Four friends and I traveled to the beach on July 12th. After arriving at Panama City and getting settled in our cabin, we strolled to the sandy shoreline and had a ball splashing in the water and feeling the sand beneath our feet. We didn’t have to pack our luggage for our trip, and there was no need to make reservations. We didn’t need road maps. We all just turned right on Memory Lane, and we were off and running.
Our July 12th trip to the beach took place as Judy Holcomb, Judy Finch Cook, Glyndia Brown McAbee, Sarah Ann Duncan Boyett and I sat around the table in Sarah Ann’s dining room. We looked at a scrapbook I had kept of our senior year that ended with mementoes of our trip. We were amazed at how many details of that trip we could remember! We might have problems remembering what happened an hour ago, but we had no problems recalling so many fun details about that trip that took place six decades before. The five of us, along with Sarah Ann’s mother, Mrs. Velma Duncan, made that memorable journey. We left the day after the five of us graduated from Hamilton High School. We had looked forward to our Panama City trip for months.
I think it was in January of our senior year that Sarah Ann mentioned us taking a trip together when we graduated. We were all one hundred percent in favor of it. We made a few plans, and Sarah talked it over with her mother, who said she would be glad to go along as our chaperon. At that time, the wheels had not completely come off the morality of the world, at least not in our area. We knew there was no way we could go to Panama City without a chaperon.
On our wonderful “dining table beach trip,” we visited the same souvenir shops, relished the smell and taste of freshly made donuts at a tiny shop on the boardwalk and enjoyed the music that was playing as we mingled with others who were walking along the same route. Good conversation decorated with laughter were the road signs on our memorable journey.
July 12th marked the first time in 60 years that the five of us who traveled to the beach together in 1965 had all been together.
We had all seen each other during those years quite a few times, but we were never all together at the same time. When we planned for all five of us to meet, something always seemed to happen to prevent one or two of us from being able to come. We all made it this year, and we found ourselves giggling and singing, just like we did when we were teenagers. We forgot about knee pain, the fact that sometimes walking is easier for some of us now when we use a walking cane and I didn’t even mind that I had to have help going up and coming down the steps that led to Sarah’s porch. My daughter, Dawn, was kind enough to go with me to make sure I had a helping hand. This might be a good place to add the advice Dawn’s sister, Michelle, had for her before we left for our “Florida Five Reunion.” She said, “Dawn, surely you and John (Sarah’s son) can keep them from ‘sillying’ themselves to death!” All Dawn said in reply, “I’ll try.”
Sitting around that table and traveling in our memory, we were almost as excited as we were when the five of us and our chaperon drove down dark, unfamiliar highways all night to reach our destination. Speaking of dark, unfamiliar highways, that was one thing we talked about a great deal as we remembered. Well, those highways got much darker when the car lights went out, and no matter what we did, we couldn’t get them to come back on. We got out of the car, raised the hood, shined a flashlight and looked under the hood of that big 1962 Ford like we knew what we were doing. Judy Holcomb saw some wires hanging loose. She picked them up and shook them. The lights beamed brightly again, and Judy became our hero of that dark, unfamiliar highway. We had to stop three more times and let Judy jiggle the wires. It worked every time.
The trip was expensive, but our parents thought they could swing it. We had after-school jobs, and that would help with spending money. Mrs. Duncan rented the cabin and presented us with a total for each of us to pay: $25 each. That’s right, 60 years ago seven days in Panama City cost us $125. That included rent for the cabin and gas money for traveling around. And you might find this interesting. Michelle checked to see how much that would be in today’s dollars and cents. The answer is the 1965 amount of $125 would be equal to $1,275.65 today.
Our cabin was nice.
There was a small kitchen, two small bedrooms and the beds were comfortable. We had a sunroom as well, and the bathroom offered a bathtub as well as a shower. We got our money’s worth for sure. We carried groceries with us. We didn’t have a varied selection of food items, but what we had was substantial: crackers, peanut butter, pork and beans and Campbell’s tomato soup. Sarah Ann and her mother took frozen meat from their home freezer, packed it in a chest filled with ice, so we did have some good protein to go with our other staples---at least for a few days.
There were teenagers in a cabin close to ours. After we had been there for four or five days, one of them asked us if we still had plenty of food. They said they were out of food completely and were down to licking candy wrappers. Judy Finch posed a question to them. “Have you ever heard of the Campbell’s Soup Company?” she asked. We thought that was so funny, but then everything was funny to us. That is how it should be when one is 18, just graduated from high school and on a trip that offered so many things to see and do.
Mrs. Duncan made it clear to us that she was going to rest while we rambled. She was a nurse and sometimes worked long hours at the hospital. She took a bag of books on our trip and said she intended to rest and read. We were happy for her to do that while we explored our surroundings. As all these good memories were replayed, we laughed, and sometimes our eyes would get a little misty at our recollections. We felt that our chaperon, who is now in Heaven with all our mothers, might be looking down on us and smiling.
On the final day of that long ago trip, we had planned to go to a nice restaurant and have a seafood supper. We also wanted to go on an all-day cruise to Shell Island. We couldn’t do both, and we decided to go on the cruise. We were down to pork and beans in our grocery supply but still the cruise seemed more fun than dining out. We opted to eat pork and beans and enjoy our all-day trip to the island where we were allowed to collect as many shells as we wanted. We each filled a bag with some very unusual looking ones. We sailed for the island at 9 a.m. and returned to port at 5 p.m. We did not regret that we had traded our seafood supper for pork and beans and a cruise.
We had no clue what was waiting for us when we arrived back at our cabin. We drove up, tired and hungry. We were ready for those pork and beans! The couple who owned the cabin were there with our chaperon, and they were busy! He had gone fishing, and his wife had prepared the side dishes to go with deep-fried fresh fish. There were French fries and hush puppies, topped off by some of the best coleslaw I’ve ever tasted. There was ice cream for dessert---in a cone or in a bowl, it was our choice. What a delicious meal, and it was free! We got our good meal and our trip to Shell Island as well. Life just couldn’t be much better.
Our “cabin lady” said, “This is your reward. You have all been so nice, and we’ve certainly enjoyed meeting and visiting Mrs. Duncan.” The cabin owners said they were amazed that we began our day with a devotion before we left each morning for our daily adventure. Then they told us they usually had to repaint every room when teenagers stayed for as many days as we had stayed. We were not trying to impress anyone by how we acted. We were acting the way our parents had instilled in us to act, whether we were at home or in Panama City.
Early the following morning, we left for home. We planned to stop in Montgomery and take a tour of our state capitol. Mrs. Duncan, a wonderful southern lady for sure, told us she didn’t think it would be appropriate for us to tour the capitol building wearing shorts. She asked us to take a skirt along, and when we arrived at the capitol, we could put the skirt on over our shorts. For seven days, our daily attire had been shorts or bathing suits. We couldn’t imagine how it would feel to wear a skirt over shorts, but we knew that was what she expected of us, and we did it.
As we were walking up the steps to go into that big, beautiful white building, it was there that the most memorable remark of our entire trip was made. Judy Finch said, “I don’t know about y’all, but I feel like Annie Oakley in an evening gown!” Oh, how we laughed! We had regained our composure by the time we took the last step (of many) to enter the building. We ended our dining table trip with that memory. While sitting around that table we relived a seven-day trip that so vividly lives in our memory files. The five of us are now retired and enjoying life in the slow lane, grandchildren and all.
Sarah Ann is a retired high school librarian, Glynda is a retired educator, Judy Holcomb is a retired high school guidance counselor and Judy Finch Cook is a retired registered nurse. I am a retired weekly newspaper publisher. This Florida trip has more memories for me than just traveling to Panama City. Sarah Ann’s cousin, Ruble Mills, was serving in the Air Force. He had just returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam, and he came to our graduation. She introduced us. Four months later, we were married. We had 47 years, six months, and 17 days together before he passed away in 2013. We were blessed with two lovely daughters and two wonderful grandchildren. Our chaperon, Mrs. Duncan, became my “Aunt Velma,” and, since Ruble considered Sarah Ann his sister, she became my sister-in-law in addition to being one of my best friends. I highly suggest traveling down Memory Lane from time to time. We all have stories to share, and I urge you to share them. I can think of no better way to conclude than to simply say, thank you God for such good memories.
(Editor’s note: LaVale Mills, the publisher emeritus of The Red Bay News, still writes weekly columns for several newspapers. “Sunny Side Up” will mark 40 years in January. She noted, “Words are my favorite toys.” We are beyond honored to have LaVale contribute this special guest column about the “Florida Five’s” recent reunion in Hamilton.)
See complete story in the Journal Record.
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