U-Turn Laverne
The drive through the San Joaquin Valley favors Spanish-speaking evangelicals. From the bottom of the Grapevine to the City of Modesto, 95% of the 48 radio stations that reach this area broadcast in Spanish, religious zealotry or both.
Before the I-5 opened in the 1960s, driving to San Francisco on U.S. 99 took you through the middle of every hick town there was north of Bakersfield. The I-5 turned out to be a straight shot along the west side of the central valley that took far less time but provided drivers with fewer stimuli than a sensory deprivation tank. Driving alone to Munson's on the I-5 was a long and monotonous chore that always sent me searching the radio dial for a distraction.
Popular music has never had any appeal to me. In any other circumstance, it would be a toss up between listening to Cher for five hours and undergoing a colonoscopy. On second thought, schedule the colonoscopy.
On my trips north on the I-5, the only non-Spanish speaking and non-religious choices were two FM stations that played country music. One played strictly the latest popular stuff but I preferred the other station that played songs from way back when Buck Owens and Merle Haggard were doing their thing in Bakersfield.
There was a playlist of familiar songs that had been popular in their day that were played repeatedly. Once in a while they played one that was not on the list and in addition to being an oldie probably hadn't enjoyed great sales. A few of these really captured my attention and completely erased the drudgery of the ride. I couldn't care less about the melody mind you, but I really got a charge out of the lyrics.
Once or twice during these 12-hour round trips, I couldn't resist pulling off to the side of the road to write down the lyrics. I liked mulling over the words as I drove along and later, having committed them to memory, I would share them with Munson. My notes are long gone but I do recall a few.
- A duet about a divorced couple that now only glimpse each other once a week briefly across an IHOP parking lot when their kids are transferred between pickup trucks in line with their custody agreement. The ex-husband and the ex-wife each sing separate parts expressing deep regret, neither able to remember what led to the breakup. Although they both want desperately to get back together, neither says a word as they both assume their ex-mate has written them off. Was this Euripides in a trailer park or what?
- Sung by a hitchhiker trying to catch a ride north on a rarely-travelled country road in blistering heat. A stunning beauty with a lovely voice, driving south alone, stops and asks directions to the nearest cold drink. The Hitchhiker explains she need only go a mile more and pull into Sadie's Country Store and be sure to get herself a piece of Sadie's pecan pie. He tells her one last thing – when you leave Sadie's place, you can either make a left to get where you were going; or, you can make a right and it'll take you back here to me.
- A penniless drifter is hired mid-week and has to wait for his Friday paycheck before he can afford to eat. Working up to Friday he suffers through intestinal complaints and food fantasies. Come Friday end of shift, he races with paycheck in hand to the bank just as it closes. The song was written in the days when banks were closed on weekends, thus he has to wait until Monday. The weekend brings hallucinations of a sort where various inanimate objects look appetizing but prove otherwise.
- A mournful dirge sung by a cowhand who bemoans sleeping one off. Had he not slept in that rainy morning, and failed to meet his mama when she was released from prison, she might never have been hit by that train.
In among the songs, U-Turn Laverne would break in with traffic reports. The trouble spots she alerted listeners to were east of the I-5 usually on the narrow country back roads throughout the valley. The most common report was a blocked intersection involving farm equipment. Laverne gave the locals step-by-step instructions detailing the routes and maneuvers needed to bypass the situation. You never suspected that she was being handed sheets typed up by someone else. It always seemed as though she was just up the street from the incident. The clincher was when she threw in landmarks like, "turn left before the feed lot", or "take a right just past the eucalyptus grove". She also did 15 second spots for local furniture or tire stores in Los Banos, Wasco or Kettleman City. When she did the ads she would use the business owners' first names like they were family. All in all, she breathed some humanity into the endless nothingness that you were driving by.
I suppose it should come as no surprise that this valley would spawn writers of country song lyrics. Statistics paint a bleak picture for the valley as having some of the highest rates in the USA for crime, unemployed youth, high school drop outs and families living below the poverty level. Countless dogs abandoned by owners unable to feed them, run loose in packs and residents are discouraged from hiking, jogging or walking in many areas of the valley. The vast open spaces are suitable for prison sites which in turn provide needed employment so you'll find six correctional facilities along I-5 near the towns of Avenal, Chowchilla, Coalinga, Delano, Tracy and Wasco.
Seeing the town of Chowchilla spelled out on the highway signs never fails to bring to mind the 1976 kidnapping of a school bus driver and the 26 children that were his passengers. The kids aged 5 to 14 years and their driver were taken off a school bus in Chowchilla and transported in two vans to a quarry in Livermoore. The quarry was owned and operated by the family of two of the kidnappers who were brothers. The kids and the driver were forced down into a buried moving van until they were able to dig their way out and escape 16 hours later. The school bus driver through hypnosis was able to recall the license plate from one of the vans which led to the capture of the kidnappers, two of whom were caught trying to cross into Canada. In the aftermath, the children have continued to exhibit signs of trauma far into adulthood. Many lives were altered, some quite tragically.
The three kidnappers were men in their early twenties at the time from local wealthy families. All three were convicted and sentenced to life but the sentence was revised on the grounds that none of the victims met with physical harm. It is believed the kidnapper's plan was derived from a book found in the Chowchilla Public Library that includes a story similar in detail entitled The Day the Children Vanished. One of the brothers imprisoned for the crime was paroled in 2012; the other in 2015; and the third man has a parole hearing this coming fall. Since all three had local roots, one wonders if they are free to rejoin the community.