It was early May and the Fort Lauderdale Easter break madness was, at last over, and the long hot, humid South Florida, summer was just around the corner.
Now summer time in South Florida creates a major change in everything. Most of the huge winter tourist influx just disappears. In fact the population diminishes close to fifty percent. Most East coasters and Mid westerners can't handle the oppressive tropical heat and humidity. Also the population of annoying and biting insects multiplies. So they go back home to New York, Buffalo, Des Moines, or Detroit and the like. This relieves the locals from crushing traffic and over crowded, stores bars and restaurants. It also means that restaurants and bars business slows down and there are fewer hours to work.
We were sitting around an outdoor table where we lived at the Palms Motel, Next-door to Earnie's Booze & Bar-B-Que. Me, Kevin, Twig, Victor and a new guy to the group Bob.
The palms was an old time 1950's style motel. A large grassy area surrounded by little bungalow rooms, It was inexpensive, Family owned, clean and right next to work.
I was hanging out before my evening shift in the kitchen at Earnie's.
Bob was telling us about How much money could be made working in the tobacco fields in Kentucky.
"Hell, during the summer when they harvest the tobacco you can make big bucks." Bob said.
"So why aren't you up there now?" Kevin asked.
"It is a might early but come June I'll be on my way, he said. "You guys should check it out they are always short of workers, you can get hired no problem."
"So where exactly in Kentucky is this?" I asked.
"Just about any where in tobacco country, But the best I've found is a place called Midway Kentucky, Lot's of tobacco farms there. It isn't too far from Lexington so you can get into a real city if you need to get out of the rural Deep South for a while" Bob said.
Kevin and I looked skeptically at each other but filed away the information for possible use. I got up and left for my shift in the kitchen at Earnie's
A few days later Twig and I were talking and he mentioned that a girlfriend he and I knew, Robin, was actually going to the University of Kentucky and she had female roommates so we could we would have someone to visit if we decided to go work in the tobacco fields.
Well that was an interesting development as she was not unattractive at all. In fact she was very intelligent and just crazy enough to be considered beautiful.
Something about beautiful, crazy women.
So May dragged on crowds at Earnie's were diminishing. So Kevin and I were joking about going to Kentucky and getting rich in the tobacco fields. We talked to Bob a few more times and he was preparing to go north.
Keven had this cool ford van that could fit a bunch of guys and he seemed willing to go see what we could see. Twig liked the idea of getting out of town for a while. I think he was wanting to see Robin (although he would never admit it).
Victor was the youngest, he was the cousin of one of our favorite waitress, Annie, at Earnie's. Vic had been sick from too much heroin he came down to Fort Lauderdale to get well and dry out. He was from "Hell's Kitchen in New York City not the greatest place on the planet. Because he was Annie's cousin we sort of took him under our wing to keep him out of trouble. Not that we were any way great roll models at all but we weren't shooting smack and never would. Vic was not working and because everything was slow employment was too. He needed money to live on as we all did. So one day we loaded up two cases of Bush Bavarian beer. Piled into Kevin's van and headed north, 1,036 miles to Kentucky. It was the 1970's and I had long hair, a Fu Manchu mustache and an earring so I refused to drive through Georgia (To me the red neck capital of the world) I hid in the back of the van. So that no Georgia local cop or state trooper would see me and hassle us. I didn't come out until we crossed the Tennessee border.
Of course two cases of beer didn't go very far with four strapping young men. So the only stops we made was for fuel, beer, and food, mostly beer. All in all the trip was petty uneventful. Route went through a lot of green farmland. Not like the wide open spaces like the west I am used to. We stayed pretty hammered for most of the thousand miles. It wasn't until we got to Midway Kentucky that the fun began.
First thing we did was find Robin's place in Lexington. It was an old victorian style house Robin had one roommate Named Julie she was nice, pretty, a bit on the chubby side. Well Tig and Robin went right to renewing their hot and heavy friendship. The rest of us checked out Lexingtom checking in to a few local drinking establishments. Turned out Kentucky drinking establishments were pretty much like Florida drinking establishments Which was fine by us.
Robin's house had an empty room so we were welcome to crash and rest up from our alcohol fueled trip. We barely saw Twig for a few days. Julie had a cat that had a liter of kittens a few weeks before we arrived. We started a game of tossing kittens down the hallway into a pile of blankets. The kittens loved it and it cracked us up. Once we swung open Robin's bedroom door and found Twig and her in flagrante delicto with Twig on top. So we tossed several kittens on and between them. To say the least Robin failed to see the humor of the situation. She started yelling at Twig which really cracked us up and got us to laughing almost uncontrollably. Twig called us some kind of mother fuckers while trying very hard not to laugh out loud himself. The game continued until one of the kittens died. Needless to say that ended the game. Julie was very upset, not mad, but really sad and crying. I felt a bit guilty and bad for her. So I went into her room and we talked for a long time. Well one thing led to another and flagrante delicto.
We figured we had done enough damage so we headed out to find Midway Kentucky to make our fortune in tobacco or "baccer" in the rural Kentucky vernacular.