Was the Murderer Coming for Me?
Summer. Iowa. Loose Ends. That was me in my younger years, before I went to the Philippines to teach in August 1966.
With a couple of teacher friends, I went to South Dakota one summer to see Mt Rushmore. A long drive from Mason City but well worth it. Those faces are so huge, so impressive. This was before Hitchcock’s ‘North By Northwest’ hit the movie screens. Otherwise, I’d have been looking for that house where Cary Grant tried to rescue Eva Marie Saint from James Mason and friends.
On the way back to Iowa we stopped in Mitchell to see the famous Corn Palace. Considering how much I wanted to get away from so much corn (and also snow), I’m surprised at how interesting it seemed. even though at that time of year the corn wasn’t even knee-high yet. How did I forget how boring long car trips are?
In the summer of ’66, I was preparing to go to the Philippines to teach. But not until the end of August. When Georgia, my college roommate from a couple of years earlier, called.
“Feel like a little trip? There’s not much going on this summer.”
“I have a big trip coming up, 8,000 miles to be specific! What do you have in mind?”
“I need to go to Albuquerque for an interview.”
Georgia had been teaching at a high school in Illinois. She had recently married Dale, a math teacher. He had decided to go back to school for a master’s degree in engineering so he was considering various universities. High on his list was the University of New Mexico. Georgia then applied for a teaching job in Albuquerque: the school asked her to come for an interview. Hence the proposed trip.
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“Sounds like a neat idea, I’ve not been to New Mexico. OK, let’s do it.”
Why not? I couldn’t do anything except pack for my year-long trip overseas so maybe that would be a nice diversion. Why was I so willing to go? It would be so much farther than that drive to Mt Rushmore was. I guess I hadn’t yet learned how much I didn’t (and still do not) enjoy car trips, at least not by myself.
Georgia, her mom Kay, and I headed out one fine July day. With three drivers it was not too tiring to drive many miles each day. We stopped somewhere the first night, getting to Albuquerque the next day, June 14. I suppose we looked around Albuquerque a bit in conjunction with the interview and decided to head home right afterward. Then we heard the horrible news. A man named Richard Speck murdered nine student nurses in Chicago last night! Everyone was horrified, almost impossible to believe such a terrible thing.
We decided to head back to Iowa right away rather than stay another night in a hotel in Albuquerque. Amarillo, TX, was our choice for the night so we checked into a motel, tired from the driving and also the summer heat.
But the TV interrupted the sleep plans, at least mine. The evening news was not good. This killer was believed to be heading toward Texas where he had lived in the past, and possibly to the Amarillo area! ARGH! How quickly could he get there???
Can you imagine what an awful night I had then? I must have slept some, but not a lot I’m sure. We found out later that he did not even leave Chicago.
I don’t know about Georgia and Kay, but I still remember it as one of the worst nights of my life.
