In Wilmington, I can remember sitting on the carpet of the apartment, playing with a Hot Wheels car that had a Fire Bird painted on the hood. I mimicked the stunts that I saw on the show with my toy car.
As an adult, I now know that the Dukes of Hazzard was really not that great of a show. But I think back with fondness to it because of all the action and the colors of the show. I remember a promotional plastic cup that we got from either a gas station or a fast food restaurant that had pictures from the show on it. It was my favorite cup.
The Confederate flag is an offensive symbol to many people, much more taboo now than when I was a child. I venture to say that no major network today would pick up a show like the Dukes of Hazzard because of things like the prominence of the Confederate Flag.
As a child, I thought the design of the flag was fascinating, though. I can still remember the pretty blue bars with stars on the cup. As mom washed it again and again over the months, the dark blue became lighter, which I liked even better. It was probably the reason blue became my favorite color.
Luke Duke, one of the characters on the show, almost always wore a blue plaid shirt with blue jeans. Bo Duke, a yellow shirt with blue jeans. I was too young to appreciate the cut off blue jean shorts that Daisy Duke made iconic.
My favorite part of the show was the car that the Duke boys drove- "The General Lee." The General Lee was a modified orange 1969 Dodge Charger with the Confederate Naval Jack painted on the roof of the car.
It would be a few years later before I understood the significance of the car's name.
In 1982, my family moved from Wilmington, North Carolina to Augusta, Georgia.
We moved to Augusta when Dad became a pastor at a church there. The show was at the peak of its popularity. Here is a link to how the show came on each week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBlNNlSgxxE
I remember one of the church members had a replica of the General Lee, which he drove back and forth to the services. It even had the horn which played the first line from the song, "Dixie." He gave us a ride one day for a few blocks around the church, which I thoroughly enjoyed...
Over 20 years later, in 2006, I moved to Las Vegas. The apartment complex where I resided was in a high crime area, a couple of blocks east of the Las Vegas strip.
"East of the strip is sh*t!", one of the city bus drivers told me. My car insurance more than doubled when I moved there from North Carolina. The insurance agent said that the zip code in Vegas where I had moved, 89109, was the number two zip code in the country for stolen cars.
All sorts of interesting but shady characters walked the streets around my apartment, and at all hours of the day and night. I had to always keep my blinds closed, so that they could not tell if I was home or not. Otherwise, there is no question that my apartment would have been robbed on a regular basis.
So, it surprised me one day when I came home from work from the auto dealership where I had found a job and saw The General Lee parked outside the leasing office.
I immediately walked up to the car and began inspecting it. A young guy about my age, who turned out to be the owner, came out of the leasing office and said hello to me.
I told him about watching the show as kid, and he completely understood. If he was telling me the truth, the car was not a replica. The General Lee I was looking at was actually one that had been used in the filming of the TV show. He told me he had a certificate of authenticity.
The guy said he had bought it just a few days before moving to Vegas, and he was here hunting for a place to live. I can't remember how much he said he paid for the car, but it was over $100,000.
The doors were welded shut, just like in the TV show, and you had to climb into the car through the window. I remember that the interior was a basic white leather. I asked him if the horn worked, and he demonstrated it for me. He said the car had been jumped for one of the episodes, and the certificate of authenticity identified the episode in which it appeared. The jump broke the axles. We both crawled underneath the car and he showed me the points where the axles had been welded back together.
In our conversation, I advised him that this was not a good place to have a car like that. Almost every morning, I would go outside and see a car that had been broken into overnight, or had damage done to it like slashed tires or busted mirrors.
He said the insurance company would not let him have it on the streets anywhere in Vegas for more than two days. They simply were not going to insure it if he planned to be driving it around town. He had just got into the city. He was going to drive it for the two days, and then put the car in a garage.
I'm not sure why the guy moved to Vegas, or why he was considering living east of the strip, as he had the money to spend over $100k on a car, but I never saw the car or him again while I lived there.
As a child of the 80s, The General Lee, along with K.I.T.T. from the show Knight Rider, is one of my two favorite cars of all time.
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