Singleton wrote that old-timey drivers needed both skills and desire

Hill between Monroeville, Ridge

(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Old-time drivers needed skills, desire” was originally published in the Sept. 4, 1975 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

In our fast-changing world, few remember about the road conditions that befell the local motorists of yesterday. We step into our air-conditioned automobiles and press a lever or push a button, and the auto goes along with little or no effort.

We travel our hard-surfaced roads with little thought about what it was like not too many years ago when one hit the roads of yesteryear with travel on his mind.

It took a pretty good judge of the elements for one to be a successful motorist. Not only did you have to be a good driver, but you also had to know how to fix a flat and how to make the necessary repairs along the way.

You had to know when a road was passable and when the time was right to try to climb some of the steep hills along the way.

For strong at heart

Such a hill was to be found near what is now Ridge Road, north of Monroeville. One can look for a moment at this hill and see the agony of trying to get an early-model automobile up and over it on a wet, rainy day.

This was a job for the strong at heart with a very great desire to ride – or an emergency that was of grave necessity.

Many of these hills that dealt the motorist untold hours of hard work and misery were named. They carried names most times that revealed their characteristics. Such names as Soaprock Hill, Bear Creek Hill, Limestone Hill, Pea Gravel Hill and many many more.

Since most roads followed the high ridges, there weren’t many miles of road that didn’t have a bad hill or two.

Back-breaking outing

What would start out to be a fine Sunday outing might end up being a day or two of back-breaking labor.

Try to imagine a family of three or four dressed in their Sunday best, out for a drive on a spring day.

It hadn’t rained for several days, so you anticipate another day of dry weather. As you jolt along, you keep looking over your shoulder at that thunderhead to the east.

Your visit at a relative’s is a pleasant one, and you forget to watch the clouds that have grown darker and darker by the hour. You are halfway home when raindrops the size of hen eggs hit the fenders of the Model T.

The rain continues to fall as you slip and slide from one ditch to the other. The added strain on the engine has caused it to begin to run hot. Steam vapor has begun to escape around the radiator cap, and Soaprock Hill is yet to be tackled.

As you approach the bottom of the hill, a small pain begins to climb your spine. You can see that you are the first to try the hill since the rain.

The high point of the road is near the middle, and you know that the least amount of pressure will start the car sliding to either side and the ditches.

A short distance from the bottom, the Model T begins to slide to the side. You cannot back up because this will carry you farther toward the ditch.

You sit there and try to keep the car from sliding while your wife, in her Sunday best, gets out in the mud and tries to push.

Closer to ditch

The Model T moves closer to the ditch. You yell above the sound of the engine and escaping steam from the radiator for her to get a chunk from the side of the road and put it behind the rear wheel. This she does – after falling down twice in her best dress and shoes.

As you walk the rest of the way home, carrying the sleeping children in ankle-deep mud, with a mad, mad wife following behind, you wonder if it is worth the effort to return for the car. Because it will take a day of sunshine on the hill and three buckets of water for the radiator before this marvelous invention can be returned to its rightful place in the shed by the barn, to await a loss of memory of yesterday’s happenings and to look ahead to another clear day.

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He also helped organize the Monroe County Museum and Historical Society and was also a past president of that organization. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)