THE EARLY YEARS
It was a dark and stormy night ----- or is that too cliché??!!
I don’t know what the weather was like, nor know that I ever heard (I certainly didn’t care!). But I do remember being thrust into this world, although at the time I didn’t know what it was I was being thrust into.
I don’t understand how people don’t remember the biggest event in their lives. And then, because they can’t remember, claim that nobody can! Why do people impose their own limitations on others.
So that’s how it started --- with a smack on the ass. A rude awakening, welcome to the world.
I can’t tell you how boring it was to be cooped up in a basinet. All one can see is the padded sides and the ceiling. Usually in a dark and quiet room because someone figured babies needed their rest. Not much to stimulate the intellect there! The occasional relative would stick their face in and scare the bijesus out of me. That was good for a rush! I think that’s where I got hooked on adrenaline.
One day I found my hands! I had noticed them flying around from time to time, but it had not dawned on me that they were mine. I was amazed! It was like having a new toy. Probably my first. I could finally scratch my own nose. I poked myself in the eye a few times before I got good at it.
Moving into a crib wasn’t much better. At least I could see out, albeit from behind bars! I could launch my bottle at my sleeping parents to show my displeasure at having to suck air when it went empty. I only did that once! That is when I got my own room.
Dad would come home from work, and mom would make dinner. We’d sit at the kitchen table, with me in my highchair at mom’s right hand. I could understand what they were talking about, but when I wanted to add to the conversation, all they did was laugh and “goo-goo” back at me. I got frustrated and pitched a fit. They thought that was funny. I picked up my jar of baby food and launched it. I hadn’t meant to, but I gave mom a black eye. I should be thankful I didn’t get two in return!
The lower kitchen cabinets intrigued me (the upper ones were out of reach). I would open the door and drag out the pots and pans. I thought it was interesting the way one fit inside the other, and lids would fit on top. Mom probably wished I would spend more time with my own toys as she was the one who had to put the pots and pans back.
Mom would take a piece of paper and cut wavy lines in sort of a spiral, getting smaller as she reached the center. She would give this to me as a loose pile and let me put it back together. It was much more interesting than the pots and pans. Maybe that was the point!
Then I got building blocks. What a treat those were, stacking them up and such. What was really cool was the way I could use the ridges to lock on another and build cantilevered structures, or use the letters on the sides to make words. Those were way cool until I got a box of Lincoln Logs!! Those kept me occupied until I got the ultimate --- an erecter set! I thought I was getting into some really serious construction. I grew up to be a bricklayer.
Learning to walk was fun. Potty training, not so much. I couldn’t figure out what was expected of me. I do remember one time on the potty chair when I sprayed pee out over the seat, much to the chagrin of my mom and aunt, who were trying to make me understand the proper way to pee, and keep it in the bowl.
First Christmas was a blast! When it was over, dad hauled the tree out to the side yard and lit it off. After several failed attempts, a bit of kerosene got things going --- in a big way. The red lights and sirens were pretty exciting for one who is nine months old! That was the last time we had so much fun with a Christmas tree.
First birthday was an event. Grandmas, grandpas, aunts and uncles all at the dining table, with me at the head rather than tucked near the security of my mother’s right hand. Here comes mom through the kitchen door carrying a flaming cake (at the time I didn’t know what candles were), at which point a chorus of “Happy Birthday” was bellowed out. It was all too much commotion for me (I thought I might be torched next --- remember the Christmas tree?). I started wailing, and generally pitching a fit.
When it came time for my second birthday, I knew what was coming, and started wailing as soon as my highchair was parked at the head of the table. I don’t think I had another birthday party until I was nine
Sis was born when I was two. I pitched a fit when I saw her being breast fed --- those were my groceries she was horkin’!
When I was about three, I wandered off and found a new friend. We went down to the railroad yard a few blocks from home and were having a blast watching the steam locomotives chuffing past.
Then dad found me and tanned my behind. That’s when I learned about not crossing the street. They thought I had been kidnapped.
Winters in Wisconsin are cold! Mom would dress me in layers of clothes, topped off with a snow suit, hood tied tight, boots, and all the accoutrements. I looked like the Michelin Man. She’d shoo me out the door to play, but all I could do was stand on the porch with my arms straight out from my sides, unable to move, wondering what it was I was supposed to do now.
I thought being a kid was the status quo. Then dad’s twenty ninth birthday came, and I was told that one day I was going to grow up and be a big person too. I was a bit worried about that, ‘cause I didn’t know the first thing about being a big person. That bothered me for years. I’m still trying to figure it out.
Dad had a wheelbarrow. Not the kind with a metal tub and a pneumatic tire. His was wood, with a steel wheel and spokes. I would sit in it with a grip on the gunwales. He would race me around the yard, banking into the corners and through hairpins, making roaring engine and squealing tire noises at the appropriate times. I would be laughing the whole way. It’s probably where I got infatuated with racing.
At three years old I figured I had walking down pretty well, but stairs were still a challenge. I somehow knew that flat footed one step at a time wasn’t the way it was supposed to be done. I guess my folks figured that as long as I was walking, I could figure out the rest on my own. I happened to be out in the yard one time when the paper boy, who is big people to a three year old, came and I noticed that he bounced up the stairs on his toes. What a revelation! I tottered on over there and gave it a go. I amazed myself on how well that worked. I turned around at the top and figured that if you went up on your toes, you must go down on your heels. There I went, ass over tea kettle face down on the sidewalk. I remember dad holding me over the bathtub as I watched my blood running down the drain, mom screaming at the bathroom door, and dad trying to get a scissors in my mouth to cut off a flap of skin he saw hanging loose on the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t going for it, and thankfully, he was unsuccessful. I still have that saliva gland.
At three and a half I got it into my head that I wanted to run away and announced my intentions to mom who accommodated me by making a sandwich, wrapping it, putting it in a bag, and sent me on my way with good tidings. Now, I wasn’t allowed to cross the street (remember that part?), so when I got to the corner, all I could do was turn right. Down a block, and another right, and so on. Just about the time I thought I was as far from home as I’d ever been, I found myself back home!! Quite a revelation (another of many). I wonder if Magellan felt the same way after traveling all that way, just to find himself back where he started? Not much left except to go inside, tell mom I was back from my great adventure. She sat me down with a glass of milk to have with my sandwich. It’s always good to get home.
I still remember the address. 625 Pacific. How about that.
Dad came home with a swing set. We put it up in the side yard which seemed huge to me at the time. Had great fun. I went back many years later to find it wasn’t much bigger than a postage stamp. A lesson in perspective.
One day I came home and asked Mom for a straw. I explained that Mikey Crow was using his to suck water out of stagnant puddles when he got thirsty. I got a lecture, Mikey got dead. My first lesson in mortality.
At four, I started afternoon kindergarten. It was only a block from home, so I would walk with other kids doing the same. One of the older kids showed us how we could peel used gum off the sidewalk and have a free chew. I came home with a wad. When I explained to mom how I came to have a mouthful of gum, she had her fingers in my mouth extricating the foul stuff and taught me how to gargle. After about three doses of mouthwash, I had it down pat. No more free gum for me!
Dad was always fixing things. When I found a dead, and somewhat flat, bird in the street, I took it home so dad could fix it. Mom freaked, and I found out that dads can’t fix everything. My second lesson in mortality and learned that even dads have limitations.
Mom would take me down the street with her to the corner market for whatever. All I understood was that we went there for eats. Once, when I got the urge for a snack, I waddled on down there and grabbed an apple. When I got home munching on my prize, mom was, of course, curious. It wasn’t long before she was marching me back there with a nickel to pay for it. My first lesson in economics.
Mrs. Dewey, a neighbor, would listen to Orel Roberts on the radio, and eat crème puffs. She was an old maid. I didn’t know what that was.
An elderly couple lived across the street. I called them grandma and grandpa, even though they weren’t. They were old, and I guess that qualified them. She gave me cookies, he teased the hell out of me. Old guys seem to be somehow good at that. Maybe that’s why I did the same to my kids. Still do.
Mom broke a thermometer one day. Mercury. She let me play with it. I remember rolling the little balls of metal around in my hands. Fascinating for a kid. We didn’t know the dangers then, and it had no bad side (shudder) side effects.
I was afraid of the basement, and boogeymen. Still am.
The streets in town were lined with huge trees. The day the city crews came to trim them, I got myself dressed and ran over to get a closer look. One of the workers pointed out that I had my shoes on the wrong feet. I was all proud of myself for knowing how to tie them, I didn’t know that there was a right and a left. It never dawned on me. I thought maybe he was pulling my chain (like the old guy across the street) and ran home to ask mom. By golly, he was right!
The ragman came by once a week. An old, stooped over slender sort. He had an old, swayback horse, and a wagon. People would come out and give him whatever scraps of cloth they had. He would sing a ditty which I don’t remember. I only remember the “RAGS” part.
Grandma and grandpa (the real ones) still had a victory garden across the street in Two Rivers. We would pick whatever was ripe and take it back to the house for dinner. People continued to barter chickens and pigs and such.
Grandpa worked during the great depression. Fifty cents per day. They had bought a house for five thousand dollars, and worried about how they would make the payments.
Seems like whenever we would visit, the first thing you’d notice when you walked in the door, was the aroma of chicken soup. (yum!)
I would wake up, at five or so in the morning, when grandpa would go down to the basement and stoke the fire. The grates would rattle, and he would shovel more coal before thumping back up the stairs I still remember the sound of that basement door closing. We had an automatic stoker at home. It was a luxury. A modern convenience.
Hanging screens in the spring, and storm windows in the fall was a ritual. We don’t do that anymore. Used to be a festive occasion, the changing of the seasons. I miss that.
I would sleep on the porch in the summer. The church bells would toll on the hour. I miss that too.
Grandpa rode Harleys way back when. He lived in Mishicot. When he was still dating grandma, she lived in Two Rivers, a town seven miles away. One weekend he went to pick her up for a dance with the sidecar attached. Back then, the procedure was to line the sidecar and motorcycle up and drop in a pin to hold things together. With granny aboard, he took off for the dance. It wasn’t until he got to the dance hall, and put down the kickstand, that he realized that he had a sidecar when he left grandma’s. The pin rattled loose, and the sidecar parted ways with the motorcycle! He had to back track and retrieve her from a hayfield. Must have been quite a ride. It’s surprising they still got married.
Dad was riding motorcycles when he was dating mom. He never left her in a hay field.
Grandma was always smiling, grandpa was grumpy. Maybe he was still paying the price.
THE MIDDLE YEARS
I finally learned how to ride a bicycle. I think I was the last of my friends to do so. Such a feeling of freedom, to be able to go miles (blocks?) with so little effort. Then I learned how you shouldn’t pedal when you are going flat out, leaning over hard in a corner. Fortunately, I didn’t break any bones, but I still have those scars. I learned what a butterfly bandage is.
I was about nine when dad brought home a motor scooter. Not a fancy store bought piece, just a simple pipe frame, centrifugal clutch, and two tiny tires. The engine was in a box. He said I could ride it when I got the engine back together. I would work on it after school. It was finally together. I didn’t have the bolts and such to mount it, but I didn’t let that stop me from starting it. I noticed that it kind of danced itself across the floor when I revved it up. I thought to myself “I can ride that!”!! So I hopped on and rattled my way around the garage. Everything was fun, until the spark plug wire came off. That’s when the fun stopped! I got 20,000 volts shot through my gonads. There’s a buzz kill for ya!
When I finally got it together I would ride it around the yard. Round and round the house. It got to where there was a dirt track in Dad’s prize lawn. Carefully watered and fertilized. He also had a Magnolia tree he covered and kept warm with a light bulb in the winter. He said do not turn his yard into a racetrack. Keep the bike off the grass.
A friend I hadn’t seen in a while came by. He wanted to see how it ran. One more time won’t hurt, right?
Out in the yard I go. Going to make it look real good for my bud.
I come around the side of the house all hung out sliding sideways. I was lookin’ good!
And then not so much. I got a bit crossed up, went off my line, and slid sideways across dad’s magnolia.
Took it off at the root.
When dad got home that evening I was wearing my football helmet. Hoping to avoid a concussion while he wore out a baseball bat on my head.
He didn’t, though. I think he might have been happy to be done with the damned thing.
There was a goldfish bowl in my bedroom. It, of course, had goldfish. They would come to the surface when I fed them. Not exactly a tail wagging, but it was something.
Sunday school started when I was in third grade. The nun was teaching us about God and Moses in the desert, and manna from heaven. The similarities were obvious to me and my hand shot up. I propounded that we were no more than goldfish in a bowl and nothing more than pets for a being that we could no more understand than me trying to teach a goldfish how to ride a bike. Oh, the blasphemy!! That nun came swishing down the aisle between the desks, already swinging her cords and put knots all over my head! That’s when I still had enough hair to hide such things. I didn’t bring that up ever again! (Although it still seemed to me to be a valid concept)
Anybody who thinks that humankind is the ultimate life form is just simply arrogant.
In fourth grade we were learning about the cosmos. The teacher was explaining the classes of stars. She said the coolest were the red giants, and the hottest were the blue. Well, I had an astronomy book at home that said the hottest were the blue-white, and let her know the error she was making. I found out that teachers don’t like students who know more than they do.
Having not learned that lesson well enough, the next year in fifth grade, the teacher told us that the tachometer on an airplane tells the pilot how fast it’s going. After a futile attempt at explaining how engine revolutions do have a relationship to how fast the airplane is going, it depends on the pitch of the prop for one, and that air speed doesn’t necessarily tell you how fast you are getting someplace, I got to stand by myself in the hall while she finished her erroneous tutelage. That question was on the test, and even though I answered it correctly, she still marked it wrong. She had a grudge on me for the rest of the year, and just my luck, I had her again for another year in sixth grade. She still held the grudge!
College was much the same. Professors do not like students who are up to date on science and willing to correct them during their lectures.
I had one tell me that maybe I would like to teach the class. I was on my way to the lectern when he tossed me out.
UWM, I heard, had a particle accelerator. Smashing atoms sounded like fun. I talked to a counselor about what I wanted to study. He said they wouldn’t be able to offer a course on that for another few years.
So much for that!
While going to college, I worked at the local Square D factory. For a while I was in a department with several others assembling electrical components. Their lives revolved around their two week vacation every year, Mork and Mindy on Tuesday night, Laverne and Shirley on Thursday, and gossip. That gossip was occasionally about someone who had quit and moved, usually, it seemed, to California or Florida. They would all “tsk- tsk”, and say what a mistake they were making. Then, when someone showed up back at work after failing to make a go of it out there, they would look around, smugly nod their heads, and say “see what happens?”. I wondered though, what happened to those that didn’t come back?
So, being young and impetuous, in 1971 I took off for Florida.
FLORIDA
Oh Lordy!! I was so homesick, I spent that first six months saving money so I could move back to Wisconsin. I finally had enough and headed “home”. I spent about a week there, and wondered “why did I ever want to come back here?” I returned to Florida and haven’t looked back. Wisconsin was a great place to grow up, but there is a whole world of new experiences out there!
Florida is where I ran into Jack (now dead), who had a machine shop and was building motors for IMSA driver Vince Giamondo (the winningest driver on the circuit for several years). Things were very different in the pits in those days. We (the pit crew) wore street clothes. It looked like a redneck firedrill when Vince rolled in for a pit stop! (Now that I think about it, that was a pretty accurate assessment!!)
Jack was a former drag racer and was one of the group that started racing what came to be known as funny cars. Jungle Jim Liberman, Don Prudhomme, Fred Sibley, Arfons Bro.s, and others. We became friends and partnered in several ventures. He hadn’t raced since he crashed and wound up in the stands several years earlier. I convinced him to get another car and go racing again. We got an alcohol funny car and had at it. We did well with it and later got a fuel car.
We were touring the car in Indiana, and stopped to see Jack’s old drag racing buddy, that same Fred Sibley. Fred was assembling a new chassis for his next jet dragster, and there was Jimmy Diest himself sewing up harnesses on Fred’s sewing machine! Anybody who has raced knows that name He still did that!! If you don’t know why that was impressive, it would be like going to a friend’s house and seeing Wolfgang Puck cooking dinner!
I got to exploring around the shop and environs. In the back was Fred’s old T-Bucket with some V-24 WWII fighter engine for motive power. “Does it run?”, I asked. “It did when I parked it”, he said. Well, it wasn’t long before it was out in the street, laid down two black patches the length of the block, and back in the garage. The acrid tire smoke was still hanging in the air when the local gendarmes pulled up in front. Of course, all the neighbors were out by this time, and none had to point fingers for the cops to know who was the source of that window rattling performance! Every town has that somewhat harmless half crazy guy. Fred was Elkhart Lake’s. After stern admonishments, and promises not to do it again, (again), they left us to our wiles.
That very car can be seen in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pPiKl6gWQY
Never could learn how to swim. I’m one of those people that floats like a rock and is
always on the bottom of the pool. I could jump off a diving board and make it back to the side of the pool, but that was about it. My kids were junior lifeguards in Malibu. They didn’t get that from me.
I couldn’t swim very well, but I did learn to SCUBA. A friend, Doug (now dead), was a diver and taught me in a nearby lake. I was never certified but enjoyed diving whenever the opportunity arose.
I was laying block on a job in Winter Garden when a wall fell on me and broke my back. The doctor said swimming was the best therapy for recovery. Doing laps in the pool got to be boring. I was sniveling at the shop about it. Jack said we’d go swimming, where swimming is fun. We loaded the boat and took off for the Bahamas.
We pulled into the marina at the Jack Tar Village. An exclusive resort at the time with a hotel, exclusive shops, and restaurant. We didn’t fit in at all with the celebrities and upper crust enjoying the facilities, so, that evening three of us went a ways down a dirt road to a native village. A real native village. No white people. None. Everyone was black.
Really black…..
Not brown, nothing sporty like pecan tan…...
Black!
There we found a friendly bar where a dozen or so locals were enjoying beers and a soccer game on the TV above the bar. They also had a pool table. We proceeded to play pool with the locals, loser buys the beer. They had bought us four or five rounds before one of them tore his eyes off the TV set and caught Rick slapping a ball into a pocket with his hand. The previously friendly bar suddenly became hostile. We had to bail out in a hurry, ran out the door and down the street with all the home boys behind us wanting to kick whitey’s butt!
Now, it is hot during the day, so all the villagers sit out on their porches in the evening and socialize with neighbors and passersby until the interior cools off enough to be comfortable inside. This evening they see three white as sheets strangers shittin’ and gittin’ with their friends from the bar hot on their heels. Now they are off the porches to join the posse. The most excitement since the last hurricane!
Have you ever been chased out of town…..
By the whole town?.....
I have!
As we hit the edge of the settlement, with the whole village in pursuit, a scene from a movie came to mind…..
There is an old black and white film I saw, set in Africa, in which a fair lass is captured by indigent cannibals. She is shown tied to a pair of trees in the classic “X” position while said cannibals are dancing around the bon fire working up a frenzy. Two brave legionnaires from the fort sneak into the village and surreptitiously cut her loose and escape. It isn’t long before her absence is noticed and the chase is on!
There is a camera shot from the side of a valley in the bottom of which the fort sits. The far side is a vast savannah down which come running our three intrepid fugitives. They get about halfway down to the fort, when the whole horizon fills up with spear chucking cannibals!
I now know what that feels like!
I was the slowest runner of the bunch. I did not want to be the first one caught. Whenever one of the guys started to pull ahead of me, I would grab their shirttail and pull it just enough that they would fall behind! They were so freaked out, I don’t think they even noticed.
I think that, to the natives, it was more about the chase than the capture. Have you seen Usain Bolt run? Years later there was a Bahamian on the rugby team I played with in Aspen. I would be running down field, fleet of foot, I thought, when this guy would go by me like I was tied to a post!
If they had really wanted us, we would have been theirs.
We ran through the gates of the resort compound hollering at Jack to fire up the boat and cast off. He was quick on the uptake. By the time we hit the dock, he was already moving off. We made running jumps onto the boat and fled to the sound of rocks and various other flotsam bouncing of the gunnels. Boats are not allowed to create a wake inside the marina. We left big ones that day!
Another time four of us were near Andros Island and found a reef, which according to our Loran, was about three miles offshore. We donned tanks and submerged. The water was absolutely crystal clear. It somehow made everything underwater more brilliant and vibrant. Truly beautiful. I was thoroughly enjoying cruising along the bottom, exploring. We glided over a bit of reef and found before us a ship! How cool was this?!! It was at a bit of a list and looked as big as the empire state building. We found out later that it was a Russian freighter that sank in a hurricane in 1942. (If I remember correctly)
You’ve read about how diving on wrecks is a sought after activity for divers? They are correct about it being fun. We had a blast exploring. We realized, at some point, that all the items that souvenir hunters grab were still there. We, apparently, were the first ones to find it.
It is steel hulled with three large hatch covers for loading cargo, and smaller hatches for the mariners’ access. We managed to pry one open.
I stuck my head in but couldn’t see much. There were wooden reels like we used to make dining tables out of in the hippie days. I inverted and started through, feet first. I got about halfway in when something grabbed me! After seeing all those images from movies where the sea creature eats the hapless human, I thought I was something’s groceries!
Yes,…..
I did shit my pants.
Turned out to be a little octopus, as scared as I was, trying to get out. Didn’t so much as grab me, as squirted by. Blew a batch of ink and departed.
Said reels contain copper cable. Big copper cable. We started cutting lengths with a hacksaw from the toolbox on board and hauling them up to the boat. We had a pretty good pile by the time we needed fresh tanks. I was sitting on the engine cover looking back at the island, tanked up and waiting for the others, when I saw a boat emerge from the other side of Andros.
I must give you a bit of back story…..
There was a boat owner in our marina who was the brother of Mel Fisher. (The guy who found the Atocha.) He and his friends had been, just weeks before, in one of the bays diving for lobster when the Bahamian Coast Guard pulled up alongside. They had artifacts and lobster on board. Both of them illegal. The Bahamians are very protective of the sunken ships in their waters. They consider it their national treasure. They confiscated the boat, and it cost ten thousand dollars each for them to get out of jail.
With that encounter in mind, I pointed it out to the guys that maybe we should depart. We hauled anchor and started to move off. I saw a puff of smoke from the ship, which was now heading our direction, and as quick as it took me to wonder about it, I heard it coming. They had fired one across our bow! That is the equivalent of red lights and siren on the highway.
Throttles forward and haul ass! We got up on plane and were moving smartly. The danged Bahamians started shooting in earnest. Oskie and Crazy Joe had come out of the cabin with their M-1s and were shooting back over the transom. Never mind that the ship was twice the distance of the range of their guns. They felt like heroes doing their part. I felt like I was watching a bad B-movie.
Shells throwing geysers as we zig-zagged away. Fortunately for us, their WWI navy surplus ship could only do about twenty knots. We were doing about forty. We soon put them behind us, but it was a sphincter pinching time while being a target. My butt actually chewed a hole in that engine cover I was sitting on!
We got back to the mainland and took our booty to the scrap yard. They gave us so much money for it that all I could hear was the sound of cash registers going off in my head! (ka-CHING!) The next weekend we were back with a borrowed boat. We couldn’t go back with ours.
It seems like every time we went over there, we left running!
Dumb ass that I was, never occurred to me to buy one of those islands which were selling at the time for fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. I figured I could always buy one later. Dumb ass!
I bought a house in the suburbs, a new pickup truck, new Harley, and a new Corvette. The neighbors didn’t know what to make of me. The men were executive types, starting to do well in the world, when a damned hippie moved in next door! The women were just curious. I heard through the grapevine that they all thought I was dealing drugs. Even had some agency with unmarked cars stake out the house for a while.
This was during the time that the insurance company was trying prove that my broken back was not keeping me from work. They were surveilling me as well. The cops drove the two Torinos, insurance blokes drove two Ambassadors. I was driving my Vette. (454CID/4speed) It was a game with me. I would start off sedately, going faster and faster to see how long they could keep up. Oft times I would hang a corner and in the rear view mirror see all four of them, one after the other, come sliding around fishtailing with tires smoking trying to keep up. Good times, those!
It was an interesting house. It was haunted! The telephone installer told me that in the three years since the house was built, he had installed phones for five new owners. He thought that was strange.
A neighbor kid was riding by on his bicycle as I was moving in. He said that I was moving into the “crazy house”. I thought that was strange.
And then things did get strange!
At night, when the house was quiet, I would occasionally hear kids playing. There was a toy I heard. One of those pull toys with a clear dome and colored balls that would bounce inside while making a plink-plink sound. Remember those? And a dog. I heard it one night whining in my bedroom closet. And the diaphanous appearance of a woman. The only visual occurrence.
I thought it was a kick! I was going to throw a birthday party to see if the kids would appear! Never did though. Wish I had.
We were in the resort marina one weekend when a storm blew in. Mostly wind, but is was nasty. Gale force.
Jack had to get back to Florida for a court date, we had to leave. We motored up to the fuel dock for a fill up. The wizened old native came out, and while he was willing to pump, told us we wouldn’t be going anywhere today. Smart asses that we were, we knew better. We were tougher than that. We paid the bill and motored out of the marina.
When we hit open water, we could see that it was going to be a rough trip back. The swells were huge, but we struggled along, confident in our toughness. Four or five hours on, we should have been seeing Florida through the windshield. All we saw was water. We were so wrapped up in where we were going that we hadn’t looked behind us. When I did, I could still see the tops of the palm trees at the resort! We hadn’t gone but a few miles. We had about sixty more to go!
As we motored back past the fuel dock with our tails tucked the gas guy came out and gave us that “I told you so” look. Shook a finger at us for good measure. We had humble pie for dinner that day! Took Jack to the airport to fly home.
We were in Miami one weekend where I met “The Mad Canadian” (now dead). (Google “the mad Canadian by Robert Fortier”) He owned a stunt driving operation. He had a jet car (built by Fred Sibley) on the back of a truck that was his promotional item for an upcoming stunt where he would jump the St. Lawrence River. (A bit like Evel’s fiasco at the snake river.)
He was laid up with his leg in a cast. The jet car was due to be in Montreal, and then Toronto for the 1974 International Auto Show. I had never been to Montreal, would love to have a reason to go. I told him I would drive it up if he picked up expenses.
Montreal was wonderful. I loved it! We spent a week there and went to Toronto. The jet car was on display, we were there every day to promote the stunt and explain the logistics.
From Montreal, the crew was scheduled to be in Baton Rouge for a stunt show. Ken asked if I wanted to tag along. It sounded like fun. I said “sure”.
We were to drive through the night, two to driving duties. One sleeps while the other drives. We had stopped for fuel. It was my turn to drive. As we pulled back out on the highway, Mike took off his watch and set it on the dashboard. Hunkered down in his seat and went to sleep.
I was not even ready to be driving again. I was still tired, wanted to sleep. I grabbed Mike’s watch, set it ahead a few hours, set it back on the dash. I pulled into the next rest area and rousted Mike who groggily got back behind the wheel and away we went. I got my rest that night. Mikey didn’t.
We rolled into town around ten the next night, checked into the Holiday Inn. The truck was scheduled to be at the dealership for service when they opened at seven the next morning (when, at this time of the year, it was still dark). Mike stayed in the room and bed so he could be up early and perform that duty. David and I went to the bar until it closed at midnight.
On the way back to the room I stopped at the desk and told the desk clerk to make mike’s wakeup call in about fifteen minutes. We got back to the room, I grabbed Mike’s watch from the nightstand and set it ahead to six thirty. I wasn’t long under the covers when the phone rings and Mike was up pulling on his pants and stumbling out the door.
He was sitting on the steps of the locked up dealership, with his head in his hands, when the local sheriff pulled up wanting to know what he was doing there at two o’clock in the morning!
I woke up on the floor! He had flipped the whole bed upside down on top of me.
It was all in good fun as far as I was concerned. He resented it, never let it go.
The show was going to be in association with a race that was being held there. As show time approached, the driver who was to perform the main event had not shown up. The crew was in a tizzy, as there was no one else qualified to act in his place. I didn’t understand the angst. What was the big deal? I told them I would drive the danged car and perform the stunt if nobody else thought they could do it. “It’s easy”, I said.
They had their doubts, but I was the only solution if the show was to go on.
The aforementioned stunt was to fly a car over thirteen parked vehicles and land on a ramp some one hundred and twenty feet away.
They brought out the jump car and started to prep it. What I saw was not at all what I wanted. I told them so. They said that was the way they always did it. Well, that wasn’t going to fly with me behind the wheel! I had them prep it to my specs. Changed suspension setup, harness anchor points, seat arrangement, among others, and went on to perform a successful event.
In fact, they liked what I did so well, they asked me to stay on with the troupe. I spent the rest of the summer with them. Had a blast!
Until I broke my back.
Again.
Jack, being a drag racer, had a previous association with “Big Daddy” Don Garlitz. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Garlits) We were at his shop in Tampa. There I met Joe Varde, (http://joevarde.com/bio/who had raced Pro Stock. We became friends. I would visit whenever I got over there.
Joe was good friends with Glen Blakely, who, along with Connie Swingle and Roland, were building dragsters for Don. Glen’s shop was on the backside and across the street from the airport in an area of WWII quonset huts now converted to light industrial.
In 1974 a hurricane rolled up the west coast of Florida. The crew figured on a hurricane party at the shop. Seventy-five and eighty MPH winds are a powerful thing. Everybody got to thinking that all that horsepower was a sad thing to waste. But how to put a handle on it?
Let's build a sail car!!!
At the time it seemed like a brilliant way to harness a part of that energy. All the materials and equipment were there in the shop. Together it went. Before long a beauty had been built!
There was only room for Glen, Connie, and Roland. It was wrestled out of the shop fighting against the wind and horizontal rain. It was dragged to the far end of the street, jumped on, and here they come! Rooster tails flying from all three wheels, sail slap full of wind. They flew by the shop. I swear, they were doin’ a hunnert!!!
When it was being built, there wasn’t much thought to how fast this might go. There wasn’t any thought to putting brakes on it.
So, here they are, all three of them, got a hold of the runaway sail car, and dragging their feet trying to slow it down. They need not have bothered and saved some shoe leather. One could see the panic in their eyes as they screamed past the shop, headed for the end of the road less than one block away.
There weren’t going to be any second outings. There were pieces of that car flying in all directions. The sail reached an incredible altitude and disappeared into the mist. Bodies achieved some amazing trajectories as well!
Ambulances were summoned. Casualties were delivered to the nearest ER.
Nobody died.
Nobody went to ICU.
Aside from the various and sundry stitches, contusions, and abrasions, Glen broke both arms, Connie broke a leg, and Roland broke an arm and collar bone. Various busted ribs were shared by all!
Nobody was seriously hurt (by our standards), so the event was considered a success, and it was declared to have been a good time.
They looked like a pretty motley crew, all stitched up, bandaged and in casts as they built a car for Garlitz. It had to be ready for the Gator Nationals. They did it, though, won there, and Garlitz went on to win his first championship at the World Nationals later that month.
I had a new Harley Low Rider. I got to wanting to go for ride. I thought it would be fun to ride up to Ocala National Forest and camp. I packed a change of clothes, combination poncho/pup tent, army mess kit, and my pistol. Took off from home as the sun was coming up.
It felt so good riding, that when I got to Ocala, I didn’t want to stop. A couple of weeks before, I had met a girl in Daytona. She was from Atlanta. Atlanta isn’t that much farther from Ocala.
I kept riding for Atlanta.
I got to Atlanta, but she was off on her own adventure. I had a friend who lived in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. It wasn’t that far away anymore. I took off for Hopkinsville.
Kerry Stokes. His dad had acreage on which he built a castle! Three buildings arranged in an arc. The main, and largest structure is built around the original log cabin that was on the property. It was kept intact, inside the new structure, and is now the kitchen. How cool is that? On the left of the arc, connected by a curved portico, is the great hall. Twenty foot ceilings and a huge, very huge, fireplace opposite the entry. On the right of the main building, connected with another curved portico, is a symmetrical building housing the bedrooms. The approach is very grand, with the ubiquitous circle drive, complete with fountain in front. There is also an airstrip alongside the long driveway. For those fast getaways!
We partied in town that night. In the morning I figured I wasn’t that far from Noblesville Indiana where another buddy (Dale) from Florida now lived, that I should just head up there to visit him. Kerry had his own bike and rode along.
When we got there he was loading up, heading for a spot on the river where others of our ilk congregated and partied. It was a postcard kind of place! Huge tree on the bank with the proverbial rope swing out over the water. A sandy beach area, grassy picnic area and an approach that allowed the vehicles to be parked in close proximity. One of the attendees had a pickup with speakers he put on the tailgate and regaled us with thumping bass. It was a great time and loads of fun. The bouncing bikini clad bunnies made sure of it. That evening the lightening bugs emerged. By the thousands! Overhead, the Milky Way stretched across the sky. A very magical event. Sitting around the bonfire, sunburned and burnt out.
By now I was so close to Wisconsin that I could not go back to Florida without heading there to see the folks.
I was off!
It was nice to spend time with family and friends. The problem arose as I was contemplating my departure. The bike was broke! I do not even remember what it was, but it was catastrophic enough that I couldn’t repair it in Wisconsin. I had to get it back to the shop.
Rick (AKA Panama Red) volunteered to bring his van one thousand two hundred and fifty miles to load me up and bring me home! Quite an interesting trip. Two days on the road in close proximity to a borderline psycho!
Since we are beyond the statute of limitations, I could relate to you the antics during those two days….
But I won’t!
Remember “Rick” playing pool in the Bahamian bar?
The same.
We were getting good at leaving in a hurry!
Use your imagination?.....
Yes, he probably did that.
Although he was wild (we did call him “Wild Ricky”), he was very smart. He liked chess. He was pretty good at chess. He also liked guns.
He didn’t like losing.
Over time we had played several games, of which, he won all. But I was catching on to his strategies and was getting closer to getting the best of him. The last game we played, we were well along in the game, and I was finally getting him. At that point when he could see his defeat was inevitable, he threw the board at the wall, pieces bouncing around the room. He then picked up his faux M15, which he always kept in close proximity, and fired several shots down the hallway that connected the living room to the bedrooms at the back of the house.
He stopped with a bewildered mien, paused, dropped the gun and ran to his bedroom.
The other side of the wall he had been shooting at was his closet. Sheetrock did nothing to stop the bullets. He had shot holes in all the clothes he had hanging in that closet!
Oh dear!....
I wish I had the words!!!
I wasn’t too surprised. Previously I had seen him shoot up his turntable because a record was skipping.
NOT THE END.....
Not even close!
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