The fair season rolled onward. As always, I loved running those big, wide fairgrounds tracks and we put on some darn good races. That fall I was having a good year on them. I think I won about a quarter of the races, Arlene won about that many, and Buckshot was right up there with us, which amazed all of us. Still, everybody got in the money that fall, and if memory serves me everybody on the crew won at least once. That meant that we were having some real good racing, and there was a lot of three wide and four wide racing, which was always sure to get a crowd on their feet. There were not many complaints about our putting on a dull show.

Like previous years, we were back and forth across the area, on the move almost every day, mostly in states touching on the Great Lakes, but getting outside them a little, too. There were some chilly nights and some warm ones, some rainy nights and some clear ones. As the leaves began to turn, our range was a little farther south than it had been earlier in the year, and I remember it as being a nice fall.

Eventually the fair season began to trickle to a close. It didn’t come all at once, but as October wound down we started having a day or two each week when we weren’t running at a fair, and sometimes not running at all. Once again, Carnie had talked Frank and Spud into a post-fair swing through the Deep South, and this time we went a little deeper than we’d gone in the past – clear into Florida, in fact. It would have been tempting to just stay the winter down there, but I knew that Frank wanted to get home to Vivian, and there probably wouldn’t have been enough racing for us to go all winter.

One significant thing came out of that swing: Arlene decided to spend some time looking for a place to winter over, where she could get a nurse’s job in some hospital. She usually got up in the morning and headed out on her own to drive by hospitals and do whatever it was she was doing; she’d join up with us at the track we were running that evening. We were down not too far north of Miami someplace a week or so before we were going to be ending the season when she showed up at the track, looking pretty happy. "I found a job," she told me.

"Well, that’s good news, I guess," I said. "Where at?"

I wasn’t surprised that she found a job – it’s something that’s usually pretty easy for nurses to do wherever they’re at. The problem was that sometimes they didn’t pay an awful lot, especially in those days. I had sort of hoped that she wouldn’t be able to find anything, and that she’d wind up spending the winter in Livonia with us. However, I knew that it was a lot to hope for, and wasn’t likely to happen.

"Fort Lauderdale," she replied. "I’ve had a couple other offers, but there was always something wrong with them, like they wanted me to promise to stay there long term or the pay was nothing much. This is a pretty decent hospital, and they’re willing to wait until we wrap up the season."

"Well, good deal," I told her, trying to mask the disappointment that I felt. "They got a place for you to stay?"

"No," she said, "But I met a nurse there that I used to work with in my early days in Korea. She and some other girls have a three-bedroom apartment and they need someone to share with, so I’m going to stay with them for a while."

"So, the big question," I asked, "Are you going to come back and run with us in the spring?"

"I’m planning on it at this point," she nodded. "You never know what’s going to happen, but unless something unexpected comes up I plan on being back."

That made me feel a little better. "I know I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again," I told her. "You’d better be planning on writing to me and letting me know what’s happening with you."

"Oh, I’m sure I will," she smiled. "And you’d better plan on writing to me, too. Mel, I have to tell you I’m not all that sure about this. I want to spend at least one winter where it’s warm, but I’m going to miss being with you guys. I’m especially going to be missing you. You’ve become too good a friend to just walk away from and never think about again." She let out a sigh and continued, "I thought about going back home for the winter, but I decided against it. I still think my father thinks of me as his little girl and isn’t ready to let me grow up. I just don’t want to have to deal with that. At least if I’m in Florida I’ll be far enough away that it’ll be a legitimate excuse to be gone. I might have a harder time putting him off if I was in Livonia."

"I’ll give you that," I told her. "I only met your dad that once, but he seemed pretty full of himself."

"Well, he was," she shrugged. "He actually is a pretty decent guy, but he’s just a little protective of me. Damn it, I’m a big girl and I’ll do what I want to do."

"Can’t blame you for that," I nodded. "You know my story, I’ve been down that road."

The last few days of the season we started working our way up the back trail. We headed through northern Florida, then out the Panhandle. We wound up our season running at Pascagoula, Mississippi, along in the middle of the month.

Since Pascagoula was a little far west to go back north through Chattanooga, and since Arlene was going to be leaving us and heading back to Florida, Frank arranged for us to have our post-season dinner at a steak house in town. It was a pretty decent place, but I thought that the steaks had been better the past years at the place in Chattanooga.

"Well, once again we had a pretty good season," Frank told us after the dinner. "We made out pretty well, and without a lot of problems, except for Junie and Hap as well as the 53 and the 57 getting torn up back in the early summer. That turned out to not be a total loss, since it led to our having Arlene with us most of the year. She really added a lot of interest and excitement to the season, and at the same time I think she helped steady us down some and give some exceptionally good shows, especially this fall. Arlene, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’re hoping that you decide to run with us next spring."

"I’m planning on it," she told Frank and the group of us. "You’ve all been nice to me; it’s been like having a whole pack of brothers. I’ve tried to not drag you down too much and make a pest of myself, but I’m grateful for all the help that everyone has been."

As always, Frank had kept the season standings pretty close to his chest. Well, that’s not quite right; I don’t think he got around to actually adding up the winnings until the last few days. Still, I wasn’t surprised to be the MMSA Champion for the third year in a row, by a pretty good margin, at that.

Dewey wound up coming in second. He hadn’t won a lot, but he managed a lot of money finishes, which start to add up after a while. What was surprising to me was that Arlene wound up coming in third, in spite of starting the season two months after the rest of us. She’d done a fair amount of winning, and had done a pretty good job of finishing in the money, as well. Frank came right out and said that if she’d started at the beginning of the season and run like that all season she’d have beaten me out for the trophy. I didn’t see any reason to disagree with him.

We all sat around drinking after that, celebrating the end of the season, and we all got a little bit potted before the evening was over with, although everybody managed to stumble back to their motel room, a pretty good motel for once. I will admit to having a hangover the next morning and I wasn’t the only one. However, I did manage to get up and make it to breakfast, which several of the guys didn’t.

Arlene had managed to get up for breakfast, too. I sat next to her at a big table that only had about half of our group around it. There really wasn’t much to say; she was going to get on the road for Ft. Lauderdale as soon as she was done eating and saying goodbye, while I would be heading back to the frozen north.

All too soon breakfast was over with. Arlene had already carried her bags out to her Studebaker, but I went out to her car with her. I really didn’t want to see her go but I felt like there was nothing much that I could have done to stop her just then.

"Thanks, Mel," she said, standing there with the car door open. "You’ve been a good friend the last few months, and I’m going to miss you."

"I’m going to miss you too," I agreed sadly. "It’s going to be a long winter without you around."

"I think it’s going to be just as long a winter for me without you," she shook her head. "Oh well, spring isn’t that far off and we’ll be seeing each other again."

"Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing you in the spring, too," I admitted. "Hey, don’t forget to write, now. I want to hear how things are going with you."

"That means you’re going to have to write to me, too," she smiled. "I’ll be waiting to hear from you."

"Me, too."

We were running out of things to say pretty quickly. "Guess I’d better go," she said sadly."

"Yeah, I suppose," I shook my head. "Be careful, and don’t drive too fast."

"I’ll try not to," she smiled. We stood there looking at each other for a moment, trying to think of something else to say that would put off the inevitable for a few more moments. Finally, she gave a big sigh, reached out and put her arms around me, and I got mine around her. Yes, we kissed, and it wasn’t a little kiss, it was a long one that went deep. I really didn’t want to let her go after that, since it was the first time she’d really kissed me and it was a powerful one that we both knew was going to have to last for a while.

I don’t know how long we stood there hugging and kissing but it was not a short time. Finally, we broke apart. "Mel, take care of yourself," she said. "I’ll see you in the spring."

"If not before," I told her. "You take care."

She got in the car, closed the door, and waved at me. I gave a little wave back at her, and just watched as she drove off. Pretty soon the red and white Studebaker turned a corner and was gone, leaving me standing there alone.

Not too long after that those of us who weren’t too hung over to drive loaded up, started up and headed north. Scotty and the New Jersey guys left us at that point, taking Buck home with them. That left the rest of us a little on the thin side, hangovers or no.

As always it was a long drag northward, taking two days and part of a third. The drive was made longer, if anything, because a lot of it was a route that was new to us, up through Nashville and Louisville, rather than the familiar route further east. For some reason I’ve never understood, a strange route always seems like it takes longer to drive, and it took even longer this time, mostly because we weren’t heading someplace new – we were heading back to Livonia, and to what promised to be a very dull winter.

I didn’t get very far north before I was kicking myself for even agreeing to winter over in Livonia at all. It seemed to me that if I had played my cards right and thought about it a little, I could have been in Ft. Lauderdale with Arlene – probably not staying with her, but at least close to her. With the winter to work with and the rest of the guys not around something might have happened. That kiss that we’d shared outside the motel that morning seemed to be sticking with me for some reason.

We were all pretty tired and ready to stop when we finally pulled into Herb’s in Livonia, but at least it was good to know we were back in what passed as home for several of us. Of course, we’d talked it around quite a bit back on the road, and had worked out that Dewey, Rocky, Pepper and I were going to share an apartment, which Vivian found for us, of course. In fact, it was pretty close to the one we’d had the winter before, although on the ground floor rather than upstairs. We stayed in our usual tourist court the first night, then the next day took the pickup out to Frank’s uncle’s to retrieve such furniture as we had left there from the winter before.

We were short a bed anyway and one of the mattresses had been chewed up by mice quite a bit, so Pepper and I claimed higher status because of our season finishes and took the two decent ones, while Rocky and Dewey hit the surplus stores for old Army cots. Looking back on it, I’m not sure that they didn’t get the better part of the deal because those mattresses we had left over weren’t exactly in good shape and pretty lumpy, but at least they were bigger than a cot.

Vivian had lined us up a different warehouse this winter. This was on the small side and again we had to leave most of the cars on the trailer for the sake of room. The big news was that this place had an honest to Pete coal furnace and the guys working there were at least going to be something resembling warm, which was more than could be said for the winter quarters the last few years. It took a few days to get stuff set up, and of course I pitched in with that. Since we literally had not touched the 53 car after it got done with its summer rebuild, we just put it up on the trailer and left it there – it was the only car that didn’t get the usual major winter rebuild.

Once again, most of us that were staying over the winter and didn’t have any place else to go went out to Chick and Hattie’s for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a pretty good one, and it was nice to see the kids again. Hattie was pregnant again; they’d decided that they were going to make one more try for a boy. Chick was fairly busy with his automatic transmission work; they were still fairly new at the time and not the most reliable things you could ask for. He already knew his way around Ford automatics, and with Herb’s blessing had agreed to go to the GM school to study Hydra-Matics and other GM transmissions. I always figured that was because Herb was always feuding with the local Chevy dealer, and it would embarrass him pretty good for someone to have to go to a Ford dealership to get their Chevy fixed. Chick was also giving some thought to seeing if he could manage to go to the Chrysler school, too.

As soon as Thanksgiving weekend was over with and the guys were set up in the shop pretty well, I put on my suit and headed out to look for substitute teaching work. As always, it wasn’t hard to get, and I started getting calls right away. It turned out that one of the schools where I substituted had just hired a new auto shop teacher that summer, and I was told that if I’d been around I could have had the job. There was still the possibility that it might open up again, because the principal I talked to gave me the impression that they weren’t all that thrilled with the guy they hired.

Teachers back in those days didn’t make all that much money and I was probably earning more racing, but I was told that there was a teacher shortage brewing as the schools started to fill up with the kids of us World returning War II veterans. They didn’t call it the "Baby Boom" then, but that’s what it was. You wouldn’t have thought that it would have affected high school teachers at that point, but it did. From what I could make out, high school teachers were getting shifted into teaching lower grades, so that made things a little thin at the high school level, as well. I was also told that there were not a lot of certified teachers running around that were qualified to teach auto shop, so that got my attention, too. If I was ever going to get out of racing and into teaching in high school, it looked like it was getting to be time to be thinking about it. Maybe next summer, I thought, I’d actually take up my annual threat to take off the summer months and look for a job. Of course, I suspected that when the time came the thought of it would never cross my mind.

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