"Riding to Marietta"

Back in 1972 and 1973 while attending Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio I used to "car pool" with a few fellow Marietta students during school breaks as I travelled back and forth from Simsbury, Connecticut to Marietta.

One trip I remember "Carl" who was also from Simsbury gave me a ride back to Marietta. "Carl had thick glasses and curly brown hair that sloped away from his head and was cut straight across at the end. Some of my friends at Marietta nicknamed him "Sphinx" due to his hair style. Carl had a driving talent where he could drive along the highway going about seventy miles an hour with no hands by steering his car with one leg by guiding the steering wheel with his knee while he fished in his pocket for a cigarette and lit his cigarette.

Another ride to Marietta a student named "Dave" gave "Carl" myself and another student a ride in his blue van during a winter break from Connecticut back to Marietta. I met "Dave" in West Hartford off the highway and we proceeded on our road trip. We ran into a snow storm while traveling through Pennsylvania on the Pennsylvania turnpike and only one lane was plowed on this highway as we travelled through the heavy snow. I remember that I was in the back of the van lying down on a small cot while listening to the song "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Group coming loudly through the van's speaker system from "Dave's" tape deck. All of a sudden the van left the plowed part of the highway and did a slow complete circle through the snow off the road as we ended up facing the plowed part of the highway just as a huge tractor trailer truck roared by just missing the van.

Listening to "Frankenstein" and spinning through the snow just missing a huge truck was a scary scene. Our guardian angels pulled us through and we proceeded on our way to time honored Marietta.