Route 66 – Our Story
by Jack & Kate Scott

Well first off, this is a story that covers a period of some 40 years or more. How come? I hear you ask. What’s 40 years got to do with a trip down 66?

George Harrison	John Lennon

Well it all started in 1964 when a 13 year old boy went to a theatre in Blackpool – a holiday resort in Northern England - to see four guys who were to become probably the most famous rock band of their era.

That boy was me and that band were the Beatles. As I sat enthralled, listening to the band reel off their hits, I became aware of the unusual sound of their guitars. John Lennon was playing an American Rickenbacker - a very rare guitar in 1960s England and George Harrison was also playing a Rickenbacker – in his case a 12 string model. To this 13 year old boy, the sounds were astonishing. Lennon’s pounding rhythm backing and Harrison’s chiming 12 string had me hooked from that moment, I just had to have one or both of those guitars.

It became an obsession of mine to learn to play the guitar. Every teenager in England at that time wanted to be in a band. Some succeeded, most, me included, didn’t.

A Rickenbacker, at two hundred pounds was out of the question for a boy from a working family with enough money to put food on the table but very little available for luxuries, but I eventually came by a very battered Spanish guitar, which a friend was about to scrap.

He gave it to me and I re-fretted and re-strung it and taught myself to play. It was clear from the outset that I wouldn’t be making a living from music, but I persevered and became a passable player – at least to my ears. That guitar stayed with me for about 2 years, until at 16, I got a part time job at a local store at weekends and managed to save enough money to buy a brand new “guaranteed not to crack” Rosetti 7 archtop acoustic. I think it cost around 15 pounds – a lot of money for those days. That became my guitar for quite a number of years before I eventually grew up, lost interest in guitars and proceeded with my life.

Fast forward almost 40 years and we now have a 50 something man, who over the intervening years had owned the odd guitar or two, discovered he was no better a player than he had been last time he tried and sold them on. I never gave much thought to Rickenbacker guitars until a few years ago when some UK bands started to use them again - they’d been out of fashion for a while, certainly on this side of the pond.

Being a little better off financially as the years passed, I toyed with the idea of buying a Rickenbacker for quite a while but never actually got round to it until I discovered the wonders of Ebay, that American masterpiece that has to date cost me a small fortune. It’s also saved me a small fortune on stuff I’ve bought, but that’s another story.

Ok patient reader, we’re getting close to the Route 66 link. One fateful day in November of 2004, I was browsing Ebay looking for a new guitar. Collecting guitars had become a bit of a hobby due to Ebay and I had at the time accumulated about 10 of them. I love to pick one up after a day at work, relax and just play to myself. Yes, I play pretty badly it has to be said, but I find it relaxing and my wife Kate is very understanding about some of the noises I make.

As I browsed Ebay that night, I spotted a Rickenbacker 620 for sale (pictured). Christmas was approaching and the seller had photographed the guitar in a Christmas setting, with snow, red cloth, white fur – you get the picture – and it looked very attractive. The description said the guitar was unmarked and I placed a bid on it. I failed to win it but the seller had a 12 string version of the same guitar for sale so I decided to bid on that. Surprise surprise, I won it. I did the usual things you do when you win an Ebay auction and awaited the seller’s response. It turned out that the seller was from Texas and he signed his e-mail Jim Pettigrew.

Pettigrew – interesting, that was my grandmother‘s maiden name and a pretty unusual name it is too. I told Jim about it and he was very interested. We could be distant cousins, we both said, so we did some detective work. It turned out that one uncle of my grandmother had emigrated to the USA in the late 19^th century and possibly ended up in Texas. Armed with this knowledge, Jim and I exchanged photographs.

Good Lord! when Jim’s picture arrived in my inbox, it was like seeing my grandmother and father all rolled into one. The family resemblance was remarkable. To cut a long story short, over the next 3 months or so, I bought several Rickenbackers from Jim, the e-mails continued and we became firm internet friends.

I was aware of Route 66, even fascinated by it – I’d seen films, the odd documentary on TV, the song, but the idea of travelling to the USA seemed a daunting proposition. What are the Americans really like? Will they welcome us? Will we be safe? So we never really considered coming over. Then there was the seven hours on a jet without a cigarette, airplane tickets at 500 pounds (1000 dollars) each and the fear of the unknown.

Then one February evening after I’d “met” Jim online, a new series started on TV. It was entitled “Riding Route 66” and it was a documentary about an English guy flying to Chicago, buying a Harley Davidson and riding it along Route 66 to Santa Monica. The series lasted 6 weeks. It was compulsive viewing and at the end of it our minds were made up. We just had to go. We booked the trip for September, flying into Toronto so we could see a bit of Canada as well whilst we were that side of the Atlantic, then travelling by train via Detroit to Chicago to make our start on The Mother Road in our pre-booked hire car.

I contacted Jim with, it has to be said, some worries. It’s one thing conducting a relationship online – it’s quite another turning up on their doorstep with our bags. However, I wasn’t going to drive Route 66 through Texas, a mere 300 miles from them, without at least meeting our new family. We would stay at the HJ in their home town and call and see them on the way back home.

Jim would have none of it – we weren’t just popping in for an hour after travelling all that way. We would stay with them for a few days and they would show us the Texas lifestyle. The 24 ounce Texas rib-eyes and maragaritas he promised convinced us, so that was that.

So, September came and three days before we were about to depart, disaster struck. My father, aged 84 took ill suddenly and died. The funeral would be 3 days after we were due to depart. We cancelled the holiday immediately of course, obtained refunds on the tickets and rebooked the trip for a week later. My sister and I both agreed that we should continue with the trip and she also booked a break in Spain to take her mind off things.

We couldn’t duplicate the bookings we’d had previously. Trains were full, planes were full etc. at just a few days notice, so it was a case of get what you can. We ended up booking into Newark NJ with Continental and hired a car from Dollar Car Rentals at Newark Airport, intending to drive to Chicago and start Route 66 from there. Our trip would then take us down Route 66 to Amarillo, then we’d turn south through the Texas panhandle and join Jim, Penny and their two sons in their home town of Killeen.