We played Georgia that year and went down in a terrible defeat...0-14! Although I'm sure the team and the diehard fans were devastated, most of us were there for the on-going party! But as all good things must come to an end, we had to head back to cold, frozen Missouri....and end of semester exams!
We did have a a couple memorable experiences on the way home! We drove North on the Gulf side of the state and the pure white sand beaches of the Gulf drew us to stop one more time! We knew when we left that we were going to want to, so we started out in our swimming suits, everything packed in the trunk of the car. We stopped just North of Miami and frolicked for an hour or so before dragging ourselves away. When we went to get into the trunk for our change of clothes, we discovered the lock to the trunk was rusted tight! Nothing to do but pile in the car and head North...the coastline back then was not nearly as populated as now so we had to drive quite a ways before coming to a town.
When we first stopped at a filling station, we were told they could get into the trunk but would ruin the lock in doing so; that a dealership (I don't remember what make of car it was...a late 1950's big four-door something!) would be able to get it open with no damage. As the car belong to the parent of one of the girls, we felt obligated to continue North until we found a dealership!
We were now approaching one of the country's first toll roads, which we got on with advice on where the nearest city with a dealership was located. Again, I don't remember where, just that we were heading North...in our wet swimming suits...and it was getting colder! When we finally came to a place big enough to have dealership, we pulled up to the toll booth to turn in our ticket and pay...no automatic tolls then. And, funniest thing! We could not find our ticket! Rather than hold up the line, the attendant had us pull over on the side to look for it.
We turned the car inside out and never did find that dumb ticket! The attendant finally let us pay and go on through! I think he was feeling sorry for us, shivering in our now dry swimming suits...Northern Florida can be pretty chilly in January! We finally made it to a dealer, got the trunk open and got on our way back to school!
Of course, we had lost precious time with all our delays so we really couldn't do any more stopping except for gas and potty breaks. Mizzou had a policy called "negative hours" to encourage students to return to classes on time after holidays. Say for example, if you were to receive three credit hours for a class, and you missed the first class after a holiday, the school could give you only two hours credit! None of us could afford to have that happen so, by golly, we made it to all our classes! We may have been total zombies in mind, but our warm bodies were present!!!
Oh, and Missouri did redeem themselves the next year by returning to the Orange Bowl. They played Navy that year and won....21-14! I did not attend that game; I wa not at Mizzou that year...more on that later in future memory posts!
Great story. Reminds me of the time four of us flew back from Cancun in our bathing suits. We thought we could access our luggage before the flight - not so. Clearing customs in New Orleans in the middle of the night was an interesting event.
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