Recently I took pictures of two old Grand Dames of Belleville Avenue in Brewton Alabama.
Rankin street separates the two beautiful mansions.
In 1959 a big oak tree separated Rankin street just at the intersection of Highway 41.
Brewton, in the early days was home to the most Millionaire's for a town it's size in the country and is the county seat.
Timber was king here around the county at the confluence of Murder and Burnt Corn creeks. Brewton was born from this industry as the timbers were floated down to the Escambia River and on to Pensacola where it was made into lumber to be shipped all over the world.
Money rolled in, fortunes were made, mansions were built.
Now to how this all ties into my driver license tale, stay with me here.
A picture of the Escambia County Courthouse shows a Gothic structure. Built in 1901 and replaced by the current courthouse in 1960.
I was a senior in high school in 1958/59 and had learned to drive our old 1950 Chevrolet truck out of necessity several years before. Hauling on the farm, cotton, corn, potatoes, cucumbers, firewood, siblings, whatever. Daddy thought I needed to get myself a drivers license for legal reasons.
Daddy had allowed me to drive "Blue Goose" to the store up at the Barnett Crossroads and once out to Gilmore's General Merchandise Store in Wallace, several times to church and to Grissett Bridge to swim.
Not into town though, never on town streets.
I studied the hand book, I knew how to go from zero to 30 in about half an hour or five miles, slipping the clutch, stripping the gears, slamming on the brakes, whichever came first.
Ditches be damned, forward ho!
I had this.
Daddy and I went to the courthouse in Brewton. The place was so imposing and dark. It had grand old Civil War cannons posted at the grounds edge. The red clay bricks and turrets and wavy glass windows looked intimidating and a bit too judicial for my comfort.
The law always made me jumpy..........
"Why, I ain't done no crime"?
Daddy helped my find the right office. A hefty sized lady typed on a rickety old Underwood to get my pertinent's before mashing out her ash dribbling Lucky Strike in a cut glass tray on her desk as she blew a blue fog at me and Daddy.
I now understood why the walls were yellowing and the place smelled like Prince Albert and Cuban cigars.
Daddy said the judge smoked Cuban stogies.
How did he know that? Had my Daddy broken the law without me knowing?
Oh right, he once had to go before the judge because he set the woods on fire by accidental intentions......... way back.
We planned a burn on our woods, Pineview fire tower was notified, Daddy got anxious to get his burn on, set it, March winds got up and things went crunk.
Wildfires burned timber company woods.
Not good for my Daddy.
Timber Company brought suit against my Daddy.
Daddy's Masonic connections and the Judge's sympathy for all us children helped chink the gap.
That tidbit was overheard by this writer........................can't be verified.
"Any fool could tell you, God made the March winds blow hard, the winds made the fire jump over into the company timber ".
Anyway,
Hefty sized lady motioned me to follow her to the room down the hall where I met my driver license examiner. I think I remember his name as Mr. Rawls........................
Mr. Rawls had to be near retirement or his last nerve was shot from all the exams and near death experiences he had endured. He looked sallow, stooped and worn out.
He advised Daddy to sit in the hallway and wait for us to return.
Daddy looked worried.
He needed to be..........Blue Goose was all the transportation we owned.
As I walked away I could see Daddy enjoying his deadly affair with Prince Albert in that dingy old courthouse hallway.
I was worried.
Lawdhammercy, I needed to go.
Did this place have restrooms?
Big air intake.........
Not worried so much about the driving, but if I failed I could count on a lecture all the way back home.
I had to pass this..........................
"Lord Jesus, be kind today".
Examiner Rawls asked me a bunch of questions before he let me crank Blue Goose.
"Cha, chek, cha,chek, cha,chek and Check"
"Wonder what he is scratching off"?.
"Ok, drive to the street and go right".....................
I had the clutch down, I put the gear in low, I let off on the clutch as I stomped on the gas peddle.
And we were off .................to lurch and jerk up Belleville Avenue to Rankin Street.
Examiner Rawls told me to turn left on Rankin Street.
I stomped the brakes as I wrestled with loose motion in the steering wheel.
I turned off Belleville Avenue onto Rankin Street between those beautiful old mansions while looking ahead to see Rankin Street was divided by a BIG oak tree.
What on earth do I do now? A tree in the middle of Rankin Street?
I stomped on the brakes, clutch wasn't even thought about and the truck shuddered and lurched to a complete stop just at the pavement bucked roots of that tree.
I could hear my blood rushing through my ears.
"It is over".
"Please Lord, I'm begging here"..........
I cannot tell you how me and Examiner Rawls got back to the parking lot behind the courthouse, but after marking a sheet with the sounds of fingernails across a chalk board, Examiner Rawls told me to parallel park between two big old metal drums with stripes painted on, showing bents and dings on top of deep gashes.
" Huh, somebody sure can't parallel park".
I tried, I honestly tried to park that standard shifting, clutch slipping, choking down precious piece of family transportation and failed so completely.
My mouth was so dry I could not ask if I had failed my drivers test.
Examiner Rawls sat scratching on his clip board as his hand trembled with palsy or nerves, I'm not sure, but he finally looked up to say firmly,
" Miss Smith, follow me please".
I knew with every fiber of my being that Daddy was gonna throw a Smith fit all the way home.
My vision blurred..........
We walked into the hefty sized lady's office. Examiner Rawls waved me off to her and she made me a temporary driver license, then told Daddy I would expect to get the official one in the mail pronto.
Hefty sized lady never once talked to this applicant.
Daddy smiled and we didn't talk all the way home.
That was the most important document I ever earned in my life.
***The old Gothic courthouse was razed and replaced the next year.. 1960.
The big old oak tree has been removed from Rankin Street and paved over where it stood for so many years and that, in my opinion, is a shame, because it added something special to Brewton.
