JEN ~ A GIRL, A CAR, A ROAD:
GETTING HER KICKS ON ROUTE 66 ©
Chicago
[This is a work of fiction. The story is an unadulterated and unabashed attempt to tickle male fantasies and perhaps some female fantasies as well. As such, the story may or may not totally conform to reality. With the exception of the historical places and persons, all other locations, characters, and events are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.]
HISTORICAL NOTE:
The TV drama, Route 66 that aired its first of three season from October of 1960 through June of 1961, almost never actually took place on Route 66. The adventures of "Todd" and "Buzz" took place all over the country: from Maine to Florida, from the right coast to the left coast, and from the Canadian border to the Gulf. I decided to remedy that by telling some of the story of Route 66 and to tell it with full disclosure of Jen's "kicks." The complete story of Route 66 can probably never be fully told, but a check on the internet for the Mother Road or Route 66, will keep you busy for a long, long time. This is the first of a series of stories that I wrote in 2005, that will take Jen from Chicago to L.A. on "The Mother Road," U.S. Route 66.
There is sex im the story, but not every other paragraph. If that is your interest, read some of my other stories or go to another author. The story is first and foremost about about the road, second the girl, and third the car. Enjoy. The author.
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Hi! My name is Jennifer, but no one ever calls me that. I am known simply as "Jen." The story I'm going to tell you took place more than forty years ago in the summer of 1963. I remember what happened, although some specifics have dimmed with time, but I still have my detailed diaries for that decade to which I can refer for most of those specifics. My diaries started at age five. I still keep one daily.
I had just turned twenty-three in February of that year and I bought the car in the last week of April. What a car it was, too. It's a shame I didn't hang on to that masterpiece of machinery instead of selling it ten years later--one of the biggest mistakes of my life! Such a rare car would be worth a lot of money today. This story is about me, a car, and a road.
So first, more about me. I was a pretty good looker in those days and not too damned bad yet, if I do say so myself. I was twenty-three years old, a flaming natural redhead with green eyes and a smattering of freckles--not too many, from my face to my boobs.
Speaking of boobs, I had an ample supply, to the tune of 38 D and all natural, too. This was near the top of my five foot, ten inch frame. Further down, my waist measured 28" and my nicely shaped hips, 36". My thighs and calves were shapely and toned, tapering nicely from my tight little rounded butt. Back then, I wore a size ten dress (eleven or twelve if I did not want it skin tight in places) and a size six EEE shoe.
I was into the women's liberation movement, in both attitude and dress, even before it arrived officially with the NOW organization in 1966. That's why I usually wore shorts, halter or tube tops (braless, naturally), either very skimpy panties or none at all, and went barefoot in sandals.
I could afford to roam around footloose and fancy free because I was an only child, living on a more than generous inheritance from my parents who had been killed in an accident two years before. It would be a number of years yet before I settled down enough to think about a job and/or marriage.
The little Illinois town I grew up in during the 1940s and 1950s had a population at that time of about 3,300 people. It was then and is even more so now, a bedroom community for those who worked in Peoria, a few miles away, especially those who worked at Caterpillar. I don't remember a whole lot from the 1940s, but I do remember bits and pieces of that time.
Then there was the fabulous fifties! The tame fifties. Eisenhower would dominate the decade in the White House, and I started fifth grade in 1950. My grade school memories aren't many, but they are mix of pleasant and painful.
High school occupied my time the second half of the fifties. Life in a small town high school of less than three hundred students was great, easy, and boring. Boys were boring, interested in only one thing beyond sports, scoring with girls. That is to say, getting to all the bases and scoring a home run was the goal. Only one boy made a home run with me. And that was just to satisfy my own curiosity, but my interest had been whetted for later.
That later was college, which for me, began in the fall of 1961, but only lasted two years. I was more interested in campus parties than campus study groups. I also began feeding my sexual appetite rather frequently at some of those parties and I lost interest in gaining either a B.A. or an MRS. very quickly. So, with my parents dead and me terribly bored, with that generous inheritance, that was the end of school for me.
I decided to cut loose any way I could. A few years later into the decade brought the women's liberation movement and the so-called sexual revolution and I embraced them, body and soul. Independence! Empowerment! Sexual freedom and Equality! Those were heady thoughts and heady times, especially for women, believe me.
******
Ahhh, then second, we come to 'the car.' I usually referred to it (her) as 'Swifty' or occasionally as 'Miss Swifty."
"Just what was this stupid car?" you ask.
Well, the stupid car was a 1963 Corvette.
"And what." you ask, "was so damned special about a 1963 Corvette?"
Well, I will tell you what. Miss Swifty was a 1963, all black Corvette, split window coupe with red interior. And not just any coupe, but the Z06 coupe. General Motors only made 199 of the Z06s and the entire split window coupe line, only that one year. And of those 199, only 50 of them (mine was one) were delivered with the big, N03, 36.5 gallon fuel tank.
She had the L84 FI, 327 cubic inch, 360 horse power engine with the G81 positrac rear end. Other parts of the $1,818.45 Z06 option package, added to the base price of $4,257.00 were: the M20 four speed tranny; special, heavy duty racing suspension; special big brakes unique to the Z06; and the P48, knock off wheels. It has been reported that there are only two sets of these P48 wheels in existence today.
The option list went on, but you get the idea. This car really was not meant for the casual street driver, but instead for serious track or rally racing. the $6000 plus price tag was a lot of money, a lot of serious money in 1963. Yet today, I get wet pants thinking about that car.
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And finally third, there is the road--a road that exists now, only in memory for the most part. And that is a fading memory indeed for the average person old enough to even remember the road--except for the Route 66 fanatical fan club nuts, like me.
There is more than you ever wanted to know about this famous old road on the internet, in books, and in museums all along or near its once famous route. So I need only tell you a brief overview here.
Ever since the debut of the horseless carriage at the opening of the twentieth century (actually, the earliest prototypes, somewhat earlier) the demand for better roads drew increasingly loud clamors. An especially growing demand began for an automobile connecting road across the country to match the cross country route for trains.
Legislation for such public highways first appeared in 1916, with revisions in 1921. But it was not until Congress enacted a more comprehensive version of the act in 1925 that government executed its plan for national highway construction.
Officially, the numerical designation "66" was assigned to the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route in the summer of 1926, thereby acknowledging it as one of the nation's principal east-west arteries. From 1933 to 1938, thousands of unemployed young men from virtually every state were put to work as laborers on road gangs to pave the final stretches of the original, two lane road.
As a result of this monumental effort, the Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway opened in 1932, linking the two cities with a two thousand, four hundred mile, meandering highway that came to be called the "main street of America" because it connected the little hamlets along the way, not just the big city hubs.
Once John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath and the movie made from it were history, the term "Mother Road," became the most often used nickname for Route 66. The road was finally reported as "continuously paved" in 1938. Changes in routing and upgrades have marked the history of Route 66 ever since, up to its final abandonment in favor of the new Interstate Highway System that replaced it.
Route 66 had become outdated as unlimited access highways were now out of vogue for high speed, cross country driving. The poorly maintained vestiges of the mother road finally and completely succumbed to the new, limited access Interstate System in October 1984 when the final section of the original road was replaced by Interstate 40 at Williams, Arizona.
The influence of the Mother Road on American Culture, as the road became lined with motor courts, Burma Shave signs, two pump service stations, and curio shops, is well documented in books and on the web. Just a couple of examples: from the old tourist cabins came the growth of the modern motel industry, catering to the motoring public; and from the one pump grocery store, came the growth of the modern, corporate, individually recognizable brand "filling stations" and monster truck stops.
******
Oh yes, I was going to tell you a story, not give you a history lesson on cars and roads. To the story then. Several things influenced my thinking that started me on the road (pun intended) trip that is the body of this story.
One of those influences was Dinah Shore, a popular singer in her heyday in the decade of the fifties. I was out to "See the USA in your Chevrolet," as the Chevrolet ads from that era used to say in print and Dinah Shore said in song.
But I was really out more to flaunt my independence--especially my female independence. And just maybe I would fulfill some of my fantasies along the way. A little sight-seeing along the way would just be icing on the cake.
A second influence was the old TV show, Route 66, staring Martin Milner and George Maharis. For you younger readers, that was an old CBS program that ran for sixty minutes every Thursday night of the winter television season from October 7, 1960, until the end of the season on September 18, 1964.
Nelson Riddle was commissioned to compose a new theme song rather than pay Bobby Troup royalties for his 1946 song, "Get Your Kicks On Route 66." The program was the story of two guys in a new, 1960 Corvette (they got a new one each tv season) finding themselves and adventure (a new one each week) while cruising down, what else, but Route 66.
Only later, much later, did I discover that the show was actually filmed in other locations--very little of it on the actual Route 66. I thought, Damn, now that's the life for me! And why not a trip down Route 66? Thus the genesis for my 1963 adventure. And so, on to my story about that adventure.
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I had been living with my parents until I graduated high school in the spring of 1958. After that, I slummed around for three years, living in my own apartment. Bored, I enrolled at Bradley University in the fall of 1961, shortly after the death of my parents.
But as I already mentioned, my interest were more in the campus parties than in the campus study groups. Although my grades were still passing, I was bored and affected by the influences revealed above, I decided to quit school, sub lease my apartment, sell the house, buy the car, and hit the road. The house sold very quickly. I took what personal stuff and whatever, and put most of it in long term storage--sports cars do not have much luggage space. My car, with the big gas tank, had almost zilch for stuff.
