George Singleton tells of adventures in his brother's 1933 Chevrolet

A 1933 Chevrolet sedan.

(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 “A car was a prized possession in early days,” was originally published in the June 27, 1991 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

The youth of today don’t realize how lucky they are to have places to go and a means of getting there. They jump in their own personal automobiles and speed down to the beach or to some movie a hundred or so miles away. This is an every day affair.

It was not this way when I was growing up. If, by some miracle, a young teenage boy had the chance to use the family care (if his family had one), he thought he was the lucky one. And if this happened, he always had strict orders to carry someone else with him, usually his best friend and his date, if his friend could get a date.

My brother, a few years older than I, became the proud owner of one used 1933 Chevrolet sedan. Many times I marveled at this fine piece of machinery and wondered how it would feel to go on a date without the worry of having to be asked by a friend to go along as filler personnel, to use an old Army phrase. If there were more than two in the auto, there would be no under-the-moon parking or holding hands.

I never did understand why my brother had a change of heart and let me use his most prized possession. But one day he informed me that if I would help him do some things he needed to do, he would let5t me borrow his fine automobile for a night on the town.

A night in Sweet Water was like howling at the moon. There was nothing to do other than gather some friends and go to a special spot on a nearby large creek, build a fire and tell tall stories. I was given special orders by my brother that I was not to drive his care more than 20 miles that night, not even a trip to the nearest movie in Linden some 22 miles away. I also had to furnish him with a list of my friends who were going along so he would know who was in his car if it got damaged.

Nevertheless, I was so excited about using the car that I complied with all his instructions. The last order of the day was that I had to have his beloved vehicle back home no later than 10:30 p.m. 

It took quite a bit of doing to get everything lined up for this exciting night. The group consisted of my date and two other couples, six in all. Our dates were to spend the night with the girl who lived the closest to save mileage. My two friends had to get to my brother’s house the best way they could; this, too, would give us more mileage to ride around and see the sights.

The night was young as the six of us sped around town so that everyone could see us and know we were wheeling and dealing. As the mileage began to build up on the speedometer, we knew that things had to slow down or we would be out of luck before 10:30 p.m. We decided to go to the favorite spot at the nearby creek and do some socializing.

The night air was hot, and the full moon’s light cast shadows through the tall timbers on the creek bank. As the clouds moved across the face of the moon, the darkness would creep over the area for a few seconds, and then it would get light again as the moon moved from behind the clouds.

With all the windows of the auto rolled down, a cool breeze helped make the crowded vehicle as pleasant as possible. This was the night to be alive. How lucky could one get? Good times were with us, and it was only 8 p.m.

About a mile from where we were parked, there lived a family who had a middle-aged lady among them who was feeble-minded. This lady would, at various times, run away from home and hide in the woods. When this happened, the menfolk of the area would be rounded up and all would spread out and search the wooded areas until the lady was found and brought home.

Everyone in the group knew about this lady and the circumstances of her running away from home. But no one, especially myself, gave any thought to the matter. Not tonight anyway. Tonight was special, a night to have fun and be jolly.

As we sat joking and laughing, I was in the driver’s seat with my left arm resting in the open window of the crowded auto. Just as a cloud moved across the face of the full moon, someone or something stuck its head inside the window, right beside my face, and screamed the most chilling sound I have ever heard, before or since. Words cannot describe the bedlam that took place inside that 1933 Chevrolet. The six teenagers inside went totally berserk.

Finally, I regained enough control to get the car stared and began backing up the narrow road at a much too high rate of  speed to a place wide enough to turn the vehicle around.

Amid the screams and hollering, I missed the spot. Down wen the rear wheels in the soft, sticky mud of the ditch. As the frightened young ladies screamed at the top of their voices, three young boys, frightened totally out of their wits, picked up the rear of the Chevrolet and sat it back on hard ground.

As we turned off the creek road, onto the main road that would carry us back to Sweet Water and home, three men flagged us down and asked if we had seen the feeble-minded lady they were looking for. We all stated that we believed  we had. Almost surely.

(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, was bitten at least twice by venomous snakes, 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.)