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Square Drive

The Source

So I took my “first” drive around the newly opened Jacksonville Square. I had been out of town for the day when former Mayor Tendick led the inaugural procession so mine was more of a solo tour. I didn’t get a sticker, and besides he has a cooler car. I was pretty sure I’d done this before, but my most vivid memories of the square revolved around my dad’s Buick and Dr. Herr’s dentist office in the Farmers Bank building. I guess I’m barely old enough to share Tendick’s quoted memories of cruising from one hamburger drive-in to another via the square, but I was cruising the dirt roads of Pike County in those days and I didn’t like anything resembling a town. The only reason you went to Quincy was to see the doctor and Jacksonville simply meant “dentist,” neither of which was on my Top Ten List of Adolescent Good Times. I can remember taking Driver’s Ed in high school. The teacher, our basketball coach, would say, “Kenny, let’s go to Jacksonville.” He’d have me deposit him somewhere in Lincoln Square Shopping Center then instruct me to drive around the parking lot for a couple of hours while he shopped. I think that Fred and I may have been stretching the letter of the law, but I did learn to fly solo at a younger age than most sixteen-year-olds. Besides, Fred knew that if you lived on a farm you’d already been driving for ten years. Of course the seat of a John Deere 50 little resembles the pilot’s nest of a 1949 Willys Jeep, my first real auto. When I was about eight my father threw me up onto the seat of the John Deere, steered me toward the pasture behind our house and said something meaningful like, “Here. Learn how to drive.” All I can remember is that I was the king of the world, zipping back and forth across the two-acre lot, imagining myself to be at the helm of a Navy Jet, shooting down kamikaze dragon flies by squeezing the wooden steering knob of the John Deere. Although World War II was twenty years in the past, I won it again nightly…and single-handedly. And to be completely honest, “zipping” doesn’t exactly describe the speed of a John Deere 50. “Plodding” perhaps, or maybe “meandering.” All that matters when you’re eight is that dad’s a work, mom’s in the kitchen, and you’re at the wheel. When I graduated to the Jeep (4 cylinder, 4-wheel drive, top made of wood which I painted a deep Perry High School blue) things changed. I actually started driving speeds that could do damage. Which I did. My Grandpa’s yard was the first victim, I think. Then the culvert just below our house. Then a dog. I was a good driver…really. Things just kept getting in my way. The Jeep had a perfect weather detection system. You could look in any direction while driving the Willys and could see the outdoors. No fancy indoor/outdoor thermometers necessary. Just stick your hand through the ceiling. The same with road conditions. While today’s fancier autos may give you a warning when the roads get slushy or slick, the Willys had a more fail-proof system. You simply looked down to where the metal floorboard had rusted out. When you felt ice on your ankle that meant it was getting cold. When you got out and your socks were soaking wet that indicated that you’d just driven in the rain. For any teenager, your first car is a dream…even cars of nightmarish countenance. But since a teenager can only be satisfied with a World War II Jeep for so long, I eventually talked Dad into my first Mustang. 1967, powder blue, hatchback. It has to be a hatchback when you’re in a rock and roll band. While other teenagers check out cars according to color and horsepower, I lugged my electronic keyboard down a row of automobiles until I found one in which my instrument would fit. But it was cool…. A genuine chick-magnet…or at least that was my intention. What self-respecting girl in 1967 could possibly keep from jumping with wild abandon into the passenger seat of a powder blue Mustang…hatchback! Hatchback, mind you! As it turns out, the answer was “lots of them” but maybe it’s because I didn’t slow down enough to let them get in. So I drove around the Jacksonville Square last week. Oh sure, it may have appeared to the casual onlooker that I was driving a very Republican-looking Honda Element on my way to pick up the kids from swim lessons, but in my mind…in my mind… the John Deere putted west toward the Three-legged Dog, the Willy’s Jeep rounded the corner and sped toward the old Denney’s Building, and anyone with half an imagination would have seen a power blue 1967 Mustang…hatchback, mind you, burning rubber toward the Illinois Theatre.