Life is little
more than a race, a sprint to the finish line. It starts young, maybe not so
much at birth, but soon after- as soon as you feel your engine start to run on
its own power. You begin to break away with the peddling of your tricycle and
coasting downhill in your little red wagon, wind taking your breath away in
excitement and fear. You sensed the anxiety of your separation and
freedom at an early age-“I can fly-I can fly”.
This is the tribal heritage, born into and of the American
modern lower middle class, the generation of us who’s fathers were of the Atomic Age
and third wave of a new industrial revolution, men who grew up in the 40’s and 50’s
post “the Big War”, boys raised on rural farms or near poverty suburb homes bought
on the coveted GI Bill and VA loans. A simple life with a Sunday devotion to the Church, always praying for a
wing and a prayer while pushing a dollar just to squeeze by, and where too
often they were forced to swallow their fruitless pride that they frequently
washed down with alcohol, fueling laughter and the unexpected dancing of a jig,
to the polar opposite of violent outbursts and a disciplining wrath that became
as common as a dozen eggs. Belt wielding, hollering and singing fathers echoed
block to block in every neighborhood and was accepted if not expected as the
true values in the American family.
These parenting skills were limited and passed down, without
a manual, from one bad generation to another with a universal belief they must
instill above all, the ability to fend for ourselves. This came with nothing
more than a mix of harsh disciplines, unavailable absence and forking out
healthy portions of child labor, a generation void of hugs and quality time
which were unheard of and not part of the equation most of the time. Norman
Rockwell was not painting our neighborhood, although to us, being all we knew,
it was a glorious time to grow up, and besides, the neighbor kid always seemed
to have it worse.
It was a changing time of fragile optimism and uncertainty
where over a decade of peace and prosperity was slowly being shadowed by a new
world coming-with wars looming here and abroad from civil rights to Vietnam
and “the Cold War” becoming the word of the day.
Despite the troubled worries and fears of our fathers, most
of which were over shadowed, condensed and focused on daily financial woes,
though despite such hardships, our fathers were non the less intensely eager and
aroused by curious nature, making them inventive with a keen interest in how
things were made and had a deep childlike enthusiastic connection to anything
mechanical, which meant they were going to enthusiastically teach us all they
thought they knew and "prepare us to fend for ourselves", whatever that meant.
My father was all of this and then some. On one front, he
was in a battle with his devout Catholic upbringing by a stern father on the
rural farms of Kansas to the streets of Memphis Tennessee and on
another front,
battling his own set of principles and moral obligation to new and dividing Southern culture.
He was a self-described rebel intellectual who after being
drafted into the Marines, soon abandoned a military life to become a
schoolteacher, but with a restless yearning for purpose brewing inside, he soon
quit teaching, despite having a growing Catholic size family of children, and
more on the way, and regardless of an uncertain future, he without hesitation
and with blind intuition, joined forces with an unheard of grass roots
experiment that was to rid America of dire poverty and in addition, although
unforeseen, also would help ignite the civil rights movement across the south
bringing change and chaos to an already unstable Government in Washington.
It was literally named 'The War on Poverty'. The new legislation
and actual title of a program that began with the visions of Kennedy and
introduced by President Johnson and directed under Sgt Shriver, which was a
whole group of programs under the heading of “OEO” (Office of Economic
Opportunity).
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| Johnson's "War on Poverty" |
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| Sgt. Shriver, "VISTA" |
Being that Shriver was the brain child and Father of the
Peace-corps and Johnson facing a staggering poverty rate, that pinned him and his administration up against a wall, forcing him to do
something in our own country where the level of minority poverty was reaching the 25%
mark and much of it, especially in the South, where in some parts that level was
surpassing that of third world countries abroad.
Shriver was urgently enlisted by Johnson to create our own
form of domestic Peace Corps “VISTA” (Volunteers in Service to America). that
came with the outcry, "we better save our own country before we save the rest
of the world!"
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| Eugene Richards 'VISTA' corps |
Despite huge opposition, especially by conservative southern
Senators who didn’t want to upset the status quo or spend money, the war was
non the less waged, and so with enthusiasm, young college grad's volunteered and
joined the forces that would soon blanket the impoverished landscape of the sad
and dark unseen side of America.
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| Mississippi Delta, 'VISTA' |
As one of the head officers of the new “Vista,” and training
coordinator for the Mississippi Delta region, along with being an appointed
spokesperson and advisor for the New Mexico Native American reservations, my
Father was off and running in all directions - gone for weeks at a time with his
new shiny diplomatic license plates disappearing in the distance to save the
poor and perhaps his own moral soul, both stretching from the migrant fields in
Florida, across the Mississippi Delta and Arkansas Mountains, and all the way to
the boarders of Mexico, as we sat in our red wagons waving goodbye.
The country knew nothing of this war. 90% of nightly news focused on the brutal 'Tet offensive' raging in Vietnam. And with over half a million soldiers overseas, we needed a victory somewhere. The 'Credibility Gap' was widening from the horrible miscalculations and misjudgments with now visions of an endless war that continued to escalate with it's graphic reality of death being reported nightly by Walter Cronkite on 'prime time'. So much so, that we were all, at any age, aware of this war. We played Army daily and even would sneak out my fathers real Marine bayonet and helmet when he was gone.
I didn’t quite understand my dads job but it seemed grown up
and important. We on the other hand were a full house of noisy boys full of
dirty cloth diapers, boxes of powdered milk – at home with our mother who
filled books of S%H green stamps while breastfeeding our little sister.
So by
circumstance, we were left somewhat to fend for ourselves as planned, as my father went off to war armed with a box of number 2 pencils and a briefcase full of legal size yellow writing pads, and off to fight an enemy that was yet to be defined.
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| work in progress |
Aside from all that was serious in the world, my Father like most of that generation was a tool guy-
probably just like his father- a man always in need of tinkering, and despite
whatever else in life he did or needed to do, there was something he must fix
first, leaving many 'a work in progress' sitting around. He was a hoarder of every kind of tool on the planet and then some, and
there was at least three of each, which was the product of faulty thinking in believing he needed a new one every time he passed a Sears and Roebuck store -
especially if there was a sale on (which was always). Then again, it is true
that there was always a set borrowed from our garage and toolbox by friends, neighbors and family that rarely
ever got returned.
Forever there will be a questionable mixed jumbled lot of
revolving tool inventory to such a degree that as a joke my father wrote on
every single tool and anything else in the garage for that matter including ice
chests and bowling balls, the actual words, ” STOLEN FROM JOE BRUCH” on every
item other than our foreheads. It
was a running joke but worked. Practically every house we visited had something
with, ”STOLEN FROM JOE BRUCH” written on it that left us laughing for hours.
What was still left behind or eventually replaced, was a
vast myriad assortment of much more interesting things to us little kids than
any 100-piece horse and pony jigsaw cardboard puzzle or pile of tinker toys.
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| "Stolen from Joe Bruch" |
There was no turning back for us once we opened up any one
of our dads many varieties of heavy metal toolboxes. Most of the toolboxes from
those days were actually just old military ammunition boxes you could pick up
cheap at Academy- the local Army/Navy store.
Not much out there stronger than those green containers.
Every time my dad came home with one of those boxes he also consistently picked
out an adjustable army shovel-pick combo and or a big machete he thought would
make a great present and like his multiple tool collection, I must have had 5
machetes and pick shovels before I was 10 years old, not to mention our cold
steel army bunk beds that were stacked in rows outside the store with mattresses
so thin we might have well been sleeping on the bare springs.
Once we were able to figure out the odd locking flip latches
of the bullet boxes, we knew we had opened Pandora’s box as we stared
cheerfully fixated with wonder at the galore of such a vast assortment of
grease and rusted disorderly objects – a heavenly twisted pile of steel in all
shapes, sizes and textures. Our hands were covered in grease, scraped, poked
and pinched from rummaging through it all. Everything in there clearly with its
own identity and purpose that we were determined to surely figure out what that
use was. We would take them out one at a time turning them every which way.
There was a mystery, a story to them much more interesting
than anything floating in our toy bins and even more so being that they were
off limits to us kids!
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| Dad's tool shed |
I can still hear the echo of my moms voice hollering for my
dad to pick up those damn tools off the car-port before one of those damn kids
hurts themselves!
As with most kids our age, and in our neighborhood, especially
us boys, telling us not to do something was a sure bet we were going to do it
anyway. The fear of a belt whipping was never a deterrent and we were somewhat
numb to the thought or expectation, being that our memories were short lived and
we had too much expendable energy to care about any such consequences.
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| Bowl-O-Rama |
My Dad was now
on the road a lot and so no better time to explore. There were too many of us
for my mother to keep up with while taking care of a baby or two, although she had mastered multitasking like a circus performer. She could even bowl a 200 with a bowling ball in one hand and a baby in the other on the days she would drag us all down to 'Bowl O Rama' bowling alley, and would leave carrying a new shiny trophy in the diaper bag.
Back at home we were on our own to at least the limits of the chain link fence of our yard. It seemed us older brothers thought alike and had
the same agenda because when the coast was clear, we would often cross paths,
catching each other sneaking in and out of the tool shed and garage. And never
once saying, “I’m going to tell on you”. We knew we had a key to a treasure
trove to share and best to keep it a secret.
Before you knew it, we were forced to form a secret alliance
and combine our secret time - united out of a mutual curiosity and the
beginnings of discovering on our own a true mechanical ability and working
knowledge of almost every tool after spending much of our summer afternoons in and out of
the shed slowly developing our skills.
While our
father was gone and mother tirelessly cared for our baby sister, we were out
there busting knuckles, pinching, sticking, smashing and cutting fingers and
hands on everything from pliers, wrenches, clamps, vises, blades, punches,
hammers and the occasional tool that to this date I still have no idea what it
is or used for.
We soon mastered most of these to a confident degree and set out to
prove it. The first profound impact was being able to fix our bikes on our own without the help of an adult.
We fixed in just a few days all our bikes that would normally sit around broken for weeks
waiting for our father to get around to for something as simple as a chain off
its sprocket or simply a flat tire.
It wasn’t long
after that before we were not only fixing our bikes, but the other kids bicycles
in the neighborhood and before you knew it, we were actually building and
modifying whole bikes from scratch out of spare parts and frames, some of which
we found at the creek and left in ditches.
It all became routine and simple except for the occasional
deep innards when we would spill out tiny ball bearings from a rear axle or
handlebar neck, but other than that, we came to know that with a ½ inch, ¾,
9/16 wrench, flat head screwdriver, expandable pliers or crescent wrench, we
had all you needed to build an entire bike from the ground up.
By the time we were nine years old, we knew each tool and
wrench size by sight as well any nut and bolt. Every now and then we even had
to make do with the rare metrics, but even they would surrender to a little
extra torque pressure and hammering if you didn’t strip them first.
As a small gang of latch-key kids running wild and rampant
across several small neighborhoods, we passed and traded knowledge like
painters and apprentice’s always with a little brother next to the box passing
tools to us surgeons as needed.
Although bikes didn’t have engines, it was limited only to
the imagination what could be done. We extended front forks into low ride
choppers and even flipped bikes upside down with all components reversed
putting us six feet off the ground, but we were still novices in the world of
mechanical engineering. That’s not to say we were nothing without our bikes. They
were our two-wheeled life force and the one thread that connected the myriad
wild pack of kids on every block for miles around. They took us across miles of sidewalk and curbs, through trails of creeks and woods, to chasing the mosquito truck"s billowing DDT smoke or downhill racing over trashcan jumps and ramps before power sliding in the gravel.
Being that our parents were absent from our world for the
most part, we learned by necessity. We were not a privileged bunch as was the same for most kids that we ever came to know, and if we were going to be a part of anything, we had
better make do with what we had. But to advance we realized we had to graduate to things
that were gas powered.
The next hurtle in line and a first with a combustion engine
were our beat up old lawn mowers.
We had to mow lawns on weekends as chores to make any gum or
soda money, even though we didn’t have a say when it came to our own lawns gum
or not. We were out mowing here or there - waving at the other kids doing the
same on their yards. So, if by chance a motor sputtered, choked and conked out
with the lawn only halfway mowed, you better know how to fix it or learn quick
if there was a chance of hooking up with the other guys hanging in the
cull-de-sac or corner curb waiting on you. We soon could diagnose a problem
before hand by the distinct sounds recognized by our well tuned ear. A screwdriver
in the back pocket could usually do the trick with a quarter turn of a
carburetor screw or drying off a wet spark plug or for the most part realizing
it was just flat out of gas.
Soon we were experimenting and able to amp up the power on
small engines of all kinds by simply adjusting the 'governor' and throttle
linkage on the pre-set factory settings of a carburetor and throttle cable.
That little secret had our engines screaming and backfiring with impressive
added power that had us smiling ear to ear.
We once snuck
on a golf course and in seconds had locked forward the governor throttle on
half a dozen gas golf carts by simply lodging them wide open with a golf Tee.
The golfers would start off and give them a little gas, at first amused by the
loud backfire, but not a second later were in full panic when their carts took
off hitting speed of 30-40 mph dumping golf bags back all over the fairway.
We were by no means rocket scientist at least not yet, but on our own we
had grasp the workings of small motors of all kinds, the half of which started
by a rope pull cord. Several yanking pulls brought electric life to the silent heaps
of cold stagnant metal and gears, now turning and churning alive by one tiny
spark plug that turned into a mini power plant explosively igniting fuels. Those
plugs also delivered many a heart stopping shock, shooting electricity up our
arm at times, but that shock also meant we knew we had fire, and after a painful
yelp, cheered with joy as if we lifted off to the moon.
It was a time of self taught progressive evolution. We soon
knew how to beat, bang and slap a deserted engine back to life. We knew how to mix
2-stroke fuels, what engines took kerosene and what ran only on diesel. It came with a
little trial and error and full out dangerous mistakes. Getting any of those
fuel mixtures wrong taught us what not to do after causing some impressive
explosions and causing fire-breathing carburetors to shoot springs and levers
in all directions. But we learned as we went and found uses for everything. A
simple tub of axle grease could be used on quite a number of things, some
strange and unusual. Although it was initially used for packing most everything from
bearings, brakes and wheel hubs, it also had many off label uses from healing a
rattlesnake bite or deep open wound on your dog or farm animal to greasing a
hog. It’s still not clear whether you can cook with the stuff or not.
We saw the advent of WD-40, which actually did have a use for
everything short of cooking, and before we knew it, there was a can of it
everywhere you looked and came in every size as if they grew there from nothing.
With a little WD-40, some duct-tape, bailing wire and maybe even some bubble
gum, you could quick fix just about anything back then and I bet that still
holds true today. My brother Larry caught a five pound "mud-cat" with a fat wad of Bazooka bubblegum.
There seemed to be no limits on what we could learn and
accomplish on our own with the right set of tools and a little imagination. We
Built large tree houses from a rope and pulley system, dug forts underground, constructed big barge
rafts on creeks, go-carts, slingshots, and even bicycle spoke zip guns that
would shoot as powerful as a 22 rifle.
We caused many a parent or adult to stand there scratching
their heads while watching us strip apart everything from broken fishing reels
to a four barrel carburetor, spreading loose pieces across a tarp on the
driveway, and then within a couple of hours, it would be all put back together
and working better than new.
The same laws of mechanics we found seemed to apply to
almost everything on the planet from home made rockets to stitching a football
and it all felt innate to us. We fixed things we had never seen before and were
pretty much only limited by our age and lack of means.
All of our knowledge and how we obtained it would have most
likely, from the beginning, would have gotten us in trouble and punished, but
lucky for us our parents were nowhere to be found but what we learned and
mastered in secret would also lead somewhat to our own demise and burden us by
expanding our chores and workload with new expectations unheard of for children our
age that was dealt out by our fathers with an iron fist. Those same fathers
that never even questioned how we came to know what we did but they sure
benefited the most from what we learned and even proudly claimed we must have learned it all from
them- which we all knew the truth to that.
We took a huge load off their own duties and even more so,
depending on the number kids they had but we having no choice, pretty much took
it in stride with a moan and a groan here and there and a few wallops on the
back of the head. We kept moving forward, and as bleak and boring as those
chores could be, that was all about to change. We were going to teach ourselves
how to drive!
It came as our greatest triumph of all and their biggest
convenience, when by age eleven, which happened to be about the time we could
finally reach the pedals, we not only learned to drive but on a standard transmission
stick shift at that. Subsequently, the biggest advantage came more for our fathers than us. For us it was the most fun on earth but for them, they could now send us to the local convenience store to pick them up a six-pack or
case of cold beer and only instructed to put it on their store credit and go ahead and get a soda for
ourselves while we were at it. It was strange that our dad's never questioned
how we learned to drive in the first place and even more strange was the man at
the country store, Mr. Marks, that never questioned us buying beer.
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| 1949 Chevy |
My cousin Mike and I were the first to teach ourselves how
to drive in what we called 'the goat truck', which was an old 1940’s split
window, rusted out Chevy pickup truck with a 4 gear H column shifter on the long
skinny steering column. It was so old and rusted we had to screw down scrap
metal and an old license plate to the floor board where it had rusted clean
through to the point you could have fallen clear all the way to the street if
you by chance slipped off your seat from bouncing up and down on what little
shocks and suspension were left.
We would pull our chest tight up against the steering wheel
to be able to stretch our legs just far enough to be able to push the long pedal
clutch close enough to the floor to keep from totally grinding off the gears
as we shifted, but once we lunged into that first gear, without stalling, we were
off and running. The steering on the thing was so loose, we were almost
spinning around on the large wheel, flipping violently in both directions like
a carnival ride just to keep it straight on the road. It took a combination of
athletic ability, country strength, guts and pure luck to get anywhere. But
soon after the initial grinding, spitting, spinning and stalling, we got the
hang of it and with bursting, eager cockiness, we w too often could be seen sliding
purposely sideways on the winding dirt roads like young outlaws, or doing wild donuts in
the muddy hay fields after watering and feeding the animals. It was a win win
situation in the race to freedom, although we might have taken out a couple
fence posts along the way and found ourselves stuck in the mud more times than
we cared to admit, it was still pure joy like that first feeling of freedom on
our runaway wagons. Yes sir, we were driving!
Fence down or not, or stuck up to the frame deep in the mud,
we had a solution for that also because by now we not only drove the truck, the cars and
boats. We could drive anything with a clutch, especially the double clutch on our ancient old red Alice Chalmers
tractor that had multiple mechanical uses, and with a long enough chain, and the torque of
her 'grandma gears', we could have pulled a barn down, so getting a little truck stuck in the
mud was just a dirty annoying setback that left us cursing about ruining a
clean bleached white pair of converse all-stars, but even that was soon
forgotten when all four wheels were on dry gravel spitting rocks and chalky
dust in our furious rambling wake of hollering freedom.
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| Me and Mike-RIP cuz |
It wasn’t too long when our driving ability soon got us into
trouble just a year or so later when we happened to miss the bus to school and
cousin Mike-without a thought, ran and jumped into the truck as if he waited for
this moment all his life. The old thing didn’t even use a key - started it with
a flat-head screwdriver and said,” get in, lets go!”- And so we did.
We arrived at our Jr. high several minutes ahead of the bus we were
supposed to be on, to the welcoming cheer and admiration of other students
being let off, but not a moment later we were left in silence to the shock and awe
of the Principal Mr. Henry standing there in the crowd shaking his head before
immediately marching us off to the office and suspending us in the first week
of our freshman year. What less could be could be expected though, I thought, and
blamed my crazy cousin who once had me take a goat for show and tell back in
kindergarten? In the end, it still worked out in our favor. We might have missed a couple days of
school and gotten a beating that was sure to come with it, but we were moved up
in popularity as if we parted the ocean as the crowd of kids backed away
watching as we were escorted off to the principles office.
Our dads might have about killed us for that one, but if we could have
argued it in our defense, we would have made them out to be the biggest hypocrites in the
world, being that not long after the school incident, I would have to do road trips with
my dad to Dallas, and often after a few too many beers, he had me driving us all
the way back home- nearly three hours, even though I could still barely see
over the dashboard and then to his awakened surprise, we had a full car that
even I, for the life of me, couldn’t figure out why I had picked up every
hitchhiker hippie on I-35 from Waco to Austin, and they were the more surprised ones of all and a little reluctant to get in, but just stoned enough to think it was as
weird as it was cool and they weren’t going to get anywhere faster by standing
there google eyeing a kid driving the car with a man slouched in the passenger
seat snoring, so off we all went. The far biggest surprise though came to my mother when I would bring
our merry band of smelly passengers home with us. She would go off on all
directions of crazy to the extent that we barely made out a single word she said flying from her frenzied fit of rage. She was mostly mad at my Dad for drinking so
much and putting her son in danger by letting me drive and possibly be murdered
by the likes of three long haired strangers. They on the other hand were most
likely regretting ever getting in the car in the first place and probably thought we were from
another planet, especially being that my mom went about pulling out pillows,
blankets and fresh sheets for them to sleep on in the living-room floor, without
skipping a beat in her tantrum. Jump forward a week later and they were still
in the house and didn’t want to leave after a week of my mom’s motherly hospitality
of taking care of strays. They simply mixed in with the hoards of scraggly kids
and my dad's hippie 'VISTA' volunteers running in and out of every room in the
house.
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| Mom |
My mom didn’t mind too much despite her initial protest, and
acted if everything was normal, which threw even more caution to our guests that were
still here well after a week, and soon doing daily chores, which worked in my
favor. Besides, she now had companions she could smoke and drink wine with -
albeit the wine was occasionally poured into your mouth from a leather bladder
pouch, and the house for days reeked of cheap marijuana, Kent light 100’s and dirty feet, yet as usual, she hosted with ample energy to spare keeping all entertained with
endless stream of song and conversation. She had more energy than all of us and the only thing that bored her was people whining and complaining.
But as all things pass, before you knew it things were
pretty much back to normal in the house with our unusual gusts long gone and
back on the road. Our summers were dreadfully filled with a lot of tedious
sometimes-pointless hard work from day one. Being that we could all drive a dual clutch tractor by now,
or work truck and were able to assemble all the tractor hook ups from post hole
diggers to mowers and lifts, meant that we were now obliged to set fence posts,
bail hay and mow acres and acres of grass and hay. I hated doing work of any
kind. Not that it was hard but I hated that we were ordered to do it and were
never rewarded. Not even a pat on the back. On the contrary, it always felt
like we were in trouble for nothing even as we were sweating half to death and
finishing all of it.
Work always seemed to come in the middle of play no matter
how involved. It seemed cruel and done on purpose. We could be in a field with
our baseball gloves playing grounders and flies and a minute later someone had us moving
a rock pile or cleaning out a 110-degree barn, breathing hay dust while
laboring, defeated angry and silent.
The only time I can remember that we didn’t bemoan, groan
and protest work was on the weekends when we did trips to the junkyard or made
a trash haul to the county dump. That’s not to say that putting a dump load
together on a trailer or pickup bed wasn’t backbreaking hell, but the dump and
junkyard itself was a unique sanctuary of sorts that we more than looked
forward to exploring. As soon as we pulled up and our car doors opened, me and
my brothers or cousins leaped and raced out with synchronized impatience and
excitement which we had contained until that very moment in fear of being
stopped from our adventure before we started.
We had a lot of
machinery on our property and never a new automobile, so we always needed parts
for something. So a trip to the junkyard was always in order and saved us a
fortune in parts and labor.
This was back in the day when you went out and harvested the
parts yourself and then brought them up to the counter to haggle over a price.
This would buy us ample time to explore while my dad was searching for parts
and admiring heaps of junk that he thinks he could do something with. We went
the other direction quickly out of eyesight, disappearing so fast my father
probably stood puzzled questioning if he even brought us with him. We knew we
had to get far enough out of earshot so we had an excuse for not helping him
dig out an old radiator or starter motor.
We approached the junkyard with excitement and fear - an arena
for discovery - trespassing into grown ups territory. It was a far cry from the
baseball fields or playgrounds.
Before us were walls of towering cars stacked in metallic
carnage, inexplicably
artistic like an abandoned and neglected sculpture. We ran
down the dirt paths paved by shards of windshield glass that sparkled like
diamonds in the distant, uninhabited abandoned city of twisted metal. It had a
sad allure - loneliness in its breath. The cars towered apocalyptic in a
metropolis of broken automobiles leaning towards us, life like, in high
multi-stacked levels, looming and watching our moves as we passed below. They
all had a story most fragile. People had even died in some of these cars. The
junkyard itself was a mystified, somewhat dark sanctuary for us that we
cautiously trespassed into. Once amongst the forsaken wreckage, we put all our
personal trivial rivalries and competitions on hold when entering this
boogeyman world. Needing safety in numbers, we went and explored as a unit with
the biggest fear being the Rottweiler and old bony Doberman sleeping chained
to an axle under the shade of a car. You never know when they would ferociously
lunge out or if they were silent and loose roaming the perimeter fence line. We
knew snakes would crawl up into the straw stuffing of old truck seats so we
avoided those. We knew exactly what we were looking for as we traversed acres in search of
the newest delivery of a total wreck before it was put in a crusher. We would
first identify the unmistakable spider web cracked windshield that protruded in a domed outward shape, obvious evidence that someone’s head had indented the windshield. It was a sad morbid curiosity we couldn’t turn away from, fueled by trepidation and apprehension with a foreboding anxiety knowing we might witness something we shouldn’t. We had seen the wrecks here before. We would stop at a distance before approaching, getting the heebie-jeebies afraid of what we might
see. You knew it was bad if blood was on the windshield with hair still stuck
in the glass. If you looked close enough, you might make out pieces of skin. We
moved slowly looking in the tangled wreckage. Blood was never red but you know
the dark stains on the seat and floorboards were someone’s blood. If these cars
could talk the stories they would tell. It was creepy and always left us uneasy
and silent after such a discovery. My brother Larry said he saw a finger once
but we didn’t believe him. These sights intrigued and haunted us at the same
time and we always left not wanting to come back, but since time forgets, we
always returned as if we had forgotten the last experience.
We once again walked back to the car sullen, passing the
barrel fires and smoke. Sometimes the forklift driver would stop and point out
a good wreck for us to check out, but we had seen enough and just wanted to get
back to playing some baseball or TV.
What was to be our walk on the moon became a field of ruin and darkness
that left us feeling shameful and uneasy.
The county dump, not far down the road, was often combined
in the same junkyard trip, that could be even more menacing with its
overwhelming mountainous and cavernous landscape. We literally would walk to
the edge of a smoldering valley of tires, peering at the realm of gigantic
walls made solely of discarded tires that they would burn in the landfill,
turning the place into the gates of hell with giant clouds of black smoke
billowing above the pure and sharp orange flames that stretched up off the
melting rubber as if screaming souls were frantically trying to climb out of
the fires of hell. It was quite a sight to witness in the days before a burning
and landfill ban was passed into law. I can still smell that petroleum tar and
rubber burning across rolling acres in this devils inferno. I can only imagine what
it was like for the poor faceless souls I saw working in the middle of the
these great piles, driving in the enormous beat up rusty earth moving machines
– bulldozers and caterpillars that were dwarfed and appeared tiny by the
enormity of the canyons of towering stacked tires stitched and woven together
seamlessly like a giant tapestry. The earth machines stood out bright and easy
to spot with their rusted yellow cages-the only color that could be seen in
stark contrast against the lifeless black and grey smoking abyss. It was a
haunting sight and thrill now gone to ecological conservation.
 |
| County Dump |
We became regulars at the dump and junkyards, even the
raggedy guard dogs would wag their nervous tails when we walked up. We weren’t
that educated on environmental pollutions and their impact on humanity,
although it would seem to go hand in hand with my fathers efforts to relieve
the plight of mans suffering but we never scrutinized it to those depths and
justified it as the true notion that one mans trash is another mans treasure.
We were at least recycling all that might be crushed or buried in a wasteland.
We saved money and they profited.
These trips with my dad began to fade, as did our childhood.
We grew up fast and learned a lot- a lot more than I think we knew. Despite
discrediting our fathers teachings, from lack of presence, in truth, we had to
admit, most of what we knew, we learned from them regardless of their
praiseless methods, and from
whatever means, we now had lifelong skills with such a vast and broad range, we
would always be admired and questioned as to how we knew so much. We may have
fought hard for encouragement through all the things we hated and unknowingly
searched for love even in punishment and as opposite as it should likely be, but everything that could go wrong in our childhood, was in a strange way the very
thing that held it together and I often think the same was true for our
fathers. Where they may have failed, we both struggled in a battle with
ourselves to make it right even if built on shame, guilt and anger, the
mechanics worked in some odd way. Growing up the way we did, we were young
adults before we were even teenagers ready to rule the world and again fend for
ourselves and fathers did the best they knew how. Anyway, by the time high school came around, we were rebellious to an unruly degree, and growing
more distant from a family unit that no longer seemed to have boundaries of any
kind. My parents, especially my mother could no longer bare the burden of our defiant wayward ways. I couldn't blame either of them for my actions. I was all too aware of trouble on the way that I ran head first into, knowing I would eventually pay the piper, but for now we were invincible!
Our High School was a small city of over 4000 students
pouring in and out of its doors daily, that even over flowed into the barrack
style portables and anywhere else they could stuff us. Needless to say,
education was a joke and suffered greatly at this school from over crowding,
busing and inadequate staff. The teachers were barely more than hall monitors.
The Principal merely threw his hands up in the air in defeat and hoped for the
best, year to year. He had already lost control a long time ago anyway to the
most dreadful head Dean, Mrs. Anita Spane, who truly may be the Devil incarnate
herself. Stuck here away from her dreams of a world filled with Debutant white Princesses
and Ivy league glory, she was determined to make anyone’s life miserable in
this place she saw as a hell-hole. She was a spawn of UT alumni and its tacky
sororities, and if that type of prestige was not to be your future, then you
were an underachiever and a waste in her eyes. She focused, any if not all of
her bitter prejudiced attention, on the schools army sized drill team of young,
pretty, “good girls” under the sole direction of Miss Daniels who was quite
cute herself. Anita Spane on the
other hand, was not, and the closest Spane actually came to ‘royalty’ of any
kind, were cheap hotel ballroom beauty pageants that she grew up attending
from which she now tries to impart
her worldly knowledge and creepy sorority sisterhood on this sea of lovely pom-poms.
And as big as this drill team was, all the support in the
world could not help our pathetic athletic department. You would have thought
with that many students and strong country boys, we would have had a good football or baseball team. Not
a chance, dead last place every year, if we even won a game at all. Though on
weekends a bunch of us “Heads” and “Freaks”(as the jocks called us}, would play
tackle football with the schools football team and annihilate them. Come Monday
morning the coach would call us into his office chastising us for hurting his
players while begging us to play on his team or at least run track instead of
hanging out and smoking between classes. Well that never happened and the teams
kept losing, we kept smoking and meanwhile many of the short skirted cuties
from the drill team and even a few cheerleaders that were getting discouraged,
began drifting in the direction of us so called bad boys and turning down their preppy collars.
I was so hated by
Mrs. Spane, and had already gained enough of a bad reputation that she had Miss Daniels tell her girls to stay away from the likes of me and my kind and to stay out of the parking lot hang out across the street or they would not get to attend a game or whatever. I don’t know where she thinks she had the right to enforce such an idiotic order but when word got back to me, I was flattered and thought of it as a badge of honor.
Quite a few of us had already been together since
elementary, if not Jr. High or had older siblings already there ahead of us, so
we floated in smooth and easy from the get go. We initiated ourselves into the
cool crowd and had rode in with just enough popularity to fit in seamlessly,
and tough enough to avoid any silly initiations or bullying.
We were a breed apart- segregated from any school
association. We were the fruition of that fend for yourself upbringing. It
didn’t take long for our group to take charge of our own destiny outside the
brick walls of school. Curfews didn’t apply to us. We might have been thought
of a latch-key kids, but we weren’t kids at all. We really weren’t, most of us
were, by circumstance, well beyond our age in many ways, which also broadened
the generation gap from the school traditions, but that wasn’t so much by our
choice, it was merely the nature of our reality that kept us from conforming to
structure. We took on the job parenting ourselves and took care of each other the best we
could despite the fact that much of that independence would in fact lead to more
trouble than we would have ever bargained for. But we were the 70’s generation
in all its glory. The time was ours and destiny was being made day to day by ourselves and that
destiny was bursting out of us with passion and impatience.
 |
| Armadillo World Headquarters |
I actually got along with most everyone I came across and
despite my reluctance to go to school, still managed to make A’s as more of a
salute and endorsement to my father, whose intellect was hard to not absorb when
growing up with such a diverse assortment of smart people coming in and out of
our house shouting out political, historical, humanitarian, civil liberties and
ecological campaigns in a living room filled with everyone from Senators and
lawyers to Catholic Priests and Rock-stars .
The school was unquestionably larger than most but
universally similar in that it was equally diverse and divided as expected into
many different clicks from popular to punk and everything in between.
There were the jocks and rockers,
hippies and cosmic cowboys, stoners, nerds, freaks and a few gang thugs to an
extreme few that were literally and certifiably bat-shit crazy insane, and I was
lucky to have had friends in almost every click including the nuts.
I had already been pool hustling on the
eastside since I was a kid with Billy, so I knew half of those being bussed
from the projects- (half of which still owed me money.) We had covered most of
our bases before we ever arrived. We even found time to go skinny dipping in
the creek behind our property with rebellious wayward cheerleaders, and I think
I had by now already sold cheap weed for the past two summers to anyone here
that mattered, so the transition into school was somewhat in place when we
arrived. The only significant difference from Jr. High was the wonderful amount
of new pretty girls- four whole grades of them, passing in flooded halls,
racing the bell and fiddling frantically with the combination lock on their lockers.
But besides all the girls, I would say hands down the best was of all was the
fact that we could now officially drive cars.
It was a big difference from my first lone adventure with
Mike and I driving to school in our goat truck.
Here, there was no shortage of students arriving in cars
even with the mile long stretch of school buses carrying half the school here
from all over town. The parking lot was strewn with hand me down clunkers of
every size and shape, many in worse shape then any of those we rummaged through
in the junkyard, and although we were a large and diverse school, it was by no
means even close to being a rich kids school. We were all middle class at best
with a sprinkling of a few UT Alumni wealthy offspring. But with the new busing
regulations, kids were brought in from everywhere as far as the east side
projects to the trailer parks in Buda and everywhere in between. A car though,
of any kind, was freedom plain and simple for those lucky enough to drive at
all. Even the hand me down station wagon was better than the bus and would move
you up in your social pecking order and buy you just enough time of your own
free world, even if just to drive home for supper.
You saw a lot of family four door Buick’s, Chevette’s,
Maverick’s, Grand Prix’s in the school parking lot but there were no Beamer’s,
Mercedes or sports cars like all the west side school kids had, but a car was
car, ugly or not and was the number one priority and desire.
When I think of cars though, it’s not the mom and pop hand me
downs or the $200 clunker that comes to mind when you think of what was
cruising south Austin. We had something the rich kids didn’t and that was the
ability to actually build cars which was evident that once south of the River,
at any light and at any given time, you could see the flash and roar of a
customized true muscle car driven by greasy busted knuckled teenagers.
With that 4000 plus students, there was a high concentration
of mechanically inclined teens that grew up just like me around things that ran
on gas and oil and all those same mechanical contraptions that need to be fixed
or worked on. The level of mechanical ingenuity and building of engines was
nowhere matched than in our high school.
Among those I hung out with, we may not have been the most
popular group, but to us, we were all there was and all that mattered. Amongst
my friends, what separated us, other that our wild independence, was that when
together in groups, we were fearless and unstoppable and what was so unique was
in the mix of us, there was a serious band of hot rod outlaws that stood out as
true grit rebels ahead of their time in tune with our rock and roll culture
that was the background to all we were. These were the intimidating Mavericks that drew
the line into a slightly more dangerous territory that pushed our boundaries
and dared you to spread your wings and fly from the nest and away from your safety zone.
Our school truly was a hot rod haven to say the least,
reminiscent of the 50’s California car clubs and with the same enthusiasm as
the early days of roadsters. These guys knew their cars and were in a different
league from anything we ever tinkered with.
Many of these characters, that possibly didn’t quite
graduate, were no less students and the protege of Mr. Bobby Ratz, who was the
schools only auto mechanics teacher. What this school lacked in academics and
sports, it soared in his infamous mechanics class. Mr. Ratz was not your cookie
cutter MIT graduate. He was an outlaw in his own right-left over from the days
of ‘Mods and Rockers’, styled from head to toe as a rebel of a faded James Dean
culture - sporting an impressive combed and greased back DA, complimented by the
shoe black side burns - long and tight. His ivory button sleeves rolled up high
past his elbows snug against his sinewy muscular arms that were grease stained
to his fingertips in contrast to his spit shined rockabilly polished presence.
A bit of an Elvis as we saw him.
Where Mr. Ratz might have been questionable in modern style,
he was a hotshot in mechanical knowledge the moment he walked through his own personal classroom doors, which were two special automatic garage doors at the side
of the school. He was the only teacher that rebelliously drove a bored out hot-rod pick up with custom paint and ‘glass pack headers’ that rumbled as he
pulled to a halt with his name clearly custom stenciled on the side panel and
Johnny Cash blaring from his eight-track. If you didn’t have his class, like I
didn’t, you might not ever hear him utter a single word and might just be lucky
enough to get a James Dean nod and grin in passing. I only ever saw him from a
distance, but just his rare silent presence commanded respect. It’s still
somewhat a mystery of what went on behind those closed doors except for the
students that took his class, but there is no denying what emerged were teens
with a wealth of knowledge for creating true horsepower along with being able
to recount the detailed history of the “hot rod.”
Whether you had Ratz or not, saying this school was full of
gear heads was somewhat of an understatement, probably wouldn’t get them work
at NASA, but seeing the cars they would build, not only made them qualified
mechanics by any standard but put them in a class stature all their own. Either way, whether from the notorious Mr. Ratz
class, or passed down by our fathers, we had some bad-ass boss cars and souped up
street machines of pure muscle.
Just across
from the school was a small strip mall and the Rylanders grocery store parking
lot - acres in size and surround by sad no name shops and standing alone was
'Jumbos', the one lonely burger joint that was the sanctuary from school
boredom and a meeting point when cutting class. Girls would hold court at the
outdoor picnic tables shaded by the few scraggly oaks with noisy crows and
grackles perched squawking in the trees eyeing a dropped french-fry or
tater-tot.
It seemed every car
hangout in history had its burger or soda joint and we had ours.
Daily, the lot would be speckled by this group of Super-cars
that were too cool to be parked in the school lots and though Rylanders was a
public lot, you had to earn a spot or take your chances. At night it became the
biggest car hang out in the city that seemed harmless enough by day, and would quickly clear out up until nightfall, and then like rolling thunder, as the sun began to
set, one by one, they arrived like clockwork, pulling in slowly, just barely
scraping front spoilers before giving their signature quick burst and initial
chirping screech of tires as if announcing their arrival, and before long, the
place was crawling with some of the most impressive street racers you could
find anywhere. The stadium size parking lot could be empty one minute, but go
drive around the block for a bit and you could come back and it would be over
flowing like unearthing an ant bed.
This hot rod Mecca -mostly muscle cars, bought and built on
a dime-most under a thousand dollars to begin with, came in all shapes and
sizes but most were purely American muscle with every variety from the ‘pony
cars’, and ‘mopars’to the El Camino's and bucket cars.
They would roll and crawl into the parking lot with near
idling fury beneath the hood, some spitting fire beneath bulky hood scoops that
hid huge six-barrel carburetors.
You could hear the earth-shattering rumble of ceramic exhaust flowing
loud between the ‘Protrac’ 15 inch center line drag rims.
The sounds were a harmonic symphony
starting with their deep rumbling idol that in an instant could explode and
blast out a thousand more octaves of earth shattering roar with the touch of a gas
pedal.
The coveted jewels for sure
were the sleek ‘pony cars.’
Especially the Challenger and the 69 fastback Mustang, the Super Sport
SS Camaro’s, the Barracudas’ and the early Firebirds’.
The cool pretty boys preferred these as
did the girls riding in them.
They
were streamlined and sexy with compact frames that made them the best quarter
mile car around aside from the Corvette, which was way too expensive and rare
on this scene. It was a simple age-old concept- small car, big engine, equals
fast!
The bulk of the cars though, were not quite as pretty as the
pony cars. If you wanted more bang for your buck- although less pretty and the
least sexy, you could go for the meatier bunch of pure Charles Bronson muscle –
these were the bruits – rough and spackled with primer and sanded spots of ‘Bondo’, these would be the Mopar Charger's, the Buick GSX with its huge whopping 455 big
block, and its twin rival the Chevelle SS with a screaming 454.
There were the massive Roadrunners, the
Goats – GTO’s were common among us.
There were a few Nova’s and Torino’s and without mention, the one iconic
71 Riviera Coup – actually a luxury family car that hid a quiet 455 with stump pulling
torque of over 2800 powerful rpm’s., and driven by crazy Stevie Stevens who could be
seen at any time fishtailing that massive boat across four lanes like a giant
whale out of water and just when you were sure he had lost control of the back
end, he would
with calm precision,
straighten like an arrow in his lane before nailing it to the floor and out of
sight. The few times I rode with him and terrorized the back roads of San Leanna, I was sure I was dead each time, and found God when
I survived another day.
Not saying everything on wheels coming into the parking lot
was a hot rod, and most clearly not.
Most were actually hand me down mom and pop cars. But driving was
driving and there was no shame in showing up in their old Impalas, Dodge Darts,
clunky 10-year-old station wagons or even the muddy hay trucks. A rare few had shiny new wheels, mostly
the pretty daddy’s girls, but most was what one could afford on KFC and Dairy
Queen wages or the many weekend mall jobs.
I had been through a few cars already and after Luis
destroyed my beautiful Fiat Spider by crashing three different times at my own
birthday party in which afterwards, I actually ditched it in a cemetery, and
then settled for what i call a budget muscle car, which quite simply is one that is already
put together-just get in and drive.
It was a stock 69 Firebird.
Not much under the hood and noisy with cheap cherry bomb exhaust that
gave the impression that it was more than it was. But then again, even a stock 350 -V8 engine, and only a two
barrel carburetor was still no slug being that all the auto factories at the
time competed to make these stock cars fast from the get go and all wanted to
win the title.
Unlike the group of gear heads, that live and breath
exhaust, I was at a point where didn’t care if I ever turned a screw on an
engine again and didn’t know as much as I thought I did to begin with after an
hour spent with any one of these guys. I had pretty much given up on mechanics
all together unless I had no other choice. It was as if I woke up one day and didn’t want to get my
hands dirty anymore. I guess it
was simply in part from years of having cars and machinery running only on a
gambling prayer, and knowing that when bad luck or shoddy maintenance failed
you, and them, you were left no choice but to be stuck or waiting to be
towed. I was tired and bored of
it. Something always needed
fixing. I began to dread turning a
key half the time, as I would sigh too often, waiting for something to go wrong
before even going into gear, and more too often, it did go wrong. Just hearing my Dad come in the house
hollering, “Go get a tow rope, “ was enough to make you want to cry. Most of the time it was someone else,
that I didn’t even know who had broken down and was either halfway to Waco or
San Antonio. And then of course,
you knew it was going to be an all day affair. And of course, we were not going to just tow it, we were
going to stay there all day until dark if need be and fix it first. And so of course, out the door we would
have to go. And of course, it
would be on a beautiful day when we would set out with a full gas can, WD-40, a
tool box, jumper cables, flashlight, and of course, a flashlight in hand.
I didn’t have time for any of it anymore. All I could think
about was pretty girls and the warm summer nights around the corner. Listening
to that last period bell ringing was music to my ears.
I figured for transportation, all I really needed to get
around was something reliable enough to get me from point A to point B, or
simply just hitch a ride to and from, in whatever form that took, short of
taking a city bus that is.
Drop me off anytime on a hot summer day at the hillside
slope of Barton Springs was my thinking. I could spend five days a week there
and often did knowing all too well there will be some pretty girl there with a
golden tan that I will gladly trade rubbing baby oil on those hard to reach
places for a ride back.
 |
| Barton Springs |
It was a sure bet that practically any day of the week I was
there, I could find either Karen, Tracey, Lani, Charlotte, or Suzanne, along
with half a dozen other girls all laying in a perfect row on giant beach towels
halfway up the hill as If they were on the French Riviera sunning their lovely
bodies that glistened with beads of ice cold water and shiny baby oil. This was
the destination to be, and even if I didn’t get a ride and had to walk or even
hitch hike back south, it was still worth spending the day if just to watch the
likes of sweet Lani climb in and out of that freezing water wearing what little
there was of that dark green suede bikini that blended into her silky tanned
olive skin shining in the sun with trails of water flowing from head to toe
over her perfect body, dripping all the way down her back and legs from
throwing her long dark hair in one arced swoop as she climbed up the poolside
ladder.
She smiled and shivered
with goose-bumps all over from the cold spring water and every time she got out
the same way, hurriedly wrapping her self in her towel in a flurry to get warm,
and would for the tenth time say, ”that water is sooo cold”!.
She didn’t need
to say much of anything to hold our dumbfounded attention. That magnificent
smile alone was enough to drive you wild crazy as was just about every other
girl in sight, especially this all too familiar bohemian clan sprawled, and
lying stretched out thick as thieves in a lovely, dizzying display of sensual
beauty with their innocent yummy laughter of their inner circle secrets,
overflowing free spirited hippie charm with their wild-child mischievous clever
sense of freedom.
They were my weakness for sure- that ever-splendid variety,
as intimidating as they were enticing, when hanging together in numbers, made us
look clumsy and stupid. They wielded power by doing nothing.
A simple straightening the lines on their bikini bottoms by
running their fingers between the band and across silky wet skin was enough to
make you stutter and trip over yourself.
I usually went most days to the pool with Luis, who I never
once saw swim, but was no less thinking in tandem with me if not one step ahead
of my thoughts, and likewise, I knew simultaneously every detail he happened
catch glimpses of as he frequently dropped his head laughing, “damn”! Oh the
painful bliss of beauty and all that it so marvelously disrupted! We were so
focused and captured by the ease in which they coexisted together- unlike our
often sense of stressful worry of impending doom of futures looming over a
cliff- so we made the best of these moments by joining in- to lay back, get
high and take it all in was the only solution we could muster.
No doubt our weakness for pretty girls was a pleasure and a
curse. We couldn’t seem to get anything done that was worth a damn, but we
didn’t focus much on that negative aspect of it and it wasn’t going to stop us
from having fun wherever we could find it.
Those summer days were nearing, and the Indians were getting
restless- days were hotter and the nights longer and engines all around were
being revved literally.
It was one of those Fridays and school couldn’t have been out
fast enough.
There was talk of a drag race happening, which usually took
place on Fridays. Most of the time that meant it was no more than just a quick
sprint of flexing muscle by racing light to light and showing off a new header
or what not, but the chatter of this nights race had spread like wildfire and
rumor had it a big race was going down involving several cars and some heavy
hitters not from around here. No location had been decided, but this was going
to be for money or pink slips and full out quarter mile fury. Things were
starting to get punchy and for some, it was time put up or shut up, which was
understandable after how much these guys had put into these engines. They were
always a little keyed up and fidgety as summer neared, ready to stretch them out and quit
talking about it.
Most of the races over the past couple of years had taken
place out by me on 1626 in Manchaca. It had the perfect quarter mile strip to
within an inch, starting from ‘Old San Antonio road’, right at the corner of Kitchens
baseball field, to the first banking turn where the San Leanna population sign
was posted. Billy and I could watch from the front porch of the old shack just
above on the hill. The biggest problem on this stretch of road was coming into
the finish on that high banked corner while doing over a hundred miles an hour. More than
a few had missed judged that sharp turn and went through old man Reimer’s
fence. The last being Mike Griffin in his pretty green Corvette, who actually
went airborne and sailed clear over the cedar posts, and the only reason you
knew he was OK was because he got out took a chain from his trunk and went to
beating his car to hell. We just left him alone- no one dared get between that
flying chain and fiberglass.
 |
| 360 Bridge location |
Recently the races had moved over to loop 360 which was a
brand new stretch of highway west of town on the south side of the lake, where
they were planning to put a long arced bridge across, but for now there wasn’t
much built out there and since it dead ended at the lake front, it had a
perfect straight quarter mile stretch with four newly paved lanes perfect for
racing out of sight with no traffic.
Back out in Manchaca things had lately become a little too
hot with city police now making their way that far south ever since they built
this fancy high end sub-division of Onion Creek with its new mansions and
private golf course and even though they were clear on the other side of the
highway and over a mile from kitchens field, some local yahoos had one
afternoon taken their street rod and were power-braking, while pouring oil and
Clorox over the rear tires that sent a volcano of smoke a mile high and wide,
tires spinning with a full bore engine maxed so far into the red line it was on
the brink of exploding-flames were shooting out from the exhaust so far it was
enough to scare you like a roaring dragon coming after you. It must have set
off a little panic in that fancy new neighborhood with the young debutante's
calling out for daddy. The same debutante's that soon would be sneaking out and
climbing into the windows of our sinister cars for a ride they would not soon
forget.
It was still not clear where this Friday night race was
going to be, and the location could change at anytime. To me, it didn’t matter
where it was as long as their were pretty girls in the equation somewhere
before or after. I was just going along with the flow.
 |
| Jumbo's hang out |
Just after school I crossed with buddies Luis and John over
to the parking lot. I was parked right next to John’s beautiful cream white 71 Challenger.
In crossing we noticed the usual group of girls on Jumbo's picnic-tables. From a
distance I could make out for sure Sheila, Jan and Karen who I knew had been
there skipping since 5
Th and 6
Th period. I had bumped
into Theresa and Adrea earlier and already told me hours ago they were planning
to all go to the ‘Armadillo’ that night and we should meet up later at the
‘Back Room.’
Reluctantly we decided to sneak long and wide to avoid them
for the time being. It turned out, between the three of us, we had traded off
interactions of sorts with more than a few of the same girls, so unsure what
our presence with all three of us together would cause, be it good or bad,
we cowardly figured it better safe than sorry and giggled like girls as we
weaved and bobbed our way past them only to be met point blank by sweet
M’lissa, stopping me with just the raise of her finger as we tried to skirt
around the back side of Jumbo’s. “Where do you think you boys are going?” Luckily
she was just curious what we were up to and didn’t keep us but teasingly kept
an eye on us non the less as we sheepishly moved on trying not to look back.
We took off to regroup some and shake off the school
cobwebs, played some Foosball, got a little baked, and ran around town for a
bit. Luis always wanted his jeans pressed and starched, so we had to go do that before
heading back.
Before you could blink, it was nearing sunset and the Rylanders
lot was already filling up with our little ragtag gang of misfits.
Despite how we may or may not have been judged, we were by
no means a band of heathens as it might have appeared from a distance. We were
more of an informal fraternity of sorts that gathered nightly in our disheveled, circled
camp of unity… We were somewhat a Bohemian group of long hair cowboys, pot head
rockers, mischievous bad boys, a few outlaws, and for sure a whole lot of the
prettiest girls roaming free in their jean cutoffs, sandals and flowery cotton
tank tops. We were all just looking for a good time and no spiritual redemption or salvation was needed.
 |
| Charlotte |
The West Coast had your surfers and skaters, East coast, your
baseball, hockey, Coney Island and Manhattan or Philly. We were known as ‘the
Third Coast’, although we were three hours from
any coast at all. Quite simply,
this was a weird little Texas city and we were at its grass roots, a hippie
rock and roll town in a hot Texas oasis we turned into a big playground.
 |
| M'lissa |
No doubt we thought we were pretty cool. Cars assembled as
they came in with a natural order of ranks and hierarchy. We parked all muddled
in a chaotic, disordered, ever changing clutter that flowed in its own controlled
disarray- cruising perfection of calculated cool.
Everyone was out on this night along with some of the most
impressive street racers from here to Detroit.
All those trips to that junkyard paid off-the hundreds of
hours of sanding, grinding, twisting, torquing, tweaking, tightening and
beating day after day on these scrap heaps of metal and five hundred dollar
rust buckets that were beat and molded from the ground up with every last
familiar nut and bolt turned into a Super Car. Mr. Ratz would be very proud.
They were beautiful in every shape and size, but aside from a
few fancy paint jobs here and there, these were reflections of the Earl Shive
$99 special and most were in different stages of primer gray or black, which
for a muscle car, only made them look more menacing and dangerous.
Under the hood was a different story. Cable clips and hood
locks kept you from looking under most of the hoods, but everyone spent half the
night talking about their engines so much that there really was no mystery, at least not amongst this gang.
And this night it was the whole gang of merry pranksters out
in full force and entering from all corners of the lot. 'STP' stickers displayed on each windshield like their trademark badge.
I leaned with my boys against my pretty but mediocre Firebird admiring the scene and myriad of spectacular machines, as usual, rain or shine
foolishly still wearing my aviators even with the sun setting.
Several hoods were popped up. Every one of their engines had
been over bored to the max - most fitted with new Holley four barrel carburetors
- Hurst and Muncie four speed transmissions and 4 on the floor
slap-speed shifters with their T handles and pistol grips resting between the
low seat console. They rolled in on positive track - some with Mickey Thomson
wheels and offset Craigers or even the expensive aluminum center-line rims.
And then there were the few that went the distance, running
on nitrous fuel, real racing traction bars and even wide rear drag slicks. They
had racing small tach-gauges on the steering columns - hood scoops for blowers
and some cars were stripped of every piece of metal leaving only a thin outer
shell and roll bar draped over a massive engine. I could tell Darryl came in
here ready to switch over to his nitrous kit, and I wondered if he might be racing
anyone tonight.
These cars were like a drug to these guys and every penny they could
get your hands on went into them. It was a never-ending money drain, and money
they needed. These guys blew through clutches, tires and transmissions faster
than cheap tennis shoes. Ironically one of the highest dollar items in the
whole car was the stereo system, which was a must have. Without the right stereo, the
package was not complete and it would be like watching a movie without the
soundtrack. It had to be a 'Craig' or 'Pioneer super track' with 'Jensen tri-axle' speakers
and a high dollar power booster that mounted and bolted to the console under
the seat along side the 'Hurst' shifters. There were holes cut in every
imaginable place they could find to put a speakers and sub -woofers that mounted
all over the backs of seats to inside the trunks that would blast out our
favorite Aerosmith, Zeppelin, ACDC, Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Scorpions, and for
sure, Rush 2112. Everyone with the same endless rock playlist blasting sky high
as loud as their engines...
For me, nothing compared to that sound. Sitting in the back seat you
could close your eyes and drift away into the sky with Ziggy Stardust and Pink Floyd, and when behind the wheel and driving, you felt your cool wash over you as
you cruised in slow and loud. It was the soundtrack to your own movie with
Robert Plant, Tyler or Hendrix as your passengers echoing loudly through your
head and out the window for everyone to hear and take notice. There really is nothing
quite like the sound of music mixed with the harmonics of a well tuned
engine, especially a Mopar ‘Challenger’ with a full blown Hemi' or a Z-28
stretched out and red lined in second gear-a sweet rumbling purr to a screaming roar in
0-60 madness, in sync and mixed with the intoxicating pounding bass of ‘Bad Company’.
Everyone was so young. We were all just teenagers and most of this was
experimental trial and error. Half of us barely had a diverse license yet. All
these fancy racing numbers and stats thrown around was a long way from my days
of lawn mowers and goat trucks and most of this didn't make sense to me anyway.
It was no longer my thing. I guess I would have no bragging rights to tell my
kids one day except for the fact that I could claim I was actually there and
lived it. I loved and appreciated the cool cars like the next guy as long as
they looked badass, could fry the tires doing burnouts, and donuts and that's about
all I cared for when it came to these cars. I was a spectator at best.
The true reality of muscle cars though, no matter how cool, and other
than looking and sounding tough, had only one purpose, and that was to go fast,
mostly limited and constricted to a straight line in hopes that the back end
doesn't get so far away from you that you can't catch up or stay in front of its
massive
spinning torque. Other than that, they really weren't worth a damn or
good for much. You couldn't go over the smallest bump even without a front-end spoiler and if it was wet or on a gravel road, you might as well leave it parked at home. And you better hope you called shotgun
and are not the guy with long legs riding in the back seat of a pony car or
fastback. Can't look cool sitting in the back, cocked half sideways with your knees up
to your chin.
It was a toss up who had the fastest car here and not sure until the
moment if anyone was really going to race at all. They were all pretty fast and
respected as the real deal. There was of course the exaggeration of ten second
quarter mile runs when in fact I doubt, when even the best of them ran full out,
ever did 13 seconds or better, which in itself is crazy fast by any standards
and barely street legal at that. It was fast enough to blow your tires clean
off the axle if you didn't have positive traction. That’s when you look silly
with your bumper on the ground stuck at a light and then having to explain to
an officer where your wheels went, which was pretty obvious with two ten foot stripes of rubber behind you still smoking.
Despite any shortcomings of Detroit engineering and lack of front
wheel drive, we still scoffed at the European rally cars and more so the Japanese
cars that were growing in numbers because of the gas embargo. They had now
taken over the road races at Aqua –Fest and every parent wanted to trade in
their station wagon for one. I knew there was only a couple Ferrari's in the whole
city owned by rich Arab exchange students at St. Edwards University but nowhere
near our parking lot. These here were redneck suburban hippies with no dreams
of the racing the grand prix . They would be happy and lucky enough just to end
up on the redneck flat-track at ‘Speed O Rama’, Austins motor speedway or the
quarter mile drag strip down in San Antonio.
As the night progressed, I recognized right off most everyone pulling
up and moving into circles of their usual pecking order- cruising in and pulling
up so close, door to door, you could barely slip a piece of paper between the
mirrors, which also made it easy to pass a beer or the familiar alligator roach
clip that hung off most every keychain in the lot.
This Friday it was sweltering hot even more so on the asphalt clamored
around several idling engines.
I could see Homer, Rusty and Gene from a distance- all skinny and
shirtless as
usual leaning against the ‘Charger’ and Homer’s ‘fastback’ - laughing silly
while smoke poured out of Gene’s bright orange hippie shag van. Cousin Mike was making his rounds. I was hoping he wasn't looking for a fight with one of the Friar brothers...
Sweet pretty Liz was hanging off her boyfriend’s neck, making us all
jealous, breaking hearts as she swayed
her body
happily back and forth. Her bare feet danced on her tip toes, showing off her
long skinny legs in those ever so short cutoffs and soft cotton halter top. I
at least once stole a kiss from her in Jr. high at an all night skate party at
the hot wheels skate rink but that was as good as it got for me or anyone else
for that matter.
 |
| Jeff's Z-28 |
Before long the place was packed but not satisfied until the slick royalty
rolled in on their dark horses- the tough pretty bad boys in their sleek pony
cars - slunk low down and cool, Dave hunter sitting quiet and smiling as usual looking like Robert Redford alongside Jeff in
his sweet gold and black pin striped turbo z-28 Comaro.
 |
| Dave Hunter |
Just behind me came the twins Donny and Ronny, as usual loud and fast,
grinning
ear to ear, scanning and blanketing all corners of the parking lot and
looking like
 |
| Donny |
they just got back from surfing in Hawaii with their bleached blonde
hair and
puka shells tight around their neck. You would have thought they were
running
from the law the way they moved so hurried in a scurrying manner but
that’s the
way they came through any door as far back as I can remember. They
came in the
same every night. All they cared about, from birth on, was weed and
where all the
pretty girls were - and in no specific order but preferably together.
I'm sure they even gave their babysitters a run for their money. You couldn't
tell them apart at
all. I even think several of the numerous girls they ended up with
even got
confused at times and had to lean back and do a double take. I know
they had
traded places going to classes this way and pulled it off a number of
times, so I'm sure they pushed the envelope with their unique DNA in and beyond
fooling pretty girls. but being one in the same as they were, I doubt the girls
would protest and might actually like it.
 |
| Mark Tolar and Randy |
Tolar and Randy, who were about as crazy, came flying in about the
same time, bouncing the curb like a bug bouncing off a light bulb. I don't know
what possessed him to get that bright yellow VW bug, but he just about took out
one of the twins, flying in here in that yellow ball like it was a NASCAR, then
rips the emergency brake slinging him in an impressive 360 to a perfect halt at
the toes of a small crowd that backed up just inches from being slammed. Tolar jumps out front and center as if perplexed with
both hands in the air- one hand holding a Frisbee, innocently saying,”
what"! As he flings his rolling tray frisbee at Stclair’s head.
The place was jumping. I was thrilled to even see a small flock of Ms.
Daniels coveted sweet Tex-Ann’s show up after another losing game. And out of
the corner of my eye I saw that young adorable Kelly B walking slowly in our
direction. She had grown up. That cute shy kid was now turning a lot of heads, grown
up into a pretty flower with some frisky confidence in that perky stride. The night couldn’t
be unfolding better. How could anything go wrong on a perfect night like this?
 |
| Barry Briggs |
Then, with no introduction necessary, I could hear the beautiful
rumbling purr of that unmistakable 69 fastback mustang. Everyone unanimously turns
their head as the infamous Barry Briggs cruises in slow motion, (or so it
seemed), one hand hung over his rosewood steering wheel, elbow out the window, head nodding a salute with that damn grin of his as he passes by, slung back
in that beautiful matte black awesome mustang of his. Not only was it the
coolest car, but Barry was the closest we had to real James Dean and looked
just like David Cassidy with even better hair.
He had movie-star piercing blue eyes that made every girl around sigh
and loosen a little of their grip from around their boyfriends as he rolled in.
Even Liz slid her feet gently back to the ground with a sigh. I was pretty good
friends with Barry and got to ride shotgun with him just enough times to be
cool by association that gained me a few points I was calculating in my favor. I could only
hoped the right girls were around to notice.
 |
| Mark Wheeless |
 |
| Liz |
His brother Bryan Briggs came in a minute later behind Barry, but riding on a motorcycle, showing off a perfect wheelie. He rode in on bikes with Mark and Randy. They
were part of Bill Kason’s motocross racing team and could do just about
anything on two wheels. These guys raced world class motor-cross religiously throwing rooster tails in in everyone they passed while banking turns on every dirt track from Dallas to San Antonio and everywhere in between, especially Mark, who's real last name was, ironically, ‘Wheeless’
as if it were a birth rite to it because for years we all witnessed that his
feet rarely touched the ground, at least not two at the same time, and If he
wasn't on a motocross bike, he was flying on the sides of a pool on a
skateboard or a go cart, or jumping rows of cars on a beach cruiser bicycle. He
looked like someone just snatched him up from the strand of Santa Monica beach
in California or the halls of
Berkeley. He never wore more than a pair of shorts and his slip-on checkered
vans, except for an occasional elbow or knee-pad for doing some insane stunt.
He was fearless and wired way different than the rest of us and if you wanted
to keep up with him you better have rockets on your skates and cold water in
your veins. I would say he was the true coolest cat maybe of all, and it's because he
was pure humble about it-unlike me, who was so vain, I made it a chore to be
cool. I bet I must of glanced sideways in every car window I passed to check my
hair, unlike Mark, who tried to figure out how he could ride something up and
over the roof of every car around here.
 |
| Darren 'Lake Travis 'flats' |
The night rolled on as we huddled in our masses. So many of the same
group of us could be found from the sand flats at the lake, all the way to
Spring break trips in Padre, or any other given time, most likely some hay
field or back yard where we went in search of the remains of half empty beer
kegs floating sideways in melted ice, where we left a little worse for wear, including a few chigger bites. The thousand-dollar question was always, "Where is the party?"
The night was unfolding flawlessly with ease and delightful amusement
as if the world was perfectly on its axis. It was almost too perfect, I
pessimistically was thinking and hoping the night would continue to envelope us
all into a state of joy.
That bliss, unfortunately was all about to change.
I asked about a race, not
really caring either way, and was told it already happened with Mahaney’s new Willys nitro
truck. But then where was everyone all of a sudden going? Half a dozen cars
took off together. Like chasing a firetruck we were not going to miss out.
Impatience was contagious and replaced any sensibility with restless
wanderlust amongst all of us. We read signals with over eager impulses. We were at a point where we would follow the herd off a cliff with
blind faith. And so went the exodus of the parking lot this night. Cars blocking all other
traffic like a funeral procession as they turned south, bumper to bumper,
weaving and revving in a loud frenzied convoy with a stretch of cars that made any
on coming traffic slow and stare with perplexed fearful faces of childlike awe.
The line of cars stretched into the dark, in narrow lanes where the city streetlights had
stopped and cow and hay pastures lay dark on either side of the road.
Within minutes the lead car reached the end, turned left without
hesitation on old farm and market road 1626 in the direction of 'Kitchens field'.
A few had went the other direction from the East, winding up Slaughter creek on
old San Antonio rd.
We came up on what looked like had already been some racing or just
stretching of
engines through the turns.
The trick was to get in and out of there fast. For the most part, this
was usually
not too much a spectator sport, and most at the parking lot would only get
wind of it
long after it was over. After all it was only seconds in a quarter
mile whether
exaggerated or not.
But this wasn't the case tonight. Within minutes, there were cars
everywhere.
Any other time we were casual enough to glance in the distance for the
law, and
had enough CB radios to know if it had been tipped off. We would
lean
casually while engines heated up and rubber heated enough on the
asphalt to get
traction, but tonight was a full looker-on sport that had spread like
wildfire.
It was obvious nothing good could come of this..
The cars along 1626 were parked half in the side ditches in a line
like a
derailed train on both sides of the narrow road. You had to wonder
just how
smart the Sheriffs deputies and DPS officers were to begin with, because at
anytime they could have capped either end of this road, blocking us all
in with
no escape, but instead, they always gave themselves away on their approach. You
would see their red and blue lights reflecting high in the trees from over a mile
away as they wound their way up Slaughter creek or crossed over the overpass of
the highway in the far distant at onion creek. In the other direction, Manchaca was a sad and quiet town and had no law enforcement and half the time the DPS officers
that patrolled the area outside city limits were such good ole’ boys they couldn't be
bothered
with a quick race and might even be related to all involved. Even back
at the parking lot the APD would just cruise slowly through nodding and
admiring with respect fin regards of a well built street car, all the well knowing that any one of
us had dipped our hand behind our leg hiding a joint or beer can as they passed.
Tonight was out of hand though. Luis rode out with me in my Firebird.
We jumped
out looking half confused as anyone else half in or out of their car.
No one
knew what was going on and like going over that cliff, we weren't sure
if anyone
was racing at all or did we just play follow the leader.
We went to find out. I spotted right away Cody Brook taking big steps
along the
row of cars. Cody was one cool cat that just made you laugh to have
him around
and he always knew what was going on as if he was our chamber of commerce. He was a hearty
energetic kid who weaved through every click in high school and beyond as if he
were the mayor with no sworn allegiance to any of them. He liked everyone and
everyone liked him. He showed up at any event and moved around like a lightning
bug, lighting up here, then there, and then back behind you. If you took your eye
off him for a second, you would lose him. At these races, he ran on foot almost
as fast as the cars. We watched him running up and down the row, slapping hoods
and hands as he passed only stopping momentarily to check who rode in back
seats and to bum a cigarette, even though he had a lit one dangling from his
lip. As usual, he had some little cutie trailing behind trying to keep up.
Before we caught up with Cody, we heard a scream of an engine just in
time to
look up and see the nitrous blown Willys truck get all squirrely as it
pulled the
front wheels off the ground before dropping back down in a sea of
smoke and come
screaming past us like a
mad beast! He must have been out here for a while if we heard about him
back at the parking lot.
We weren’t out of our car more than ten seconds before we saw the blue
and red lights in the distance. I knew I should have stayed back in the parking
lot. This was such a waste and to think I could have been chatting up Kelly all
this time, hating that I saw her walking off with Wheeless, when clearly she was coming over to me. Instead, I ended up here stuck in a bad predicament with a bunch of knuckleheads.
Cody spun on his heals with an 'Uh-Oh' grin on his bright happy face, in a hurry to get the hell out of there and
back to whatever car he came in, or whatever one would let him in just in case
his ride
had already gone or was blocked
in during the chaos. He could jump in with us, so I
waved him in our direction and that's when the unthinkable happened.
All the cars were parked this way and that, cockeyed hastily out of any order, and
although Cody as usual was always looking out for the best interest of everyone
else and despite being in as much of a hurry as the next guy, he still was
methodically and characteristically taking charge by getting people moving in a
somewhat orderly manner while hollering, “come on!” as he jogged in our
direction pounding on the hoods as he went.
One of the cars parked along the road was an old mid 60s Impala just
next to us.
Its engine started with a deep rumble and exhaust hiccup, spitting out
a puff of
white smoke. The engine gasped and coughed for gas flow a couple times
before
firing up, and just as it was ready to take off – us seeing the tail
and brake
lights brighten, Cody ran up behind the Impala at that exact moment
ready to
slap the trunk to wave them off like the others, when the most
improbable jaw dropping insane thing happened with the oddest most bizarre one
in a trillion probability in life's crazy circumstances. The dreadful timing,
unforeseen, unfolded and aligned in front of us as perfect as the stars above.
An old Impala as stylish and impressive as it may be, has dual
antennas mounted
on the back, slanting
back off the rear panels at a 45 degree angle that stretched out to about head
high when fully extended.
At just the right moment, as if the Gods had struck lightning upon us, Cody was
stopped, literally near
dead in his tracks, as he ran up on that unseen needle
like invisible antenna that instantly plunged straight into his eye,
jolting
his head back as if he just got hit with a hard right hook. The car
was parked sitting
just enough down in the ditch to put the tiny steel ball at its tip
exactly at
eye level that shot out of the dark and right through his eye and deep
into his
head leaving him impaled and shaking on his toes with his hands flailing by
his side as if electrocuted, while his head stayed frozen motionless in
terror.
He immediately started screaming,” STOP -STOP -STOP THE CAR!"
We were on him instantly, helpless, shocked and even more confused than he was,
thinking at first he might have gotten his foot ran over. The situation at a glance was more horror and
frightful confusion as apposed to anything actually gruesome. There was not even
a single drop of blood anywhere, but no mistaking, the antenna had plunged deep into his head through his right eye and the worst of the
situation was this car was revved in gear and ready to take off in a hurry. The whole immediate experience was enough to make your knees buckle.
Jason Mackey was driving the car and had no idea what was going on and
by now several people were pounding on the car and the police sirens were
visibly getting closer.
Jason, not knowing what happened, figured the pounding
was a way of saying take off, so he put the car in drive and shifted his
foot to the gas peddle ready to punch it and get the hell out of there. We knew
what was about to happen as we envisioned Cody's eyeball, and possibly parts of
his brain
being torn and ripped out of his eye socket, and then flung by the
antenna out
into a hay field and possibly even leaving him dead or just standing
there
without an eyeball.
As if in slow motion you
could hear the transmission engage into gear at the very moment Charles Rogers lunged his entire body across the whole
hood of the car, with his hands raised halting the car while also pounding
frantically and yelling, " STOP,STOP,STOP the car"!
Jason jumped out of his door in a frantic huff but was silenced seeing
Cody impaled by his antenna. With the crowd around him growing, Cody raised his
hands in protection not quite touching the shaft while screaming in fear,”
don’t touch it- get back get -back -its deep" DON'T TOUCH ME!”
Holy hell, we were all thinking. This was something no one had ever
seen except for maybe a fish that often gets a steel hook through the eye.
We didn't even noticed that two DPS officers pulled up beside us, and
they immediately knew something was wrong as they hurriedly exited their patrol car with hands on their guns clearing a path right to Cody.
"What the hell"? They looked at us for answers. Cody became
more panicked and agitated screaming louder not to touch it.
Cody must have been able to feel the little ball tip moving around in
his eyeball or somewhere in the back of his brain.
Luis bent down low to get a better look and was amazed to see that Cody
was staring back at him through the very eye the antenna was sticking out
of.
Miraculously it appeared that the antenna had gone through only his
eyelid and rolled up over his eyeball, yet that still meant it had for sure
pierced into his brain. "Damn Cody! man Can you see me?"
One officer called for an ambulance while the other shined on his
flashlight unsure what to do and trying to ask questions all at the same time.
This was as new to them as it was to any of us and immediately stupid solutions
started fly from all directions with more than one person saying, "you just have to
yank it out really fast". That sent Cody into a frenzy with his arms trying to
protect the
antenna and his face even more, while keeping anyone within arms length away with
his
other hand.
" Come on you just have to pull it straight! yank it!", was the brightest
suggestion repeated through the crowd in unanimous ignorance like a
bunch of
dumb hillbilly's.
It was obvious we had to first get the antenna off the car.
The officers had a pair of industrial wire snips. Even Cody knew it
had to be cut and though it was a unanimous decision, he was the only one dangling at
the end of an antenna and had to endure the trauma alone despite all of us
feeling a little queasy by now and no way was I going to be the one cut it. As Johnny
slowly opened the snips at the base of the shaft he paused as if about to cut
the wrong
wire on a detonator . Cody's foot started tapping rapidly in
anticipation. And then he cut it fast in one go, but the release sent Cody backward with
a scream, still holding two feet of the shaft hanging from his eye, now moving unstable on his feet trying to steady the wire.
Cody held it low and steadied himself, still tipped forward and staring at the ground.
We all froze momentarily until he stopped moving.
I wondered how he was still standing, and were we a
moment away from him dropping dead or going into a seizure. He was pail white
and looked close to fainting, but said in a calm quiet murmer that he was OK, just get him to a
hospital.
He seemed calm and focused as long as no one touched him including the
paramedics that arrived.
We helped him into the
back, sitting up without a stretcher. He wanted control of all movement and sat silent taking long slow exaggerated breaths.He
didn't even answer questions. You could tell he wanted to get this done and over with. He
was clearly in a living nightmare unsure of what the outcomes would be as were all of us to some degree.
They were off and gone and the rest of us disbanded without much
fanfare. The DPS officers, after a few
questions more, most just out of their own curiosity, basically waved us off in disbelief, telling us just to get the hell out of
there.
By the time we got to the hospital they had already clipped the
antenna leaving only 6 inches of the thinnest part sticking out of his eye, and a CT scan and X-ray confirmed the ball at the end had pierced through his brain all
the way to the back of his skull.
As bad as it seemed to be, it was unfortunately just in our nature to
poke fun, and we had already started calling him "radar" and voiced
our concern he was going to pick up reception to a really bad radio station- maybe even
AM opera.
He clearly wasn't as amused as we were. This was our poor mans defense mechanism. We had come to learn if someone was still alive in tragic situations, they were fair game for ridicule and teasing. It was our
naive way of coping. We had already buried several friends over our young years, and being
light hearted helped us believe everything would be OK until it
actually was- a
prayer of sorts.
Doctors got us out of there as quick as they could, but for the most
part, they had no better answers of what to do than we did. He was not rushed off to surgery but
left with an antenna still sticking out of his head, and through the whole night. Would they
have to take his eye out? Would it kill him pulling back through his brain?
As coherent as Cody was, it was still a serious and critical
situation in a trauma hospital with doctors just scratching their heads on what to
do.
Surrendering to the pressures, they consulted Mount Sinai in New York,
and the next day they had a leading brain surgeon on his way to Texas.
I can only imagine how time passed for Cody in those long tortuous
hours.
When the surgeon arrived he took one look at the X-rays and at Cody
and had him in surgery without hesitation or even a consultation, saying he was
going to be just fine. We hoped that was confidence and not plum crazy talk.
And low and behold, he was right! How did the doctors miss the logical solution? This fancy Jewish
doctor spent literally minutes in surgery. He first made an arced incision, then
pealed back
a flap of skin, and then cut a perfect small round hole in the back
right side of his head, exactly how you would cut a pumpkin top, so the piece would
fit back in place. He then simply pushed on, with his finger, the protruding
tip sticking from his eye, causing the ball and shaft to exit smoothly in one piece
out the back hole. He then simply put back the removed
piece of skull, folded over the flap, and stapled him up, and it was over.
The eyelid had only two tiny stitches
barely noticeable and all was done. The doctor explained to him in a
simplistic manner, saying, "Son, didn't you ever see a cowboy movie? You don't pull an arrow back out of the hole, you have
to push it through." - sounded logical to me.
No brain damage that we could tell, although that would be forever debated, and in a day or so he could go home. The
worst being that he couldn't get his head wet going into another sweltering
summer.
The comic relief in this situation though, was the giant scar left on his head
that was in the exact shape of a question mark from where the flap had been cut and peeled back, and although the scar would be covered back over as his
hair grows in, we made sure we would never let him forget the fact that there will
always be a big question mark on his head. He didn't think one was funny either.
That was the end to a long and memorable day that stretched into the
weekend with the story being told over and over again in distorted and twisted
versions, exaggerated and glorified as we do most stories, but all that mattered
was that Cody was safe and well.
I truly was over the moon happy Cody survived the ordeal but it was enough drama for me to last a while. I
had already by the next day, set my sights on the future, which was to be locked together gripped
by toes and finger tips while floating on rafts linked together with any one of
those bohemian
beauties, drifting down a lazy river, or any number of our many watering holes
where I could simply close my eyes to that young playful laughter, the rippling water
under a big blue sky full of the sounds of Summer coming alive in the welcomed
warm sunshine. Or on second thought, maybe I might just stop in and see my dad. He has another
old wooden boat he built and needs some help with it, and after all, who can
build their own
boat other than my dad?….
 |
| Dad's Boat |
Looking back there was no
doubt, by some measure, we were the coolest gang of misfits around. In twenty
years or so that might not be the case but we will one day surely long for
those endless nights of parading bravado leaning skinny and shirtless on hot
summer nights, drawing on a Marlboro with pretty girls hanging draped on our
shoulders while living a small dream in a game of chance, where the nights unfolded
around our cool silence waiting for the unpredictable or magic to present
itself, which it often did in many forms making us once again feel like we can
fly, we can fly….
 |
| RIP Brother Larry |
To my stuttering surprise, I was stunned when i caught sight of a girl so beyond pretty, it actually hurt my heart , and i was instantly 12 years old again, dead center in a spotlight......oh my gosh, it was Susan Rainey!
