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It didn’t take long to see that some things hadn’t
changed. An R.C. Cola and a Moon Pie still beat the feathers
out of a Denver Omelet and men and women are politely and
unanimously addressed as “sir” or “ma’am.”
Hell, the last time someone called me “sir” was
a judge and he had terrible manners. The farmland, beautiful
rolling farmland and stands of trees, to a city boy is such
wonderful eye wash. Farm land in totally citified Los Angeles
is a two-foot box on a window sill filled with geraniums or
marijuana.
Change does crease a lot of pictures, though and it did here.
For one thing, if race was or is still an issue, you wouldn’t
know it by the social life in Huntsville. In the Huntsville
Holiday Inn bar, it was blacks dancing with whites, Mexicans
with Turks, men and women dancing with each other, and me
rocking in a zebra-skin grope harness. It was a scene that
would’ve made old Birmingham sheriff “Bull”
Connor back fall to the floor, swallow his tongue and slide
in puke right under the bouncing blue lights of the dance
floor.
At that Holiday Inn, Burk, Tocher, and myself received some
genuine California rudeness in the heart of Dixie. We got
back from the drags on Friday night, and found that all three
of us had been put of our rooms, like out on the front stoop.
Our bags? Who knows? Come back in the morning and we’ll
see if we can find them. SAY WHAT!?
The noble Burkster pointed out to the errant clerk that he
had booked for four days, and had the paperwork that established
the veracity of said claim. No never mind to this dude. Sorry,
can’t help you. I next expected to hear the sound of
exploding glasses and a crunching nose when the clerk admonished
him not to use the word “damn” in his presence.
Tocher, the mild-mannered smiling Canadian face in DRO, who
is in reality a two-fisted, beer-swilling hockey goalie, purred
dangerously, “Uh, that won’t do.”
As for me, a jug-eared security guard had drawn closer to
the ensuing storm and eyeballed all 6-foot, 170-pounds of
myself, fighting heart and floating kidney. I nervously began
picking my nose and discarding the product on a now slippery
Persian rug. Well, it didn’t end like the O.K. Corral.
We got the deal straightened out eventually and all was taken
care of by 3 a.m. But this shows you how things have changed.
The clerk was black; we were as white as light. Can you imagine
that same scene even as little as 20 years ago? Pissed off
red-neck security? That poor guy would’ve replaced the
chandelier over the reading area of the lobby. Thankfully,
we’ve all grown up a bit from those grim days. None
of your faithful reporters felt like “My Cousin Vinny.”
As we drove to Huntsville Dragway from the hotel in the following
days, the modern boils, the Wal-Marts, McDonald’s, Olive
Gardens, Home Depots, and the like dissolved into the steam
heat vapors. We’d hit the country side, abandoned old
farm houses, Johnny’s Hot Spot and The Closer off the
Interstate, the little two-lane asphalt ribbons to the track
entrance … “Welcome to Huntsville Dragway, the
South’s Best Bracket Racing” or words to that
effect. Home at last.
Inside, we basked in the southern style eighth-mile ambiance.
The wooden, two-story tower, the 5,000-plus country bleachers,
$2 hot dogs and $3 beer, and fans getting along as heat-soaked
friends in a Lasater Mountain, Sylacauga, Section, Winston
County, and Jake’s Dragway backdrop. Hot as hell in
drag racing heaven.
Burk, Tocher and I did not hit any convenience stores after
breakfast Monday morning with Huntsville owner George Howard.
Burk to Martin, “Any beat off remarks, and we soak you
with honey and strap you to an anthill.”
I was up on my manners. I started calling people sir and
ma’am at the airport. Dumb-founded airline security
marveling at the political correctness of the man in the Butthole
Surfers t-shirt. We repaired to the bar and I ordered a tall
one to soften the ride to St. Louis. Out like a light in the
escape row, me planning how to get back to a place that I
really dug. 
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