Michigan Trip

Michigan Trip

It was in February 1963 and one of my best buddies asked me to help him drive to Mich. to get his Medical Licenses. His nick-name was “Cup”. We both had to get someone to cover our call two days for the up and back drive.
We left St. Louis at about 6AM and sped up Route 66.
Now “Cup “was by far not the best driver but it was his car and he had the first leg driving. Through Illinois 66 is a four lane limited access highway with flashing lights, at cross roads. I was dozing and he was literally flying. I roused and up ahead I saw a flashing red traffic light. Since he was driving, I really kind of ignored it. As we rapidly approached, I noticed our speed did not diminish. Before I could utter STOP…….ERRRRUUUMMM! Through the intersection we shot. Me, literally soiling my pants. I said hey” big boy” you just ran a red light”, his response, “I thought flashing meant slow down”.
As we continued north it began to snow and there was snow from a previous fall on the road with patches of ice. Approaching the bypass for Springfield there was some road construction and a jog that had been there for a couple of years. (By the way his wife was from Chicago and he had driven this route a dozen or more times). When we approached the jog, I noticed that he nether slowed or appeared to recognize the turn. At the last minute I yelled”there’s your turn”. He hit the brakes and a Semi was approaching from the opposite direction. We did 180 missed the truck running it into a ditch and spun on to the ramp without him either slowing or looking back. I said you damn near killed us. He replied “I’m a drivin mutha-fucka ain’t I” At that point I said “get your ass out from behind the wheel”.
I then drove the remaining way with a stop over in Detroit to spend the night. We checked into a motel and I immediately opened a bottle of Jack Daniels that I had packed and drank damn near the whole bottle to calm my nerves. Cup still bemused by our harrowing experience sipped Jack and reflected on how his cat like reflexes saved us from certain death.
The next morning we drove up to Lansing to complete his licenses requirements and then headed back to St. Louis.


The return leg of our trip was more harrowing then the drive up. There was a blizzard warning for Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. The snow was coming in from Illinois as we set out for our drive home. We planned to use the Indiana Toll Road accessing US 66 in Illinois for our shot down to St. Louis.
Cup drove the Toll Road leg and as we approached the Indiana-Illinois border the snow had increased and was now blowing and the temperature had dropped to about 5 degrees and with the wind visibility was terrible.. The defroster was not keeping the windshield very clear and the washer was spraying icy fluid.
When we stopped to gas up on US 66, we asked the filling station attendant what should we do about the defroster and he suggested putting a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator so it would over heat and blow hotter air.
I took the wheel for the final leg home about 300 miles and 5-6 hours in ideal condition.
What was ahead was hardly ideal. About 50 miles down 66, the road was covered with an icy slush and snow was blowing across the highway making patches of white out. There were hardly any traffic and no trucks. We had to get back to St Louis and being young and fool hardy we decided to press on. There were times when we wanted to pull off to scrape the windshield but could not see the breakdown lane, so I drove on.
The wind was rocking the car but luckily the snow was icey fine and not accumulating, just affecting visibility.
When I negotiated the infamous jog at Springfield we were about 80 miles from home.
Then the condition got even worse, the road started to get slick and darkness was starting to fall. It was about 5 PM and this was February, so we would soon be out of any light.
Cup said what should we do, since there was no where to pull over and we still had those 80 miles to go. So “ I said lets press on, I’m going drive thru this mutha fucker as fast as I can in this shit and if the Lord lets me get back across the Veterans Bridge, the only time I’m going to drive is to an airport..... definitely never in a blizzard ”
And we just flew down the highway for home. I wouldn’t be writing this if things had turned out differently.
You may wonder why we would risk our lives in this situation. We were both Chief Residents at Homer G. Phillips Hospital where time off was restricted and we had taken time off with coverage but none of the staff knew we were gone, so we had to get back to relieve our friends and keep our asses from being A.W.O.L.