The year was 1961. The senior class was planning to hold a rummage sale on Saturday, the purpose was to raise money for our class. One of the proprietors in town granted us the use of his empty building for this activity. Our class spent weeks collecting clothing and other miscellaneous items for the big day. Since I lived in the country and my friend Camella lived in town, we had made plans for me to spend Friday night at her house allowing us to get an early start for the busy day ahead. On Saturday morning we got up early and we were excited about spending the day in town and working at the rummage sale with our classmates. It was a fun day, we had made lots of money and everyone was happy. It was around late afternoon when things started slowing down and the rummage sale came to a close. Camella and I headed for her house which was located at the end of Main Street. As we started walking up the driveway, we could see her Dad’s old green Chevrolet truck parked in the lot behind the house. Camella insisted that the next thing on our agenda would be to take a ride thru town in that green truck. I was all for this! Camella got the keys and we jumped into that truck, ready for an adventure. As we started down the street, I asked Camella “When did you get your driver’s license?” She said “I don’t have a driver’s license but I drive the truck around town all the time and it won’t be a problem.” She then proceeded to tell me that a State Trooper lived across the street from her but he never paid any attention to her occasional trips around town. I got a few chill bumps from that answer but we kept on driving thru town, taking mostly back streets (for the reasons stated above). We went chugging along the streets in that green truck, laughing, joking and thoroughly enjoying our outing, however, I couldn’t help but wonder if we might meet up with the Sheriff somewhere along the way, but at the same time riding around without a driver’s license really made the trip more exciting.

When we finally finished our ride, it was time to take the truck back and park it in the lot. When we got to Camella’s driveway, we wondered if we should park the truck or if we should keep driving down the road. If we continued, we would be headed down the Willow Bend road. All of our friends knew that you could not finish a day or a night out on the town without going down the Willow Bend road because, as you get further down the road there is a steep hill, and if you drive real fast and let your foot off of the gas when you get to the top, the car will soar, (for a split second) and land back down onto the road. It would take your breath away. We thought it was comparable to riding a roller coaster. The decision had been made. As we looked at one another, we agreed that we would indeed continue on down the road. We got to the steep hill as it was starting to get dark…it was always more fun in the dark…and we were flying high when we hit the top of the hill, the truck soared up and then back down onto the road…. we yelled and screamed, while loving every bit of it. We then pulled off the road and laughed and laughed, like we had done many times before and thought…..you absolutely can not have more fun than this!
We took the green truck back and parked it in the lot before her Dad got home and thru all of this adventure; neither the Sheriff nor the State Trooper was anywhere to be seen. It was great, we had experienced all this fun and it was our secret.

A few weeks later I went with Camella to the Police Department to take her drivers test….the trooper looked at her, smiled and said, “It’s about time you are making your driving legal”. It appears that he observed more than we imagined. As our story ends… we still enjoyed an occasional ride down the Willow Bend road until graduation day. Where else but growing up in a small community like Union, West Virginia, would you experience this much fun and be able to laugh about it years later?

Contributor to this story: Camella Bostic Stephens

Linda Elmore Cohernour
Class of 1961