Daley & Summe

This is a set of stories about college. I don't remember where I became acquainted with D&S but it was not in class. They did not major in science and they were not in English and History, which were a kind of honors class, entry into which was determined by grades or possibly a entrance test.

They might have been members of Sigma Alpha Lambda fraternity, which I joined in my sophomore year.

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One weekend (possibly extended) in summer, we left in Daley's Corvair for Chicago. I was in the back seat.

On the way, in Indiana, on a straight flat two lane road, in moderately heavy traffic, in person in the opposite direction decided to pass. He failed to complete in time. The two groups of cars went onto the right side of the road and the idiot made a third lane in the middle.

When we got to the city Daley had picked out and expensive high rise hotel, probably so he could steal monogrammed towels and glasses. I have a glass from Oxford House which might be from that trip.

Don't remember Saturday. We must have toured the city, the waterfront and a museum.

On Sunday, they got up for Mass. I did not. Their story is that they went into a church that looked Catholic and had a Catholic name. But sitting in the pew, they became nervous. One of them (probably Summe because Daley would tell him to do it), ask the usher "Is this a Catholic church?" The usher replied in the affirmative.

When the Mass began, it was in English. Again the usher was queried. "This is an English Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic church is down the street."

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One night I was out with D&S. No idea why. This was unusual.

We were in west Covington. I have a memory fragment that we were at a house where there was a party. A smaller fragment says Daley was looking to talk to a girl, possibly one of the Ossenbecks (Joan or Gale).

He was drunk. He had Summe doing the driving though I had drunk nothing and Summee had drunk something.

When we left we took the road back to city center closest to the river. It comes off a hill and makes a sharp left turn down hill, heading straight for the river. At the river, it makes a sharp right turn.

Summe failed to make the first turn , and the car landed in the bushes on the right. The police came.

I was thankful we were not in the river.

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In the early sixties, very little of the interstate highways had been built.

The second road trip was more ambitious than the first. We left of a morning and headed south towards Louisville. Our goal was New Orleans. The plan was to stay the night in Memphis as one of the new Holiday Inns. It was said there were five.

When we got to Memphis, we found out the Church of God had the place filled. So we headed south into Mississippi. On the road the Corvair threw its serpentine belt. The good news was this happened so often that there was a spare in the car. The bad news is that we did not have tools. Worse news is that we were in rural MS before there were businesses that stayed open all night.

While we were waiting for dawn, a guy comes along in an official looking car. He is the local game warden. He was out attending to a birth – I don't remember if it was human or not. He helped us change the belt. Though given the abilities of our group, he may have changed it himself.

We got to Clarksdale very late. There was one hotel – nasty. Smell of cigarettes and booze. Creatures scrrying all night. Just nasty.

The next day we got to NOLA. We parked on the street near some official building - possibly a state building. In the evening we went around the French Quarter. I had one drink, got tired and walked back to the car.

D&S stayed out most of the night. When they got back, the story was that an inebriated bar girl had been propositioning Summe when she suddenly grabbed him between the legs. It unnerved him and they left the place. Today it may be considered the high point of the trip.

I think we slept in the car. We then went east along US 90 into Florida. We stopped and dipped in the Gulf at some point.

The goal now was one of the hotels along FL's east coast. A group of our fellow students had been in Hondurus and were staying on the beach before returning to Nky. We connected with them and drank some of the booze they had brought into the country. It was called "liquid sand".

Low on money, we left for the north. We stopped at a grocery store and I had obtained vanilla wafers and apple juice.

As we drove along the two lane roads, we saw few gas stations. None had a bathroom. Somewhere in N FL we found one that had an outhouse. I evacuated very quickly.

In Knoxville TN, they found a Catholic church. It must have been Sunday. They went in. I can't remember if I did.

The trip back to N KY was long but uneventful.

Another version is here