Nip it in the bud…

This is a repost of part of one from my other blog, but since I couldn’t decide which one the whole story belonged on, I decided to put the whole story there, and this part, which belongs here, here.  If you want to read the whole story, here’s the link: Click on me.

I was 6 or 7 when my dad caught me with a Matchbox car I had stolen from the local 5 & Dime.  I hadn’t even had the chance to get it out of the package, so my dad immediately packed me into the car, drove me back down there and made  me go in, return it and apologize for taking it.  This little lesson has stuck with me, well, it’s still with me.  I’d like to say that I’ve never stolen anything since then, but as we all know the teen years can overcome the best of parenting.  But even during my most narcissistic adolescent phase, I still had this big knot in the pit of my stomach anytime I took something that wasn’t mine.  It didn’t stop me, but I still had a physical reaction.  Which probably explains why my larceny was kept to a minimum, and can say that I have never been arrested for any kind of theft.

Remembering back on my experience, I really have no idea what the man at the counter said, or exactly what my father had said for that matter.  I vividly remember walking in that door, looking down the counter, on the right, to where the cashier was, and standing there in front of him.  I remember being embarrassed as hell that I got caught, and more importantly, that I was being held responsible for my actions.

Prelude to “Fun with Cops, part I”

As I look back on my parent’s job of parenting, it amazes me exactly how naive the 60’s and 70’s were.  My parents did, or allowed, things that quite frankly would have their children removed by DFS if done today. We would sit in the front seat of the car, completely unrestrained except for mom’s arm which would automatically swing out whenever she had to stop suddenly.  Sometimes we would be sitting on dad’s lap, helping him steer our bright red 63’ Chevy wagon down the highway.   And when we weren’t in the front seat, we were often laying down in the way-back (the cargo area of a station wagon, behind the back seats) with all our camping gear floating around us, a hundred lethal projectiles surrounding us as we cruised the highways at 85 MPH. 

Then there’s the summer we spent on Martha’s Vineyard.  Yes, they hired a nanny to watch over the 4 of us while they were working the deal for my dad’s Calculus book.  But picture a family of 6 cruising around in that 2 seater Fiat my dad is standing next to.  Mom & dad in the front seat, the 4 kids (ages 3, 6, 9 and 11) sitting on the trunk with our feet, safely anchoring us to the car, in the space behind the front seats.  Tell me that wouldn’t bring a social worker to your house these days.  Oh, and the hitchhiking.  We were allowed to hitchhike all over the island.  Of course, the 3 year old was not allowed to participate, and the 6 year old could only hitchhike if accompanied by the 9 and 11 year olds.  But my older brother and I had free run of the island.

Yeah, those were the 60’s.  When my parents were still the up-and-coming suburbanites.  Then the 70’s came, with my mother’s cancer, chemotherapy and the subsequent doctor-endorsed (for my mom at least, and quite nudge-nudge, wink-wink) marijuana use.  Curfew at my house during my teen years was (actually a very strict) 9:00 on school nights and, well, “Call and let us know if you’re too drunk  to drive home and going to spend the night at your friend’s house” on weekends.  My friends knew this, and would call for me if I was already “asleep”.  It was not unheard of at Friday dinners for me to say “We’re going camping, I’ll be home by 9:00 on Sunday.” and simply get a “Have a great weekend.” from the parents.  Which leads to the whole purpose of this tirade – the prelude.

My dad was, and still is, a very prominent Professor, he was hired by the University to help build a world-class department because of his reputation and connections.  This meant that he and my mom did a lot of traveling, leaving a house full of teenagers completely unattended.  This is the prelude to the future post to be titled “Fun with Cops, part I”, a week during my senior year in high school where, at 17, I was the oldest one in the house.

Now, before you ask yourself “is this guy writing this from behind the bars of a state prison?”, despite all those things my parents did that would get them arrested if they were raising kids in 2010, they did a pretty damn good job.  All 4 of their children graduated high school.  3 went to college.  NONE of us have a criminal record or have even had any serious problems with the law.  3 of us are married with children, one with grandchildren, and all 3 who have been married have never been married to anyone but the person they are currently married to.  We have all spent our lives supporting ourselves and our respective families, never expecting anyone to take care of us financially, other than during emergencies. 

Whatever my parents did do wrong, they must have also been doing something right.

Road Rage in the 80’s

It must have been ‘86, I was working at the Free Wheeler in West Valley City.  A co-worker had a 1966 Plymouth Fury and my little brother had a 1973 Cadillac.  One of our favorite past times was to drive around in the two cars and slam into each other at stop lights.

We wouldn’t be going very fast, it never did any real damage to either of the car bumpers, but it would jolt them and get people looking.

The fun part was when we would start yelling at each other out the car windows.  We’d hang our heads out, shake our fists, sometimes the passengers would sit on the doors pounding their fists on the roof of the car.  All just to see what the onlookers would do.

Usually it would be just stare, one time a lady who was going to pull out of a parking lot into the lane next to us choose to back up and use the other exit, but if never lasted long because the light would soon turn green and we’d be on our way.

Until the next red light.

Dummy in the Road.

When I was in high school, the family car was a 1974 Dodge Van.  For various reasons, I would often be stuck, or allowed to, drive the van instead of my Colt.  Which made it a lot of fun to cruise around with 20 of my best and closest friends.  (And at 73 cents a gallon, I needed that many people to pay for the gas.)

The Harvard/Yale area around 17th East was solid middle class at the time, so a good portion of my friends lived in the area, which meant I spent a lot of time driving around there.  One of these times we were headed up 17th East, just north of the now defunct Emigration Market, when I had to bring the van to a screeching halt, within feet of hitting a body in the middle of the road. 

Once my heart was back out of my throat, I noticed it was not a body, but instead a home made dummy.  So, I pulled up next to it, my friends slid open the side door, hauled it into the van and we took off as a group of kids came screaming out of the bushes after us.  My theory was “the spoils go to he who peed his pants”, which meant the dummy was mine. 

Now, they shouldn’t have used a new pair of Adidas, nice pair of corduroys and shirt and stuffed it with mom’s good towels if they were going to put it in the middle of the street.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Life lesson A-567.4-B7BstrokeR:

Don’t use mom’s good towels and your good shoes for a practical joke that may blow up in your face.

Headlights.

My first car was a 1972 Dodge Colt wagon, that was so rusted out my friends nicknamed it “Cancer”.  It had other issues, like the time I went 6 months without a starter motor.  Good thing both home and school were on a hill, so I could compression start it.  But it did limit the places I could go without bringing several friends to push it.

But this story has to do with the headlights. It must have been my junior year, late one weekend when we were just cruising around in the car (just like on “That 70’s Show).  It was well past dark when my headlights decided to just go out on me.  Pfft, they’re gone.

Now, any thinking person would have gone home, parked the car and spent the next day figuring out what went wrong.  But I was 17, with my friends, having a great time, and that just wasn’t an option.  So we just kept driving around.

Until a cop pulled me over for driving without my headlights. 

“I’m sorry sir, they just barely went out, and we’ve got to drive the girls back to their house, and then I’m going straight home.  Promise.”

The cop said OK (it was the 70’s), and told me not to drive the car any more than absolutely necessary.

After another hour or two of cruising around, during which time we actually did drop the girls off, we run into the same cop.

“Yes, sir, I know sir.  See, we went to drop the girls off and then hung out at their house for the last couple of hours, and we were just now heading back to my house.”

“Ok, go straight home.  Drive careful and get those lights fixed right away.”

“Yes, sir, no problem, sir.”

Another undetermined number of hours cruising around and we run into the same cop again. He walks up to the car, I roll down the window, shrug my shoulders and say:

“Sorry, I don’t even have an excuse this time.”

“That’s OK, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

And then he wrote me out a ticket.

Thanks, I really DON’T need a light.

… The 80’s saw the phasing out of leaded gasoline.  For most of them you could buy both unleaded and leaded gas, which is why cars started coming with smaller inlets that had flaps over them to prevent people from putting leaded gas in their unleaded car.  That’s because using leaded gas in a car with a catalytic converter completely negates the benefits of the converter (ie: more pollution).

… I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but I had 2  Mustangs during the 80’s.  One was Christine,my beloved ‘83 convertible, and the other one was ‘Stang, which I bought for parts for the convertible.  Being a parts car (body parts, so it still ran), I decided to save a little money and mess with the fuel filler so that I could put leaded gas in it.   After all, I only needed it to last until I got Christine all repainted and ready to go.

… I figured that if I bent the little metal flap back out of the way, then the gas would flow easily into the tank, even though the leaded gas pump wouldn’t go inside the hole.  I grabbed a screwdriver and tried to bend it inward, but it just flipped right back in place when I removed the screwdriver.  Then I tried with a pair of pliers, again to no avail.  Last try, let’s see if I can bend it back with one of my fingers.  Great idea, was working until my finger slipped in between the two metal strips holding the flap on.  I don’t know if you can tell by looking at it, but it’s kind of like those little finger-handcuffs, in that the more you pull on it the tighter it gets.  I was stuck good, and just over an hour before I had to go to work (Little Caesars at the time).

… So, that’s how I got into the predicament, but the getting out is a lot funnier.  Fortunately my foster brother was home at the time and I just yelled for him.  We tried oil, we tried soap, we even tried jamming the screwdriver behind my finger to push the flap loose.  Nutin.  Getting close to working time, so I have my foster brother call my boss to tell her I was going to be a little late, maybe a lot.  She, of course, asked why and was told “Because Steve has his finger caught in the gas tank of his car.”  Yeah, right, what’s the real reason.  Foster bro told me that it took a few times before she believed him, and then she dropped the phone laughing.

STRIKE 1 – You’re going to be laughing stock of the pizza parlor (and that’s no easy feat, if ya know what I mean), when you finally get there.

… Foster brother comes out to tell me all the fun he had telling my co-workers that I was stupid enough to get my finger caught in a gas filler, with a cigarette in his mouth.

“Kenny, the cigarette!”

“What, you want one?”

… No, what I want is for you to get it the hell away from this tank full of gas that I’m stuck to, that’s what I want.

.. Now it’s been about an hour, I need to start getting ready for work, and worse, my finger is beginning to go numb.  I’m picturing it turning all black and getting ready to fall off, though that’s just my phobia.  So, I decided it’s time to call in the professionals and get my foster brother to call the paramedics.  10 minutes later there is a fire engine and a paramedic truck out in front of my house.  Even better, it’s right around 3:00 on a weekday, and we lived right around the corner from Canyon Rim Elementary. 

STRIKE 2 – The neighborhood kids walk by, see the fire and paramedic trucks and see you leaning up against a car like, best case scenario, you have your finger stuck in the gas filler.

… The paramedics try unbolting the filler and wiggling it out of the tank itself, so at least I’m away from the car.  Nope, that ain’t gonna work.  They try more oil, more soap, other tools to push that stupid flap back to get my finger out.  Still no luck.  One of the firemen asks if we have a hacksaw.

“We’ll just hack this pipe right here (pointing inside the trunk)”

“Um, uh, won’t that make sparks, gas, boom?”

“Heh, heh, yeah, and you can’t even run away.” Chuckle, chuckle.

STRIKE 3 – You get a fireman that thinks your imminent death by an exploding gas tank you got yourself stuck to is amusing.

… We compromised.   Foster brother got the hose, turned it on full force and let it run down the filler pipe while they were sawing it.  Which got me out of there in one piece, but made the car completely un-drivable until the spring thaw, since the water in the gas tank froze into one huge ice cube before I could pull the tank out and drain it.  Which defeated the entire reason I stuck my finger in there in the first place, since Christine was on the road before spring.

Anyway, my finger was a little disfigured, but still completely alive, so I got to keep it.  I got a standing ovation when I finally made it to work and a good story out of it.
And, yes, I do still have that part.  That last picture was taken today, where it sits on a sill on the chimney.