After our tour of duty in Argentia, Bob Makas and I were transferred to different duty stations; with him going to Bermuda and me to Eleuthera, one of the out-islands, just off of Nassau, in the Bahama chain. The Navy must have felt sorry for us, having spent the last year and a half in Newfoundland, which was, needless to say, quite a different climate than where we were  headed. We couldn't wait!

By that time, we had both been in the Navy for almost three years, having  met each other after boot camp, while attending Sonar School in Key West, Florida , after which we were stationed here in Newfoundland.
We agreed that we could save the travel money the Navy gave us if we drove home to Boston, instead of taking the usual commercial plane flight. That being said, and knowing the terrain, it was still a difficult decision for us to make. It would be five hundred miles of mostly unpaved roads through Newfoundland alone, where we'd meet the ferry, the MV William Carson, that would take us to North Sidney, Nova Scotia.
Knowing that Bob's '57 Chevy had a leaky radiator, and a heater that blew more cold air than warm, and us being young and foolish, we decided to give it a try, no driver's side windshield wiper and all.
The year was 1964, and the month of November was just about coming to a close.
What was there to worry about? After all...we did have a spare in the trunk, and jugs of water to keep the radiator topped off.
What were we thinking? 

So we drew our final paychecks, said good bye to our shipmates, stopped off at our old work station, filled a thermos with hot coffee, and started on our trek. Next stop...Port Aux Basque, Newfoundland...where we'd pick up the Willie Carson. Let's see...five-hundred miles. We're leaving at 0500. With a good tail wind, we should get there by midnight. After all, you're not talking interstates. That's why we gave it a realistic estimate. Again...what were we thinking?

Giving our final wave to the Marine at the main gate, and proudly showing him our transfer papers instead of the usual liberty card, we found ourselves waving to many of the native Newfies as we started off, going through the first part of our trip...that being the town of Placentia just outside of the base. We honked as we passed by Kellys - the local hamburger joint, where we spent many an evening, nursing our Coca-Colas for hours just to past the time. We could see a few hands waving at us from inside the picture window. Seeing that, Bob gave another few toots on his horn. Did they know it was our last drive-by? Probably not!  Things were good, and smiles were plentiful as we continued on through the familiar streets of Placentia. This November 30^th happened to be a warmer than usual day. The temperature was close to 35º. Our pea coats in the trunk, and even if we had the capabilities, there was no need to turn the heat on. Our navy issue dungaree shirts were more than enough to keep us warm. Like I said...things were good. 

Everything seemed to go downhill from there. We got our first flat tire  not 50 miles from the base.  It was a routine we knew well. Flats not being a rarity on these dirt roads in and around the eastern part of Newfoundland, we changed it quickly, without saying a word to each other...snow falling now, with a slight wind. Still being in familiar territory, we found a service station right away to have our spare fixed to get ready for the next flat.

To add to our challenges we also had to remember that we couldn't stop the car for more than an hour at a time for fear the engine would freeze. Remember? No antifreeze, and a leaky radiator.

Then, of course, the driver had to reach out the window with the detached windshield wiper to keep the snow from sticking to the glass. It was especially difficult in the middle of the night when the temperature would drop to below zero. 

Speaking of the middle of the night...we couldn't have been more than half way across Newfoundland when, three or four flats later, we stopped to get a bite to eat...each time, of course, hoping to find a nearby service station to get the tube fixed. I can't even remember the name of the town, but it was one of these mid-Newfoundland towns with one short main street, having no more than five of six small stores along old sidewalks. It was almost midnight and we stopped for two reasons. One was to get gas and some food, and the other was to get into someplace warm. We where freezing!

It was almost midnight when we pulled up to a greasy spoon, in the middle of the block.

Bob got two hamburgers and I ordered their hot, open-faced turkey sandwich. Sitting at the bar, and with nothing else to look at other than our ugly faces in the mirror, we watched the waitress as she prepared our meals. There was a couple sitting in the far corner of the room, who could have made up half the population of the town. With Bob's burgers frying on the grille and my turkey heating up on the stove...she walked over to us for small talk.

“You guys Yanks, aye?”

It was known that people could always tell we were Yanks because of our white socks. It could also have been that we talked funny.

She couldn't have been more than twenty years old...a cute little gal, with a strong Newfoundland accent.  One could tell, right away, that she was one of those gals who didn't know how pretty she was...with soft skin, a perfect figure and a face to match.

It wasn't that much after we told her we were headed back to the States, when she asked if we could take her with us.

“Right now?”We asked.

Without batting an eye, and just before she turned to run back to Bob's burning burgers, she said that she'd pay her share of the gas.

Sitting alone now, we looked at each other...and I think, both expecting to hear from the other guy, how crazy it was to even consider the offer.

Bob was first to make his thoughts known.

“Charlie, it is cold in the car. That would certainly take care of that situation.

We grinned, thinking. Then, turning in unison, and with her back to us, and as we were both watching her to make sure she didn't overcook anything.

“How do we get her across the border?”I'm not sure which one of us said that, but we both didn't like him.

Oh well...I still say it was a great idea. 

Our trip...or adventure, or bad decision, whatever you want to call it...proved to take a turn for the worse on this next leg. It was close to 0100 when we pulled away from the restaurant.

It was snowing heavily now. It was Bob's turn to drive.

Continuing on our way, and with our tummies full of that good Newfie home-cooking, we started to look for a gas station. She said the next town wasn't more than twenty miles up the road. The tank was a little over a quarter full. She told us there wasn't anything open close by, but to try the next town.

We found the road getting narrower  and narrower, with trees on each side looking like two solid walls of white trying to crush us between them. The drivable part couldn't have been more than a car and a half wide. There were no other cars in sight now, either way you looked. Ahead was complete blackness with that funnel of snow racing towards the windshield. It was almost hypnotic.

As if on cue, we turned and looked at each other, silently acknowledging that familiar noise coming from out front. It was a sound we both knew so well; the sound of tiny ice crystals hitting the windshield. Neither of us uttered one word as, in unison, we turned our heads back to stare out in front of us. The snow, mixed with invisible particles of ice now, was becoming downright unbearable.  We turned to look at each other again as we started hearing, like someone turned on a switch, the crunching of the front tires as they were breaking through that top layer of ice.    It was obvious now that the temperature was dropping quickly. With both of us leaning forward in our seats, our eyes squinting as if those few inches were going to make our view of what was up ahead...or wasn't...any better.

The heat wasn't working at all now, which also included the defroster...so we had to try not to breath too much for fear of causing the inside of the windshield to fog and ice up. Bob quickly made short of that problem when he opened up his side window so he could reach around with the broken windshield wiper to keep the sleet off. Needless to say, at this point, our Pea Coats weren't in the trunk anymore, and it was looking more and more like we made a bad decision about not taking the waitress along, as more snow and sleet fell. I'm sure we could have thought of something to say to get her across the border.

“Bob,”I said, “Do you think that waitress was kidding about coming along with us?”

“Not at all.” he said, “Are you crazy? She was dead serious. Who wouldn't want to get out of a town like that? Oh shit! It's starting to overheat.”

Bob stopped the car. He ran around back to get a jug of water in the trunk while I went and opened the hood. Putting a big rag on the cap, I opened the radiator just at Bob came around with the water. It didn't seem to take much, but we were glad...slamming the hood and jumping back into the car. It was still cold, but felt warmer just to get out of the driving snow and sleet. Our imaginary comfort lasted no more than a few miles when we got another flat. It wasn't only the wind-driven snow and sleet that made it more difficult to change the tire this time...it was the darkness out in the middle of nowhere. Think about it. Here we were, stopped in the middle of the road, changing a flat with no flashlight. It was my turn to keep my frozen hands from dropping the lug bolts into the snow. And it was now Bob's turn to sort of stand in front of the headlights while trying to reflect some of that light onto the tire, while I changed it. It always felt good, getting back into the car after one of our tire-changing episodes to feel the frozen warmth of the closed car.

That's when Bob mentioned a vibration he felt in the front end. “Something's going on up there,” he said. “Can you hear it, Charlie? Like a slight grinding, and I can feel a vibration in the steering wheel,too.”

I told him that all I could hear were the tires breaking that layer of ice on the snow.

Now to look for another service station before our next flat. While planning our trip, we should have taken our concerns of driving on worn tires more seriously. Somehow it didn't seem that important at the time. 

Just when we thought there was no chance of us ever seeing any signs of civilization again, we came to a building that ended up to be just at the beginning of another town. A small town, but a town just the same. It had a gas pump out front, but the building looked all locked up. We pulled up to the pump anyway, and that's when we saw a dim light in one of the windows in the house on the other side of the building. We hoped it was the owner of the gas station. It was Irving gas, a familiar and welcomed name to us in the area.

Long story short, we knocked on the front door. The guy not only filled up our tank, but he also fixed the flat. And at his suggestion, we even bought a new inner tube, believing him when he said that that one wouldn't have lasted one more flat. It was the trip's sixth flat tire, and actually, it was  one  more of eleven we would end up having throughout our adventure. After telling him of a noise we'd been hearing for the last fifty or so miles, he told us that our left front bearings were going, and wouldn't last that much longer. He suggested we stay the next day, but we told him we were on a schedule to meet the Willie Carson and had to keep going. Hopefully, we could get it fixed when we docked in Nova Scotia, or if we were lucky...in Port Aux Basque itself.

We were thankful for what he had done, but not surprised at all. We knew the character and kindness of these Newfoundlanders quite well. I forget what we left for our friend, but I'm sure it was quite enough to make him smile one of those familiar Newfie smiles. We loved these wonderful people.

Just think back home and I'm wondering how many people would have knocked on someone's door like that, or who would have answered that knock in the first place. Not on your life...for fear of your life. Maybe. Anyway...

Continuing on our way, we finally arrived at Corner Brook, a good-sized town on the north-west corner of Newfoundland. A little history and geography lesson here. We started out from Argentia, in Placentia Bay, in the south-eastern part. It was there that Churchill met Roosevelt to sign the Atlantic Charter...Churchill arriving on the HMS Prince of Wales to have the meeting with Roosevelt on the USS Augusta on 19 August, 1941. Actually, it was a plan for the post WWII settlement.

So that's were we started from, and there's no direct route to Port Aux Basques, which is on the south-west tip. Because of that, we had to drive directly north, then west...across the island, and over to Corner Brook, where we are now...turning then, directly south, and on to Port Aux Basques.

We found the road from Corner Brook to Port Aux Basques to our liking. All paved and a full one wide-lane each way. It was about 0730, and getting close to dawn. I was driving now, singing harmony to Bob's snoring.

I've heard that when one falls asleep at the wheel, that it's hard to say when the last moment of consciousness was. That's just how it happened that morning...and I will never forget it. I don't know exactly when it happened but I no longer could hear Bob's snoring. All I know is that things seemed much more pleasant than they had been the night before. There's no way I could have been aware of it but I'm sure I may even had a slight smile on my face as I was driving down that wonderful road at 60 miles an hour, in Bob's classic, turquoise '57 Chevy. I know, I know...it wouldn't become a classic for another forty years...but I was reeling in my joy then. At least give me that. It was a rough trip. My eyelids were getting heavier and heavier, and all seemed well. Everything seemed so peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, and I have no idea why, I opened my eyes.

Where was I? It took me a few seconds to get my bearings.

That's when I saw them. I swear they were there, walking across the street as bold as could be. Two camels, yes...two camels, meandering like there was no tomorrow, looking quite determined on getting to the other side of the highway.

I startled Bob. “Bob! Look at those two camels!”I felt foolish before I even finished that sentence.

Practically jumping out of his seat. “What? Camels? Where?”Then, turning quickly to look at me. “What!!?

I tried to make short order of the mention of my camel sighting, but he refused to let me forget about it for the rest of the trip. Wise guy!!

He did decide to change the subject for the time being anyway. “How are the bearings doing?”He asked.

“Not so good,” I answered. “They seem to be getting louder, especially in the turns when there's more pressure on them.”

We had no choice. We had to keep going. Another fifty miles and we should be at the docks. All in all, we were just happy to have survived the night. Things were looking up throughout those last few legs of the trip, even with those bad wheel bearings, because nothing could compare with with what we went through the night before. We felt lucky to have survived it. And it seems that the older I get, the more I realize, with passing years, that we should have been more worried than we were at the time. The ignorance of youth. It can be a blessing some time. That whole trip proved that, over and over. Youth? No excuse, we were both twenty two years old. 

It was early afternoon when the Chevy pulled into the town of Port Aux Basques. Driving quickly to the dock, we found that the Willie Carson wouldn't be leaving until 2300. That would give us enough time to have those new bearings put in. Sure enough...all worked out like clock work. One of the longshoremen told us where to go, and who to see. We found ourselves back at the docks at around 1900, just enough time to get in line, then drive the Chevy up the ramp, on to the Willie Carson and into it's slip below decks. Grabbing a couple of burgers, we sat out on the deck, near the bow and ate while we watched the deckhands get her underway. It was cold, but we were enjoying the fact that all we had to do for the next  leg of the trip was relax  while someone else did the driving for a change.  It wasn't long before we were in our cabin. Bob taking the upper, while I took the lower. Warmth. We both fell asleep, tucking those warm blankets under our chins, at about midnight, never opening our eyes until the ship's horn woke us up as it approached North Sidney, Nova Scotia. It was a little before 0700.

It was wonderful!

There wasn't a speck of snow to be seen as looked from the boat to North Sidney. What luck. This trip wasn't going to be half as bad, without snow to deal with. At least that's what we thought.

Bob and I noticed it at the same time, as he drove the Chevy down the ramp and onto the docks. We could see it, as we peered out through  the windshield. There it was...a single snowflake hovering above the hood, slowly descending. Sure enough, it landed and melted immediately as it came in contact with the warm metal of that turquoise hood. Although we somehow knew, we had no way of being sure that it would keep snowing, in different degrees, until we reached the New Hampshire/Maine border, almost one thousand miles later.

Driving through Nova Scotia turned out to be quite uneventful. Just two flats throughout the whole province. We did give ourselves a treat, stopping to eat in Fredericton. This time stretching the time away from the Chevy for at least an hour...all the time, worrying that the engine would freeze, even though we knew it would take a lot longer for that to happen.

We hadn't been out of Newfoundland in almost a year and a half so crossing the border ended up to be quite an occasion. Neither side said anything about the two full cases of liquor we had in the trunk. I think we were both allowed two gallons each, in one form or another. They went easy on us on that score. We had no passports. We knew they weren't needed. Our Navy transfer papers were enough to get us through. The next part, and what ended up to be much more of an occasion than we could have ever imagined, was driving from the customs booth on the American side, and into Maine. We spent the better part of the last two days looking for service stations. Every time we got a flat, our next priority was to get it fixed as soon as possible. There were times when we found one right away, and then there were times when we'd wonder if we'd ever find one, especially back in the middle of Newfoundland. Well, driving those few feet from the customs booth sure changed that. There they were...lined up like capitalism gone amok...and we loved it!

Esso, Flying A, Shell, Gulf, Amoco. You name it, it was there...and all in the space of a half a mile. We both laughed, and I'm sure thought it at the same time. “Good 'ole America! Our flat fixing worries were over!”

Maine was big! It seemed like we were driving through Texas. Here we thought that having crossed the border that Boston was just a hop, skip and a jump away. The rest of the trip would take us a good twelve hours. The only incident I can remember clearly on that leg of the trip was not being able to negotiate one of the steep hills we came to. Remember how I said it snowed from North Sidney to the New Hampshire border? Well, it really did. This event happened in the northern part of Maine. It was a traffic jam...maybe about eight or nine cars were all lined up in a nice little row, with people mulling around their vehicles, talking to each other. It was just a two lane country road, in the middle of no where. One lane in each direction.  It was snowing big, fluffy flakes now, with about two feet of old snow on the sides of the road, and four of five inches of hard car-packed snow on the road. There was no wind. The sun was trying to come out, but was barley being blocked by gray, glowing clouds.

We got out of the Chevy and walked up to the first car to see what was going on. LOL...it was our first contact with non-navy Americans we had in almost two years. Anyway, after a few hellos and 'what's going ons,' we saw what the problem was right away. We found ourselves looking down a long, steep hill. You know the kind. The ones where you can see that steep downhill slope in front of you for about a half mile, and you can also see, very clearly, the up-slope ahead for another half mile. It's all right there, in front of you... Well. The up-slope ahead was covered with cars pointing every which way, and in all sorts of configurations, trying their best to make that hill. You could see that a few of them were off the side of the road, up on the embankments, but most were on the road, with a few people also mulling around, also talking to each other. It was obvious that none, or very few, had made that hill. Just as we got to that first car, to see all of this...it started moving down the hill. I heard one of the people in the group say, “He'll never make it!”With another commenting, “He's got chains, he'll be ok.”

“We'll see,”the other guy said.

Looking more closely at the other side of that 'paved gorge', you could see how people were filling a small path, seemingly wide enough for a car. I remember clearly that this guy had a Buick Roadmaster. We all watched in silence.

Down he went, honking his horn madly as we anxiously watched the big Buick rapidly picking up speed as he progressed down that hill. The people on the up-slope seemed to all turn at once. Then, as if all on cue,  you could see them opening the path to let the big Buick through...maybe. It was racing straight and true, with no wavering at all. This guy was going to make it, if not by friction but just by sure inertia. He came to the bottom of the hill in full stride, looking like a steam steam-roller in motion. We could see the full top of the car now, as he started up that steep hill. We all held our breaths....halfway...a little more...his speed was still pretty good. We lost him in the overhanging trees, as he got three quarters up the hill, so now, all we could watch were the people on the other side, in the middle of their road now, with their backs to us, watching. We just knew that they were also holding their breaths, as they silently cheered him on.

It was simultaneous. Their arms all went up in the air at the same time. It was followed by our cheers...both sounds probably heard at the same time also.

Reality set in immediately after that brief celebration. Now! How were we going to conquer this hill?

Bob and I, along with eight or nine people, approached one of the few houses near us, at the top of our side of the hill. There was a dump truck, full of sand, with a plow on it. It seems they had been talking before about checking it out. Well, we found out that the guy had been plowing throughout the night and  most of the morning before taking a break. With a little coaxing, he finally came out and made a few passes up and down both hills with his plow lowered and his sander going full blast. It didn't take long before the hill was cleared of most of the snow and ice. I'm sure he wasn't on duty at the time, but he sure did make a lot of people happy that day.

Which leads me to take back a remark I made earlier, and say that there are also very nice people in the lower forty-eight, for sure!

Comparatively, the rest of our trip went very well, considering what we went through these past few days. 

We arrived at my house in Boston late that night. And for all intents and purposes, the Chevy did good. After all, amazingly, she got us  back safe and sound. We parked her in front of the house while we went in for some of my mother's cooking. After introducing them to my folks, and exchanging a few pleasantries, we took our first shower since Argentia, went to bed and slept warmly and soundly until well into the next morning. Bob Still had to make that two hour drive to Hudson, NY., so after a nice home cooked breakfast, I went out to the Chevy to bid my friend our final farewells. All our laughing and joking stopped at the sound of silence when he turned the key. What were we thinking? We pushed the Chevy to the corner service station for my friend to have a look at it. Yup! Those freeze plugs weren't enough to do it. The block was split. The Chevy had died, breathing it's last breath the night before.

Bob called his dad, right away, coming right away to pick him up.

Bob was glad. His dad's car had a good heater.

I spent New Years at home, and helped bring in 1965. After a thirty day leave, I went on to Eleuthera, where I stayed until getting discharged in June of '66. Bob went on to Bermuda, getting out at about the same time as me.

I never saw Bob again, after seeing him off, on the day he left my house with his dad. As things go, we went on to live our separate lives. I kept trying to make contact with him via the Internet, in these later years. I never stopped searching. There had to be some mention of Bob. I was determined to find him.

Finally, after many years of trying, on and off, to find him using different sources I finally found mention of his name, using a Google search.

Sadly, it was his obituary in March of 2010. He was living in The Villages, Florida...no more than an hour from where we now go for the winter.

I'm crying now, as I type this. 

 Thinking back, I often dwell of how that waitress issue could have gone if we had taken her with us to the border. I'm sure now that they would have done one of two things....maybe three things.

Sent her back on her own...had us drive her back...or maybe even put the three of us in jail until they figured out what to do with us, without causing some sort of an international incident.

• Never push down on the knee while trying to straighten the leg out those final few degrees (as the doctor ordered). . . without wearing a football helmet and hockey mask.
• When putting that pillow under her ankle, to straighten out her knee, never use one with a thickness of over one sixteenth of an inch, unless you have a clear escape path to the door.
• Pertaining to above. Never leave her crutches within arms reach.
• While doing the quad-lift exercises, never, never say "let's do it one more time," while her hand is anywhere near your crotch.
• In describing the knee, always pertain to it as 'swollen' and not, "I think your right knee is fatter than your left." (using the word 'swollen' is still borderline). Maybe, "your left knee looks thinner than your right." would be safer.

• Following her, on her walker, to the bedroom, never say things like, "Could you go a little faster? The commercial is almost over."
  

• While helping the operated knee up on the bed, make sure her other leg isn't, is not... between your legs

• Never say, "Are you drinking enough water?" If her glass is within arm's reach.
• While changing her dressing. . . Never say, "Wow, that's a big scar."
• If she wants to change the station.  Men...these are not normal times. Let her. Or, believe me...you will need a doctor to find the remote.
• When helping her put on her calf stockings...Don't!!
• While she's on a blood thinner, never say, "I'm going to have a nice big glass of wine."
  

• Ice packs for your forehead, and assorted bruises
• Dark glasses to hide your black eye....or eyes
• At least one arm sling...just in case
• Crutches...for you. Men will understand why it'll be difficult to walk
• Two bottles of wine
• One bottle of scotch, for severe circumstances
• Hide wine and scotch in the cellar