Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

This is a tale of two mischievous and bored Somerville kids back in the late 70’s.

The year was 1979 and the month was January. I was working at a foreign auto dealership delivering parts. I bought an old Toyota with a bad motor for pretty cheap money and a mechanic friend of mine rebuilt the entire engine. It was a 1972 Toyota Corolla with a manual transmission.

My friend Jay was a cabbie and we met for a Saturday lunch. We were always hatching little schemes and devious plans but a Florida trip was never mentioned. Sunday came and went as we were spending a boring day in Somerville. I picked up Jay early in Monday before work. But I never made it to work and neither did he. It seems we both looked at each other and blurted out, “let’s go to Florida.” It was the height of spring break and we were going to attend.

I called my boss at the car dealership and told him I was quitting and so did Jay.

The next step was trying to come up with some money. I had a few bucks stashed away. Jays mother gave us a jar of change.

We filled the gas tank and headed for interstate 95 south. We were on our way.

I had been doing the driving because Jay didn’t know how to drive a standard stick. Then we had the bright idea to switch while driving. So, on busy 95 south we switched drivers. He came over to the driver’s seat and I slid over to the passenger side. It was pretty dangerous but we swapped places without even slowing down.

We decided to drive through the night. We stopped at Daytona beach. We drove the car on the beach and it was so cool that we recorded the experience on a portable tape recorder. For years afterwards we would listen to the tape and laugh our butts off. God knows where it is now.

 We met a girl named Hillary who brought us home to meet her parents. Two bearded longhaired hippies. We enjoyed a few delicious meals there and made some friends.

The seats in a Corolla go all the way down so we slept in the car.

We had a lot of fun partying with the Spring break people. We hung out on the beach all day while keeping an eye on our finances.

We managed to save enough money for gas.

For at least 20 years there has been a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil in our medicine cabinet. The smell reminds of laying on a Florida beach without a care in the world. I loved Florida so much that I moved there in 1986.