We bought a 1973 Volvo Station Wagon in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Paid $14,000. But received a $2,000 rebate because we contracted to take delivery in Sweden during the summer months I wasn’t teaching. The rebate bought airplane tickets to Gothenburg and back from Paris, where we would leave the wagon to ship to Norfolk, Virginia. If these prices sound low in 2020, remember the ’73 Reagan dollar overseas bought one hundred drachmas in
Author: Dick Elam
The BBC meets a Hush Puppy
The date was April 1, 1982. Noon. John, Margaret and I were driving to the Atlantic coast. In John’s honor, we planned to sail our 30-foot sloop to Okracoke Island and visit the British cemetery. Four English seamen, washed ashore in World War II, are buried there. John Turtle, then BBC’s Head of Radio Training, looked at the North Carolina restaurant menu and pronounced, “I’ve never heard of, or eaten, a ‘hush-puppy.’ What is it?” We explained.
How Old Are You?
A new Indiana acquaintance for this old Texan asked, “Just how old are you?” Reminded me of a story told by Max Randolph, the leading thespian in my 1946 Abilene High School graduating class. Max gave professional acting a try, was paid to act in New Orleans, but was never summoned to Broadway. Max said in New Orleans there was a saloon across the street from the theater. The old actor playing ‘Grandfather’ went there between
Naming the Boat
Next to arguing what to name your baby, I rank naming your boat most stressful. Talking about a sailboat’s name because those ‘stink-potters’ tend to choose fish-catching, wife-joking, cash-spending titles. One rookie skipper in a sailboat fleet named his sloop Kathy’s Mink, but other skippers frowned and he found something more seaworthy. The oldest naming tradition warned that anything more, or less, than seven letters would bring bad fortune. That’s why I named my Snipe
Christmas in Hopetown
How do you celebrate Christmas Day in Hopetown, a Bahamian paradise among the Abaco Islands? You bring your sloop Makaleka alongside the city pier and moor. Margaret ties green ribbons on the starboard shroud. Donna ties red ribbons on the port side shroud. We go ashore. The children gather in the schoolyard. Santa comes. He drives a golf cart. His beard doesn’t reach to his Bermuda short pants. He “ho..ho..hos” and gives the children ice cream.
The ‘Phantom Lady’
She was weathered, in need of more than cosmetic repair, a 18-foot sloop that we Abilene Sea Scouts received as a gift from her owner. Year 1945. We sanded, repaired, painted the old lady. While she was upside down the owner, a builder, came and inspected her bottom. With his finger he compressed our smooth white lead filling between the bottom wood. We found out why when we launched the ‘Phantom Lady.’ For the launching
Not a Girl
If you move four children three miles from the city, you need to develop a routine for hauling them to town in the station wagon. The youngest, nearly three years and the only son, always climbed into ‘the way back.’ Girls two and three found their place in the middle. When Daddy was working, oldest daughter rode up front when Mom drove. On that morning, Maxine gave the command, “Girls get in the station wagon,
Are We There Yet?
“Took six hours,” Jenny told me, to drive with her eight-year-old son Trent from Indiana to Tennessee to see the relatives. “How did you keep him entertained?” I asked. She answered that Trent spent most of the trip talking and reading on his iPhone. “Jenny, ever hear of the Burma Shave signs alongside the highway?” Of course, she hadn’t. The funny signs disappeared in the 1960s. I remembered that Mom had to devise new games to
Foreign Waters
Basketball. Whatever comes in second at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, I’m not sure. I remember UNC timed spring break to coincide with the conference basketball conference. That’s when being from ‘Communist Hill’ wasn’t a good idea if you met someone from Durham (Duke) or Raleigh (NC State ) or from up-north Virginia. Those people fussed a bunch about the basketball players Chapel Hill recruited. Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament time was a good
A Russian Profession
In 1995, you taxpayers—who pay for the United States Information Agency—sent Margaret and me to Russia. My mission: advise Ural State University journalism department how to revise their ‘propaganda’ curriculum. This university lies in the center of Yekaterinburg, Russia’s third largest city, two times zones east of Moscow, 28 miles west of Siberia. We spent four snow-covered months there and never saw soil until May. I wrote a ‘Texan in Russia’ column and emailed this