Jerry Reed died this past week. While he certainally was well-known as a musician and writer, most people in our family are familar with him from the Smokey and the Bandit movies. Particularly the first one which I vaguely first saw at a drive inn movie (and considering the movie came out in 1977...I don't wonder if I was 7?) And saw again about a zillion times between then and about 1988 when I left for college. (Smokey and the Bandit and Karate Kid were dad's favorite movies for a while there...)
Besides the fact that mom had a somewhat big crush on Burt Reynolds and dad liked the car chases, my brother Jerry always had an affinity to Jerry Reed I think because not very many people had the name Jerry. In the era of Romper Room where you patiently waited for the woman to say your name, Jerry wasn't one that often came up.
We liked his character and in particular the East bound and Down loaded up and truckin' song (which we had a record of and played over and over again - of course that's probably the only song we played on that record.)
That movie also gave probably an unrealistic view of truckers. As a family who drove on EVERY family vacation, we became quite familiar with the truck stop. And on trips to florida, wisconsin, arizona we probably alternated eating at truck stops and stuckeys or ho-jo's most of the way. Particularly the DeForrest 76 Truck Stop and the 76 truckstop in Marrengo, IL.
As we got older (and infact up until a couple of years ago) most of the people in my family had CB radios in their cars. We knew the lingo. We had our channel. We had our CB names. We wouldn't exactly talk a lot on the cb radios but they did come in handy to know where the speed traps were on I-90 up through the Dells.
Cell Phones just don't do the same trick.
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