Boys Driving Around in Cars
In his early 70s, Doug Jacquier looks back at a road trip he took with friends in his teens, from Melbourne to Dora Dora.
The first car any of my friends had was a Morris Minor, Britain’s rival to the Volkswagen Beetle and imported by the boatload into Australia. It was first produced in 1948 but by the time my pal, Greg, inherited it from his Mum in the late 1960’s, it was a clapped-out shopping buggy. However it served our suburban version of teen rebellion very well, ferrying us to rock dances and dark basement coffee shops, where it was a toss-up between the coffee and the folk singers for the level of gritty bitterness.
We took turns sharing the joys of sitting on the lap of the front-seat passenger, head jammed against the roof, leaving Greg struggling to change gear, while three of us squeezed into the rear bench seat. And, of course, we all smoked like chimneys, making keeping a look-out for the rare police cars of the time a tad difficult, especially in winter.
Later on, in 1969, when we were 18, Greg took us all up market with his second-hand Australian-built Holden Torana, complete with black stripe down the centre of the white bonnet. The Torana was the poor man’s version of the souped-up Holden Monaro coupe, but it was luxury to us. At every possible opportunity, on the weekends we would take off somewhere on a whim and leave the practicalities to fall where they may.
At that time, for us everything exotic and wild and dangerous was American or European. We were all fans of Chicago Blues, the writings of Kurt Vonnegut, and foreign movies with subtitles. Among our peers it was generally thought we were weird, but that suited what we imagined was our ineffable destiny.
In 1969, when we were 18, Greg took us all up market with his second-hand Australian-built Holden Torana, complete with black stripe down the centre of the white bonnet…At every possible opportunity, on the weekends we would take off somewhere on a whim and leave the practicalities to fall where they may.
On one Friday, three of us, Greg, Wal and I, on an impulse, set off from Melbourne up the Hume Highway, with no plan other than to get back in time for work on Monday. Equipped with a road map and not much else, we were sure legends would follow, so we started taking detours into small towns along the way, based on their exotic names.
We picked out Staghorn Flat. Just before arriving, Greg stopped the car and Wal jumped into the boot (which we’d begun to call the trunk to sound cool, like Americans). We pulled up at the petrol station (we hadn’t graduated to gas station yet). A middle-aged woman strolled out, Greg asked her to fill ‘er up and Greg and I entered the store to stock up on the essentials of life, namely potato chips and Coke. Slyly peeking though the shop window, we waited for her hysterical reaction when Wal leapt from the boot, bade her “good afternoon” and strolled nonchalantly towards the store. She never batted an eyelid.
She came back into the store and, disappointed, we paid for our petrol and supplies. As we were leaving she said, with a totally impassive face, “Funniest thing I ever seen in my life.” We spent the next 20 miles debating whether she was the village idiot or whether we’d been outplayed by a veteran.
Scouring the map we came across Dora Dora (we figured that like New York, New York it had to be so good they named it twice). However, there were no yellow cabs; just a pub, a general store and a post office. All three were housed in the same building.
We decided to stock up on corn flakes and milk for breakfast. We entered the premises and were greeted by a bar of such miniscule proportions that a man being joined by his brother for a cleansing ale would constitute a crowd. Behind the bar, a middle-aged man in a top hat, ensconced in what seemed to be a museum, kept reading his newspaper.
At that time, for us everything exotic and wild and dangerous was American or European. We were all fans of Chicago Blues, the writings of Kurt Vonnegut, and foreign movies with subtitles. Among our peers it was generally thought we were weird, but that suited what we imagined was our ineffable destiny.
I asked if he sold corn flakes and milk. He said he did but he couldn’t sell them in the hotel. He stepped sideways about a yard and asked what we wanted in the way of groceries. Having filled our order and it being a hot day and all, we decided to have a beer. “Three Carltons,” Greg said, and the proprietor replied, “I can’t serve those in the store.”’ Retracing his steps by a yard back into the “hotel,” he proceeded to pull three beers. Meanwhile, Wal had been examining a rack of dusty and faded postcards and said, “I might send one of these to my Mum as a joke. Can I buy a stamp?” The proprietor said “Sorry, it’s Sunday. Post office is closed.”
Having exhausted our daily budget for alcohol on those frosty beers, we decided to abandon our half-baked Antipodean impersonation of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road and head for the comforts of home.
We were driving back to the City in the early hours of Sunday morning when we could no longer ignore the flashing red light of the fuel gauge, so we pulled into a service station and pooled our loose change, hoping it would be enough to make it. As we were about to get back into the car, we were approached by a couple with small backpacks.
From their accents they were clearly European, around 30, he bearded and she fashionably disheveled. Being the sophisticated, insightful young men we were, we fell for their story about being abandoned by their previous free ride and their need to be in the City as soon as possible to connect with their plane home. After a brief conference, we decided to help them out.
First mistake.
So we three Musketeers (or Mouseketeers in retrospect) bundled into the front and gave them the back seat. Wal drew the short straw of endangering his masculinity astride the handbrake. As we drove through the wee hours, the first inklings of having been duped emerged in my mind. The couple claimed to be French but it was clear that they weren’t far ahead of my lame schoolboy French repertoire.
The final straw came when it became patently obvious that they were engaging in the sort of horizontal folk dancing that can only be achieved by contortionists in the back seat of a Torana.
Greg had had enough. He veered off the road and ordered them out. They were still fumbling with their clothing and pleading their desperate case when we sped off into the breaking dawn. Wal had back seat privileges as compensation for his discomfort in the front. He said, “Hey, they’ve left one of their bags behind.” Greg asked, “Anything worth going back for?” Wal rummaged though the contents and emerged with a handful of passports, all with pics of our so-called French hitchhikers, but each with a different name.
On one Friday, three of us, Greg, Wal and I, on an impulse, set off from Melbourne up the Hume Highway, with no plan other than to get back in time for work on Monday. Equipped with a road map and not much else, we were sure legends would follow, so we started taking detours into small towns along the way, based on their exotic names.
Such was our teenage outrage at being duped (and having had to listen to a couple of strangers get their rocks off with no regard for our hormone-fueled sensitivities), we decided to become virtuous citizens and hand over this damning proof of some sort of international conspiracy to the Police.
Second mistake.
In a moment that can only be excused by lack of sleep and having seen too many episodes of the local cop show, Homicide, we decided this needed the attention of Police HQ in the City.
Having breasted the counter with a sense of self-importance and what we imagined was urban cool, we told the duty sergeant our tale and showed him the passports. What we had failed to take into account was our own ragged appearance. And, believe me, there is no odour stronger than that generated by three sweaty, flatulent young male smokers in a confined space.
With impressive but terrifying efficiency, a senior detective decided that we were almost certainly accomplices of these villains and, having had some sort of falling out with them over the proceeds from some nefarious activity, we were now exacting our revenge.
I will spare you our pathetic attempts to provide a rational explanation for our odyssey and our fawning pleas of innocence but ultimately it appeared the police had decided we were too dumb to be accomplices and let us go.
We drove home without speaking but I remember thinking, If this is growing up, it sucks.
I could feel the joy back then and the pleasure of writing it now. Bravo!
This is so funny and delightful!