Jen: Route 66 Kicks-Santa Monica

"Why do you want to do this skinny dipping and why right now?"

"Because the moment is right and the person is right. What I haven't told you is I wanted to have a good fuck in Lake Michigan, which I did, and then drive Route 66 to Santa Monica and have another good fuck in the Pacific. Bookending my trip, so to speak. Only I have a feeling the bookend on this end of the trip is going to be so much bigger than the one in Lake Michigan that it will blow my mind completely."

"Oh you do, do you..."

And we were off and running. The sex with John did blow my mind, especially with all that food and wine. His tool more than satisfied me as did his hands and mouth. Apparently, my hands, mouth, and various other body parts satisfied John as well. At least we spent until the first rays of dawn, fucking and sucking in the water and in the surf or on the dry beach. As the first glow of daylight appeared, we decided it was time to put some clothes on and beat it back to my suite in the hotel where we slept between fucking and sucking for the next thirty-six hours or more.

We ended up renting a small bungalow in Santa Monica that we shared for four months of utter bliss together. We swam, surfed, played and fucked, not necessarily in that order, the whole time. Some activities we did more than others. I'll leave you to guess which ones those were. With no daily job grind, we lived a fantasy life of love and pleasure. But, someone once said that all good things must sooner or later come to an end. Things did end for us, rather abruptly.

It was on Monday of the first week of month five together. The afternoon was quite warm, so I sat in front of a fan which was sitting on ice in a large tub. I was reading a book. John had gone surfing with some beach bum buddies. I hadn't gone along for that reason but more so because I was by then obviously very pregnant.

I was aroused from my reverie of reading by the shrill buzzing of the doorbell. The man on the other side of the door was dressed in a blue uniform with a big shinny badge hanging on the front pocket. A policeman.

"Are you a Miss Jennifer Connelly?"

"Yes, I am. Is something wrong, officer?"

"I'm afraid so. Do you know one, John, uh, (he looked down at his notepad) John Daniels?"

"Yes, yes I do. What is it" What's happened?"

"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, Miss, but one John Daniels had an accident. He was seen by a fellow surfer following behind, to fall off his surfboard and the board came down on his head. He ws stunned or worse and apparently drowned before he could recover. I'm very sorry."

"OHH!" with a hand over my mouth was all I could utter at that point.

"That's not quite all, Miss. A shark alert was issued while he and his friends were on that last wave. The body of Mr. Daniels has not been recovered and likely never will be. Again, I'm very sorry, Miss."

"Oh dear God," I managed to get out that time.

"Are you alright, Miss?" he said that while obviously looking at my very pregnant condition.

"No, I'm not, but I'll be ok."

"Are you sure, Miss?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

With a last questioning look, the officer tipped his cap and reluctantly bid me good-bye and I slowly closed the door in his wake as he walked back to his squad car. I collapsed in grief into a large overstuffed chair. I just sat there, mute. Tears would not come. Not yet.

Two months later and still no body was found. And me? I still had yet to cry, but I had come to a decision. I wanted to return to Illinois. But, I was in no shape or condition to drive back in Miss Swifty. I found a car ferrying service that would haul Miss Swifty back to Illinois in an enclosed trailer. I booked a flight on a Boeing 707 to fly back.

I rented a comfortable apartment in the little town where I grew up, ten miles east of Peoria. I immediately reconnected with the only other member of my family left alive, Great Aunt Jane, sister to my mother's mother. She helped me through my miserable period of grief and helped me refocus my life, especially a few months later when I gave birth to John's child--a darling little girl.

Almost three years passed. I was nearly my old self again. I decided I wanted to drive over to Iroquois County, just outside of its county seat, Watseka, to attend a Civil War reenactment battle, one that would honor the women of the Civil War. The event would run Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, making a a nice, three-day weekend for me.

Since I'd long been a female activist, women's rights advocates, and whatever long before it became fashionable, that females in the Civil War topic was right down my line. Go, ladies, go!

The role of women in the American Civil War, especially of those who served in combat, had fascinated me for a very long time--ever since I'd come across such happenings in my American history class in high school even though it's a role most history books ignore. My teacher brought it up in a lecture. It was the story of one Albert D. Cashier, alias Jenny Hodgers, who lived her life as a male from a very young teenager until her death in an Illinois hospital in 1913. She had served with the 95th Illinois infantry Volunteers through most of the war years and lived out her solitary life as a man near Sauemin, Illinois until an injury forced her into a hospital and her true sex was discovered. He/she never married.

During the war and for some time afterward, it was common knowledge that women had disguised themselves as men to serve as combat soldiers. There were numerous reasons why those women did so.

I felt a kinship with these women who, rather than sit at home and complain of the role society had given their sex, took action and did something about it. To me, this was the importance of female combatants of the Civil War; it wasn't their individual exploits, but the simple fact that they did it--they fought as combat soldiers. Women served as combatants on both sides during the war. Estimates run as high as a thousand or more such women serving as soldiers.

Those women faced not only the guns of their enemy but also the sexual prejudices of their society. These women deserve recognition today because they were trailblazers equal to any Kit Karson or John Freemont. They weren't only ahead of their own time, they were ahead of our time as well.

While their service could not and did not significantly alter the course of the war, their contribution as soldiers demands and deserves recognition. The reenactment battle and program I was going to see would render such recognition and was the reason for my attendance at the event.

Anyway, there was a lot else going on. Besides the big battle reenactment scheduled for mid Saturday and Mid Sunday afternoon, there would be numerous programs on: Battlefield and veteran medical practices during the war, black powder weapons demonstrations, lectures about diets and cooking during the war, and of course, lectures on women in the Civil war. The reenactors set up an authentic tent encampment for the three days and a realistic suttler's store wagon was set up with real Civil war supplies and curios for sale.

As souvenirs, I purchased a recently cast lead Minnie ball and two belt buckles; one Confederate and the other U.S. Army. Anyway, it was one tired and dragging lady that checked out of the motel late Sunday afternoon to face the setting sun on the eighty mile drive back to the Peoria area.

Miss Swifty was in the shop for some work, so I was driving a rental car, a pretty little Chevy convertible, thoroughly enjoying the top down experience on a very hot afternoon/early evening. I took U.S. Route 24 straight across between Peoria and Watseka for the round trip. The sun was just over a diameter from setting when I reached Chenoa and the junction of U.S. Route twenty four and good old Route 66. The old Mother Road was a divided four lane and all lanes of both routes in all directions had to stop.

I stopped and then started across the northbound lanes of Route 66. An oncoming eighteen wheeler didn't stop. I saw a blinding white flare as the nose of that truck plowed into my driver side door...

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Yes, my mother, Jen, died that afternoon in that auto crash on Route 66 at the junction with Route 24 at Chenoa. What she saw at that last moment, other than the nose of that truck, I don't really know. Those last words are mine, not hers. The year was 1967, in the month of September and Mother was just twenty-seven years, nine months, and six days old.

Mother conceived on that first night with my father, John, whether in the Pacific as I like to think, or in the hotel later that night. I was born nine months later. I was raised by Mother's only other living relative, her great aunt, my great-great aunt. Just plain Aunt Jane. She was as much a free spirit in her youth as was my mother; they understood each other and t's why they got along so well. Aunt Jane lived to be an old woman--a very old woman and a spry one at that.

Since I was still a minor at the beginning of my stay with Aunt Jane, Mother's will left her entire estate, including all the family's substantial money and Miss Swifty. in a trust for me and to be administered by Aunt Jane. The car was sold by Aunt Jane, not my mother as I related in the story. At the age of twenty-one, I'd assume complete control of the trust.

Meantime, Aunt Jane was to be given a very generous monthly income while I was to be provided with a generous monthly allowance, provided Aunt Jane agreed to adopt and raise me. Should I not live to my majority, the entire fortune, including Aunt Jane's monthly stipend, would go to charity.

So, "What about the story," you ask. "Where did it come from?"

Mother's diaries, of course. She wrote in one every day of her life and in great, gory detail most of the time. She even wrote some pages on the Sunday afternoon before she left Watseka for home. I guess she wanted to write about the weekend while it was still country freshin her mind.

Those diaries were in a special large, locked trunk of their own. The key was in the safety deposit box in the bank and instructions were left with Mother's law firm that only I could open it and only after I had reached my twenty-fifth birthday. Should I not survive that long, the locked box, intact, was to be totally destroyed.

I first opened that box and read the diaries in 1985. I've sat on that fount of information since that time--until last year when I decided to tell Mother's story from her point of view, in her own words. Then I made another decision.

My husband died of cancer over two years ago and my only child, a daughter also, is married with her own family. So, I was, as some say, footloose and fancy free. I don't really know if anyone has seen the apparition of a young woman in a Corvette, split window coupe anywhere along Route 66 or its Interstate equivalents, but I'm going looking--looking for the ghost of my mother on Route 66. I've a brand spanking new, 2005 Corvette convertible roadster with the first Z06 package option available since 1963, sitting out front at the curb. She is Miss Swifty I and I leave in just a few minutes.

Yahoo! Go Swifty, go!

Finis

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