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Memories of
Mattoon (continued)
7
Horse Sweat On
Leather
My paternal
grandfather, “Dad” Kerans, trained horses. More specifically,
harness racers. He did this up until he got cataracts so bad he
was virtually blind. Surgery to remove them didn’t help because
they didn’t have the technology to remove them back then as they
do now.
He kept a tack room
at the Coles County Fairgrounds which was within walking
distance of his and “Mom” Kerans’ house in Charleston. I loved
going there with him and watching him work the horses. Sometimes
my Uncle Shorty, who lived with his parents, helped “Dad” Kerans
when he had the day off from his regular job.
Hanging from the
walls of the tack room was an assortment of bridles and other
equipment used to train the horses. They smelled of horse sweat.
As I got older “Dad” Kerans would let me clean out the stall
that was home to the horse he was working with at the time.
First I would take a
pitchfork and clean out the old straw and horse manure and put
it in a wheelbarrow. For some reason I don’t remember where I
deposited the waste but afterwards I would spread fresh straw on
the dirt floor of the stall.
People who were
never fortunate enough to spend as much time in this atmosphere
as I was as a child often curl up their nose when I tell them
that to this day I love the smell of horse sweat on leather,
horse manure and fresh straw.
Left to right:
(kneeling) Fred Wright (holding "Duke"), Dave Wells. Standing:
Dick Shriver, Kenny Zike, Dave Nottingham.
8
The Rebels
I became fascinated
with cars at the age of nine or ten. It began on a Sunday
afternoon when one of my older cousins, Lowell Kerans, came by
our house to show Dad the 40 Ford he had just bought. It was a
model soon to become popular with custom car freaks and hot
rodders and remains so to this day.
I got a job
delivering papers when I was twelve and began saving for my
first car. At the age of fourteen I secured a better paying job
as a movie theater usher. Part of the job sometimes entailed
“manning” the concession stand selling popcorn, candy and sodas.
One night while
“manning” the stand I met an older kid named Dick Shriver. He
had already graduated from MHS and had an “adult” job with CIPS.
Dick and I somehow
became friends (he was a regular at the theater and always alone
it seemed) and he not only had a cherry Pontiac hardtop but the
most fantastic collection of 45 RPM records imaginable and
turned me onto radio station WLAC, Nashville, Tn.
I soon introduced
Dick to my best friend Dave Wells and two more of my friends;
Kenny Zike and Dave Nottingham. The five of us often spent hours
listening to Dick’s amazing collection of 45’s and cruising
Broadway and 12th Street up to Gill’s Drive-In at the corner of
12th and Dewitt and back again in a continuous loop on Friday
nights. It might have been Saturday nights or both.
Since that Sunday
Lowell came by the house with his 40 Ford I had been reading
every magazine I could get my hands on that had anything to do
with cars. I had my friends reading them too and “the world” had
also come to Mattoon by way of TV and movies like “Rebel without
a Cause.”
Flat top haircuts,
duck tails, flat tops with fenders (a flat top with duck tails)
and the “James Dean” style haircut and others were becoming
popular causing anguish among many parents. I was lucky because
my parents were cool and didn’t worry about my hair styles.
Before long it
seemed all teenagers were juvenile delinquents. The movie
“Blackboard Jungle” helped fuel that fire. Car clubs were
popping up all over the country and one of the popular car
magazines published an article about one club who was trying to
dispel this image. They would help motorists in distress and
give them a card identifying
their club. They asked the aided motorists to pass the word to
their friends that they had been assisted by members of the
club.
I shared this
article with my friends and we decided to form our own club.
And, even though we only had Dick’s Pontiac among the five of
us, “The Rebels Car Club” was formed. Mattoon’s first car club
with only one car among us!
We decided the red
“James Dean” windbreaker from “Rebel without a Cause” would be
our signature jacket though I don’t think there was ever a time
we all wore our jacket at the same time. I know of only one
picture of the five of us together and only Kenny is wearing his
red windbreaker.
I designed a
business-size card that basically stated: Rebels Car Club,
Mattoon, Illinois. No logo that I recall. At the bottom of card
was a three line statement: “You have been assisted by members
of this club. All teenagers are not juvenile delinquents. Please
share this with your friends.”
We then made it a point to help motorists in trouble when we
could and hand the driver our card. After several “assists” the
five of us discovered it was a rewarding experience.
Dave Nottingham
would be the next member to get a car. A 49 Mercury. A “James
Dean car”! I was next with a 1950 Pontiac and after throwing a
rod through the block I bought a 51 Chevy with glass pack
mufflers.
When I turned
seventeen I enlisted in the Navy. Just before my nineteenth
birthday I bought a customized 1950 Mercury from The House of
Hardtops in El Cajon, California. “The Rebels Car Club” had all
but ceased to exist by then.
Years later I would
find myself a member of The Road Regents”, a motorcycle club
that had started out as a car club about the same time “The
Rebels” came into being. They converted to a motorcycle club the
same year I bought my Mercury and three years before I would buy
my first Harley.
I don’t know when
Dave Wells and Kenny Zike finally got their first cars but it
doesn’t matter. We were “The Rebels”.
…dedicated to the
memories of Dave Wells and Kenny Zike, who would become the long
time chief of Mattoon’s Fire department.
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