Ah…a good ole American Tank!
What makes up life are stories; everybody’s got one. Perhaps your story is the love gone bad or the road not taken. Or maybe your story is about someone you met, something you did. If you think real hard, I’ll bet you can come up with a few hundred stories….just like I have. Mine are here for the sharing.
I don’t particularly love to drive but I feel I’m a safe driver and so when my wife and I go somewhere, I’m usually the designated driver. In high school I was one of the unfortunates; those who didn’t have a car. Despite that, I have a few fond memories of high school driving.
Recently my wife and I have made a couple of day trips north to escape the heat. We live in the Phoenix area where it’s normal to have 100 and 110 degree days. A golf trip north to Sedona shaves off 20 degrees and farther north to Flagstaff yet another 10 degrees. Our oldest son has recently accepted a job position in Flagstaff so now we have an excuse for making the trek on a more frequent basis. It was during one of these recent trips that I got to remembering our high school day trips and also a couple of the funny gags we’d play on each other.
A couple hundred stories ago, (man! have I really written 250 stories? When is this guy going to shut up?), I wrote about a couple of fun weekends where we drove around our small town in groups of 2-4 boys to a car, all of us tossing raw eggs at each other. We called it our great Egg Wars. I present the link here in case you’d like to revisit (link).
What I haven’t shared though, (until now), is a description of a couple gags or goofy frivolity. For one, there was what we called ‘head bopping’. Head bopping involved a car, music with a beat and a few boys who could bop their heads to a beat.
Let’s say a cool song would come on the radio, oh I don’t know, maybe something by the Isley Brothers, anything with a good bass beat. One of us would start the bop to the drum or bass beat, using only our neck to move our head side to side, left and right to the beat. The instigator might even get fancy with the bop – left, right, left-left, right, left, right-right. Or it could be a simple left-left, right-right bop. It didn’t matter. Whoever started the bop, got to choose the sequence. And once one of us began a bop, all the others were sure to join. I’m certain that we looked goofy as can be to anyone who saw us.
For a good prank, we had a good one. My favorite in-car prank to pull I’d have to name ‘look at us, we are gay’. Let me explain. You see, when and where I grew up, no one was openly gay. Oh I’m sure there were gays among us, but we were not yet enlightened. This was the early to mid 70’s in the Midwest. It was a time when we’d tease each other and we might call each other gay or homo or queer just as an act to get the other’s goat. (Oh, and I had to look that expression up – apparently goats would sometimes be placed in a racing horse’s stall as a calming effect so if you were getting the goat, you were trying to instigate or irritate the other).
Many of our cars back in my day are what we would call ‘boats’ because they were huge. Take my 1967 Pontiac Bonneville for instance (link). These cars didn’t have individual bucket seats, they would seat 3 adults in the front and 3 in the rear, (and 4 if they were all thin). So when there were just 3 of us, no one wanted to sit in the rear by themselves; all 3 of us would sit in the front. For some odd reason, we saw ourselves as ‘not with it’ if we were sitting in the rear (not sure why). But anyway, sitting in front was deemed cool and you had to call dibs on getting the window seat.
And now…the gag.
Imagine Randy at the wheel, Joe in the middle and me at the window seat. We are driving down any of our streets in our small town when we come to a stop light. There at the corner are a couple or a few kids we all know. Our windows are down as it is nice weather outside. I yell so the corner kids can hear me – “Hey!”
And I bend over so that all anyone can see is Randy and Joe, sitting next to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend would sit in those boats. The heads would turn and laughter would ensue. The light would turn green and we’d drive away. I’d be cracking up for the rest of the drive. This still makes me smile, 45 years later. It was simpler times, good times.
I’m 62 years old now. High school seems so far away. Last week, (as I’m writing this story), my wife had a couple of girlfriends fly in from California so I took the opportunity to drive our little 2000 Mazda Miata north to Flagstaff in order to visit our oldest son and spend the night. Mitch & I had brunch in old Flagstaff at a small diner, took a long bike ride, came back to his apartment for a beer and to get cleaned up and then walked downtown for dinner. The next morning I got up early so he could get to work on time and I had a nice ride down highway 17 towards home.
My Current Ride – The Crest
Since this story (link), I’m no longer riding a motorcycle. I gave that up and also the Ford Escape when we escaped California. Kim drives a brand new MDX now and I am usually riding my Cannondale Crest bicycle, (only 300 made in 1989). When I drive alone, it’s now in the same Miata as mentioned in the linked story. It only has 37,000 miles on it so I suspect it may end up outliving me given how little it gets driven.
No matter how badly we treat it, this old spinning ball keeps on turning…..And Me? – I’m still growing up, still head bopping and hope to for a long time yet. Until next time faithful reader….Oh, and if you made it this far, how about finding a cartoonist for me? Check out my last Edge of Insanity post…(thanks).
Growing up on Prytania 