabin, a small, rotting one room square of wood hidden in a grove of trees, and decided that it would become our club house. During one such grab-and-dash, we arrived to find a copious stash of Hustler magazines stacked in the corner. It seemed we weren’t the only ones to know the cabin existed although we had never seen anyone else around there. But since they appeared to have been there a while, they were ours for the taking. We would sit in our hut and chain smoke an entire pack of Malls in just short of thirty minutes while gawking at the various body parts we could not believe existed, let alone be found exposed in magazines. I’m surprised to this day we didn’t burn that entire patch of land to the ground, we sure as hell could have. This was during the pre-penetration Hustler years so we could only speculate what the dudes with the perfect 10/90’s were doing to Miss August. Debates ensued, theories were explored, but it would be years later before we figured out first hand what those photographs were implying. Cigarettes and porn, it was a great time to be a eleven-year-old boy out in the wild.

In 1981, “iron ons” were all the rage. Everyone who was anyone had at least one t-shirts with various photos or slogans permanently affixed to it using your typical household flat iron. A few weekends before this particular trip to the country, my aunt had made the three of us boys denim vests. They were kick ass. We looked like miniature Hells Angels. We had all bought iron ons to put on the back of them in an instant. Bryon had a Big Foot monster truck scene on his. Tim had the Dukes of Hazzard car photographed in mid-flight. As for me? I had the holy grail. The sultry Catherine Bach melted to my back for all to see, the original Daisy Duke. You could not fuck with the coolness standing before you when we donned those vests.

This particular weekend my aunt and uncle wanted to go out for the evening so we were entrusted with Spencer, their older brother, as our guardian. Spencer was 16, youthfully handsome, and to us the epitome of cool. My aunt and uncle had not been gone an hour when Spencer’s friend Pat arrived in his 1970 Chevelle SS. Spencer informed us that “we’re goin to town”, so the three of us got in the back of that silver rocket and we headed towards the city. I’m sure we were a sight to see. Two pimply faced teenagers in Levi’s and hi-tops cruising to town with three wide-eyed grade school kids in tow. Us, the gang, wearing our white t-shirts and matching denim vests proudly displaying our devotion to monster trucks and moonshine, not to mention Daisy’s partially exposed breasts. The backseat’s combined age was a mere 33.

The Chevelle could move, and I know we were airborne more than once on those hilly Indiana back roads. The soundtrack for the evening included Journey, Nazareth, AC/DC and Ozzy (the Randy Rhodes years). At some point during the ride to town, Spencer passed back a cigarette to Tim to take a few hits from. “That’s a weird smelling cigarette” I remember saying out loud. Mid-toke, without skipping a beat, Pat replied “maaaaaaannnn, that’s no cigarette, that’s a genuine joint!” I must have turned white. I’d never seen a joint before, and my slightly older cousin was sitting here smoking one beside me.

Spencer knew my mom’s head would explode if she found out, so the joint was never offered to me. Looking back I’m kind of glad as I lost my innocence over the next several years at a fairly good clip anyway, but I do have to admit that at the time I was pretty offended. I mean I was going into the fifth grade for god sakes.

The rest of the night was a blur of catcalling, stoplights, and a cool ride back to the country with the windows down and the smell of the country air swirling around us. It was the beginnings of change, and it was exciting, hell it was electric. Three kings and their chariot.

It was 1981, and life was good.

© 2009 Arnold Benton