Chapter 34

The fair season rolled onward. As always, I loved running those big, wide fairgrounds tracks and we put on some darn good races. That fall I was having a good year on them. I think I won about a quarter of the races, Arlene won about that many, and Buckshot was right up there with us, which amazed all of us. Still, everybody got in the money that fall, and if memory serves me everybody on the crew won at least once. That meant that we were having some real good racing, and there was a lot of three wide and four wide racing, which was always sure to get a crowd on their feet. There were not many complaints about our putting on a dull show.

Like previous years, we were back and forth across the area, on the move almost every day, mostly in states touching on the Great Lakes, but getting outside them a little, too. There were some chilly nights and some warm ones, some rainy nights and some clear ones. As the leaves began to turn, our range was a little farther south than it had been earlier in the year, and I remember it as being a nice fall.

Eventually the fair season began to trickle to a close. It didn't come all at once, but as October wound down we started having a day or two each week when we weren't running at a fair, and sometimes not running at all. Once again, Carnie had talked Frank and Spud into a post-fair swing through the Deep South, and this time we went a little deeper than we'd gone in the past – clear into Florida, in fact. It would have been tempting to just stay the winter down there, but I knew that Frank wanted to get home to Vivian, and there probably wouldn't have been enough racing for us to go all winter.

One significant thing came out of that swing: Arlene decided to spend some time looking for a place to winter over, where she could get a nurse's job in some hospital. She usually got up in the morning and headed out on her own to drive by hospitals and do whatever it was she was doing; she'd join up with us at the track we were running that evening. We were down not too far north of Miami someplace a week or so before we were going to be ending the season when she showed up at the track, looking pretty happy. "I found a job," she told me.

"Well, that's good news, I guess," I said. "Where at?"

I wasn't surprised that she found a job – it's something that's usually pretty easy for nurses to do wherever they're at. The problem was that sometimes they didn't pay an awful lot, especially in those days. I had sort of hoped that she wouldn't be able to find anything, and that she'd wind up spending the winter in Livonia with us. However, I knew that it was a lot to hope for, and wasn't likely to happen.

"Fort Lauderdale," she replied. "I've had a couple other offers, but there was always something wrong with them, like they wanted me to promise to stay there long term or the pay was nothing much. This is a pretty decent hospital, and they're willing to wait until we wrap up the season."

"Well, good deal," I told her, trying to mask the disappointment that I felt. "They got a place for you to stay?"

"No," she said, "But I met a nurse there that I used to work with in my early days in Korea. She and some other girls have a three-bedroom apartment and they need someone to share with, so I'm going to stay with them for a while."

"So, the big question," I asked, "Are you going to come back and run with us in the spring?"

"I'm planning on it at this point," she nodded. "You never know what's going to happen, but unless something unexpected comes up I plan on being back."

That made me feel a little better. "I know I'll be looking forward to seeing you again," I told her. "You'd better be planning on writing to me and letting me know what's happening with you."

"Oh, I'm sure I will," she smiled. "And you'd better plan on writing to me, too. Mel, I have to tell you I'm not all that sure about this. I want to spend at least one winter where it's warm, but I'm going to miss being with you guys. I'm especially going to be missing you. You've become too good a friend to just walk away from and never think about again." She let out a sigh and continued, "I thought about going back home for the winter, but I decided against it. I still think my father thinks of me as his little girl and isn't ready to let me grow up. I just don't want to have to deal with that. At least if I'm in Florida I'll be far enough away that it'll be a legitimate excuse to be gone. I might have a harder time putting him off if I was in Livonia."

"I'll give you that," I told her. "I only met your dad that once, but he seemed pretty full of himself."

"Well, he was," she shrugged. "He actually is a pretty decent guy, but he's just a little protective of me. Damn it, I'm a big girl and I'll do what I want to do."

"Can't blame you for that," I nodded. "You know my story, I've been down that road."

The last few days of the season we started working our way up the back trail. We headed through northern Florida, then out the Panhandle. We wound up our season running at Pascagoula, Mississippi, along in the middle of the month.

Since Pascagoula was a little far west to go back north through Chattanooga, and since Arlene was going to be leaving us and heading back to Florida, Frank arranged for us to have our post-season dinner at a steak house in town. It was a pretty decent place, but I thought that the steaks had been better the past years at the place in Chattanooga.

"Well, once again we had a pretty good season," Frank told us after the dinner. "We made out pretty well, and without a lot of problems, except for Junie and Hap as well as the 53 and the 57 getting torn up back in the early summer. That turned out to not be a total loss, since it led to our having Arlene with us most of the year. She really added a lot of interest and excitement to the season, and at the same time I think she helped steady us down some and give some exceptionally good shows, especially this fall. Arlene, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we're hoping that you decide to run with us next spring."

"I'm planning on it," she told Frank and the group of us. "You've all been nice to me; it's been like having a whole pack of brothers. I've tried to not drag you down too much and make a pest of myself, but I'm grateful for all the help that everyone has been."

As always, Frank had kept the season standings pretty close to his chest. Well, that's not quite right; I don't think he got around to actually adding up the winnings until the last few days. Still, I wasn't surprised to be the MMSA Champion for the third year in a row, by a pretty good margin, at that.

Dewey wound up coming in second. He hadn't won a lot, but he managed a lot of money finishes, which start to add up after a while. What was surprising to me was that Arlene wound up coming in third, in spite of starting the season two months after the rest of us. She'd done a fair amount of winning, and had done a pretty good job of finishing in the money, as well. Frank came right out and said that if she'd started at the beginning of the season and run like that all season she'd have beaten me out for the trophy. I didn't see any reason to disagree with him.

We all sat around drinking after that, celebrating the end of the season, and we all got a little bit potted before the evening was over with, although everybody managed to stumble back to their motel room, a pretty good motel for once. I will admit to having a hangover the next morning and I wasn't the only one. However, I did manage to get up and make it to breakfast, which several of the guys didn't.

Arlene had managed to get up for breakfast, too. I sat next to her at a big table that only had about half of our group around it. There really wasn't much to say; she was going to get on the road for Ft. Lauderdale as soon as she was done eating and saying goodbye, while I would be heading back to the frozen north.