As I've mentioned before, living with the McDaniels in Argyle during the first half of 1972 provided me with a number of new experiences, and one of those was having a "little sister"...
I don't recall exactly how old Stephanie was at that point (maybe 9 or 10?) but I do recall that she was kind a pest :-) She didn't bother me that often, and when she did she was usually trying to cajole me into riding her horse... Yeah - I'm not sure exactly what was up with that. She wasn't allowed to ride until her dad got home (which was a long time after school) and in the meantime she would sometimes ask me to saddle it up and trot it around a bit... I never did figure out if she just wanted it ready to go when her dad got home or if she was simply amused by my total lack of riding ability :-)
Aside: Ordinarily I would have never gotten on one of those critters, but Stephanie was (and still is) an unusually persuasive person. She talks a mile a minute and can be forceful, assertive, disarming and endearing all at the same time... It's kind of like getting hit by a tornado. When you're caught in it all you can do is hang on, and after it passes you're wondering what the heck just happened :-) But I digress...
I had never been around horses before so I don't know if this one was "typical" or not, but there were times I could have sworn it was brain damaged. For example - it ate a bunch of PVC pipe that was stacked just outside the pasture fence. (That must've hurt coming out the other end...) And I'm fairly certain that most horses do not pass gas nearly as often as that one did. Otherwise we would have never domesticated them regardless of how useful they were :-)
So... Stephanie would lead the horse up to the house and I'd try to get the saddle on it while it sidled about. Then I had to tighten the cinch strap. That was a challenge because the horse would take a deep breath and puff out its chest so the strap would seem snug but it wasn't... I tried "waiting it out" but it would just keep breathing shallow - never fully exhaling... The solution was to jam my knee into its solar plexus while yanking on the strap... That always worked :-) Yeah - it sounds mean, but it's better than having the saddle flop off to one side while you're riding...
Getting "on board" wasn't too hard (quarter horses are relatively short), but once I did it would immediately head for the nearest low branch to try and knock me off... I learned to duck... But if you were assertive enough for long enough the horse would eventually stop resisting so much and would actually become "rideable"... Needless to say I really don't get why some people are so fond of horses... That's why I haven't been on one since 1974.
And there's one more story involving Stephanie and her horse:
One day after I left Argyle Stephanie ended up home alone after school for a couple of hours. When her folks got home there were strange markings on the carpet in the family room... They finally got Stephanie to admit that she had gotten lonely and brought the horse inside to watch TV with her...
There are lots more "Stephanie" stories, but they're really not relevant to my "formative years" and it's already taken me far too long to write this post... Suffice it to say she's one of those "different drummer" types... I mean, how many women do you know who would toss a pre-teen niece and nephew the keys to a Vette and tell them to be careful? Seriously! ... And that's exactly what I like about her. :-)
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Best Man
There's an event from January of 1972 that I skipped over, and that was my friend Wayne's wedding in Tyler. Now I usually don't go to weddings (if I can help it), but I was the best man so I kind of needed to be there. I don't recall exactly what day it was, but I do recall that the overnight low afterward was around 20 degrees, and based on the historical weather records it was probably the 15th.
BTW: The reason I remember the temperature is that the Charger was rather unhappy about it the next morning. It would barely idle - really rough and slow. Every time I came to a stop it was a battle to keep it running (it died once but started right back up)... And that's enough about the Charger (for now).
A few weeks before the wedding Wayne and I had agreed that we would just dress as usual (blue jeans and a shirt) but that idea didn't go ever very well with the bride-to-be's family so we ended up wearing suits. (I still had one left over from my private school days in Winnipeg so there was no extra expense.)
In most ways it was a pretty traditional affair. I headed down to Tyler a couple of days ahead of time and stayed with Wayne at the house he inherited from his grandmother. The night before the rehearsal we went over to another guy's house, drank beer and watched some 8mm stag films... Yeah - that was the first time I ever saw hardcore. They were doing things I hadn't thought of in ways I would not have thought of :-)
Then there was the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner - and finally the wedding... I have to admit that I was pretty nervous (I'd been having nightmares about misplacing the ring) but not as nervous as Wayne.
The wedding went off without a hitch and afterward we all headed from the church to a local hotel for the reception... And I missed most of it. Here's why:
At some point the bride's brother Doug(?), who was about 16, noticed an unmarked side door and decided to go exploring... I was bored (and curious) so I tagged along. The door opened onto a long hallway, and at one end there was a set of swinging doors which (judging by the noises coming from the other side) went to the kitchen.
Now, at that point my curiosity was pretty much satisfied and I was ready to head back to the reception, but Doug decided to take a quick peek through the gap between the doors to see if he could sneak through them unnoticed. That's when a kitchen worker swung one of the doors open, knocking him senseless.
I don't think he went completely "out" because he kind of slowly crumpled to the floor, but the door had left a serious gash above one eye and (like most head wounds) it was bleeding profusely - within seconds there was a small pool of blood next to him. The worker who had inadvertently hit him and I were standing there trying to figure out what to do next when a cocktail waitress passed through the kitchen and saw Doug lying there bleeding. After asking "What the #$%# happened?" she grabbed a towel and started applying pressure to the wound.
Aside: I should point out that in early 1972 the 911 emergency system was not yet in widespread use. There were a few places that had it, but not very many. So when you needed assistance you had to find a phone book and look up the number for police or fire or ambulance (or call the operator). It was enough of a hassle that people generally didn't think of calling for help until they knew it was needed. And that explains why nobody immediately headed for the phone when Doug went down.
OK - here's is the funny part: The cocktail waitress was exceedingly well endowed and wearing a very low cut dress. When Doug started to regain his senses and opened his eyes she was kneeling over him in such a way that the first thing he saw was that magnificent cleavage...You should have seen the look on his face... He must have (at least for a moment) wondered if he had died and gone to heaven :-)
After a couple of minutes he was completely coherent and clearly enjoying the attention of the aforementioned cocktail waitress, so we figured we didn't need to call for an ambulance. Still - he did need to go to the E.R. to get stitched up.
So I stayed with Doug while one of the hotel staff went off to try and find a parent to drive him to the hospital. And apparently the whole episode had taken a lot longer than I realized because the next thing I knew I was being told that Wayne and Karen were ready to leave the reception.That meant that I needed to go fetch the Charger because Wayne had hidden his 65 Mustang in an undisclosed location many days earlier and he asked me to drive them there because he figured I could lose anyone who might try and follow us.
BTW: I'm seriously not making that up. We even made a bunch of wrong turns to make sure we weren't being tailed. He really didn't want any of that white shoe polish to touch his Mustang :-)
I pulled up to the curb out front and waited for them to emerge. It took them a minute for them to get situated in the vehicle (I think the bride ended up climbing into the back seat) and for some reason it had never occurred to me that people would be throwing rice that whole time. I was rather dismayed at how much of it was ending up the Charger but I kept telling myself "I can just vacuum it out later"...
Wrong! ... As it turns out, it is impossible to completely remove rice from the interior of a vehicle. You can vacuum and vacuum and it will look like it's gone, but a few days later there will be rice all over the place again. I don't know how many times I thought I got it all but there was still bits of it on the carpet the day I had to sell the Charger... And I digress...
Nobody followed us (despite all the threats from his friends and relatives) and after I dropped them off I headed back to his house where I spent the rest of the evening listening to Aqualung (Jethro Tull - one of the greatest albums of all time) while freezing my tail off. And the next morning I headed back to Denton.
I guess this is one of those stories that doesn't really have much of a point (other than "be careful around swinging doors" and "don't let people throw rice into your car".) ... It's just another one of those experiences that I can still clearly remember after all these years...
BTW: The reason I remember the temperature is that the Charger was rather unhappy about it the next morning. It would barely idle - really rough and slow. Every time I came to a stop it was a battle to keep it running (it died once but started right back up)... And that's enough about the Charger (for now).
A few weeks before the wedding Wayne and I had agreed that we would just dress as usual (blue jeans and a shirt) but that idea didn't go ever very well with the bride-to-be's family so we ended up wearing suits. (I still had one left over from my private school days in Winnipeg so there was no extra expense.)
In most ways it was a pretty traditional affair. I headed down to Tyler a couple of days ahead of time and stayed with Wayne at the house he inherited from his grandmother. The night before the rehearsal we went over to another guy's house, drank beer and watched some 8mm stag films... Yeah - that was the first time I ever saw hardcore. They were doing things I hadn't thought of in ways I would not have thought of :-)
Then there was the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner - and finally the wedding... I have to admit that I was pretty nervous (I'd been having nightmares about misplacing the ring) but not as nervous as Wayne.
The wedding went off without a hitch and afterward we all headed from the church to a local hotel for the reception... And I missed most of it. Here's why:
At some point the bride's brother Doug(?), who was about 16, noticed an unmarked side door and decided to go exploring... I was bored (and curious) so I tagged along. The door opened onto a long hallway, and at one end there was a set of swinging doors which (judging by the noises coming from the other side) went to the kitchen.
Now, at that point my curiosity was pretty much satisfied and I was ready to head back to the reception, but Doug decided to take a quick peek through the gap between the doors to see if he could sneak through them unnoticed. That's when a kitchen worker swung one of the doors open, knocking him senseless.
I don't think he went completely "out" because he kind of slowly crumpled to the floor, but the door had left a serious gash above one eye and (like most head wounds) it was bleeding profusely - within seconds there was a small pool of blood next to him. The worker who had inadvertently hit him and I were standing there trying to figure out what to do next when a cocktail waitress passed through the kitchen and saw Doug lying there bleeding. After asking "What the #$%# happened?" she grabbed a towel and started applying pressure to the wound.
Aside: I should point out that in early 1972 the 911 emergency system was not yet in widespread use. There were a few places that had it, but not very many. So when you needed assistance you had to find a phone book and look up the number for police or fire or ambulance (or call the operator). It was enough of a hassle that people generally didn't think of calling for help until they knew it was needed. And that explains why nobody immediately headed for the phone when Doug went down.
OK - here's is the funny part: The cocktail waitress was exceedingly well endowed and wearing a very low cut dress. When Doug started to regain his senses and opened his eyes she was kneeling over him in such a way that the first thing he saw was that magnificent cleavage...You should have seen the look on his face... He must have (at least for a moment) wondered if he had died and gone to heaven :-)
After a couple of minutes he was completely coherent and clearly enjoying the attention of the aforementioned cocktail waitress, so we figured we didn't need to call for an ambulance. Still - he did need to go to the E.R. to get stitched up.
So I stayed with Doug while one of the hotel staff went off to try and find a parent to drive him to the hospital. And apparently the whole episode had taken a lot longer than I realized because the next thing I knew I was being told that Wayne and Karen were ready to leave the reception.That meant that I needed to go fetch the Charger because Wayne had hidden his 65 Mustang in an undisclosed location many days earlier and he asked me to drive them there because he figured I could lose anyone who might try and follow us.
BTW: I'm seriously not making that up. We even made a bunch of wrong turns to make sure we weren't being tailed. He really didn't want any of that white shoe polish to touch his Mustang :-)
I pulled up to the curb out front and waited for them to emerge. It took them a minute for them to get situated in the vehicle (I think the bride ended up climbing into the back seat) and for some reason it had never occurred to me that people would be throwing rice that whole time. I was rather dismayed at how much of it was ending up the Charger but I kept telling myself "I can just vacuum it out later"...
Wrong! ... As it turns out, it is impossible to completely remove rice from the interior of a vehicle. You can vacuum and vacuum and it will look like it's gone, but a few days later there will be rice all over the place again. I don't know how many times I thought I got it all but there was still bits of it on the carpet the day I had to sell the Charger... And I digress...
Nobody followed us (despite all the threats from his friends and relatives) and after I dropped them off I headed back to his house where I spent the rest of the evening listening to Aqualung (Jethro Tull - one of the greatest albums of all time) while freezing my tail off. And the next morning I headed back to Denton.
I guess this is one of those stories that doesn't really have much of a point (other than "be careful around swinging doors" and "don't let people throw rice into your car".) ... It's just another one of those experiences that I can still clearly remember after all these years...
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Going, Going, Gone
One afternoon in the spring of 1972 I was returning to Argyle after classes at North Texas when I got pulled over by a Texas state trooper. I was puzzled because I hadn't been going (much) over the speed limit but, as it turns out, that wasn't why he stopped me.
As I mentioned before, my 1966 Charger had some body damage on the left rear corner that made it impossible to install a proper tail light lens so there was a piece of red plastic taped over it... The state trooper had stopped me to inform me that my car was not legal because the plastic didn't qualify as an "SAE approved" lens.
He gave me an improper equipment citation, which wasn't a problem (per se) because there was no fine and it didn't go on my record. But when I asked how soon it had to be repaired his response was along the lines of "Just don't let me catch you driving it again until it's fixed". And that was a huge problem because there was no way I could afford the necessary bodywork.
That was the last straw. The Charger was expensive to drive - it got 10 to 12 MPG and would only run on two brands of premium. I was behind on the payments and my insurance (about $400 a year in 1972 dollars) was about to expire. It had to go...
Aside: It wasn't until very recently that it finally dawned on me how immature it was to hang on to the Charger while my mom was in the hospital, the utilities were being cut off and I was being evicted. But the thought of getting rid of it honestly never crossed my mind... I guess that's a pretty good indication of how I feel about cars :-)
I started out by telling everyone that it was for sale. I was asking somewhere around $400 (I still owed $200) and nobody showed any interested. (I suspect it had something to do with the gas and insurance cost.)
After that failed I headed into Denton and spent the morning driving around between all the car lots in town. None of the "major" dealers would even make an offer on a 6 year old muscle car, let alone one that needed body work. (Maybe I should have gotten rid of the racing decals in the back windows...) There was only one place in town (a small used car lot a few blocks north of the courthouse) that showed any interest... I was desperate and the owner knew it. He offered me $230 and I took it.
Aside: It's hard to describe what I felt like at that moment...
My mom was still expected to die at any time. A month or two earlier I had been evicted and was living off of the kindness of strangers. Our pets had ended up at the shelter. I'd gotten rid of almost all of my possessions (including my guitar amp). The only 2 things I had left in the world that I really cared about were my 1953 Telecaster and that Charger - and now the Charger was gone.
It was like being punched in the gut... The car was worth a heck of a lot more than $230, but I was out of options. I had tried to work something out with the loan officer (who was a member of my church) but he said his hands were tied. I was utterly defeated... There was nothing to do but throw in the towel...
So - the dealer wrote up a bill of sale and drove me to my bank. We went up to the window, he paid off the loan and got the title (he had called ahead), gave me my $30 ... and that was it...
Of course, when I got back to Argyle all the guys were like "I would have given you way more than that for it!". But I sincerely doubt it... Talk is cheap :-)
A few weeks later I happened to be passing by the car lot and saw that the Charger was on display. Not only was the bodywork done but it had a new paint job and new wheels and tires... It looked amazing! I think the guy was asking around $1200 for it. (Probably twice what he had in it.) ... And that was the last time I saw it.
As I mentioned before, my 1966 Charger had some body damage on the left rear corner that made it impossible to install a proper tail light lens so there was a piece of red plastic taped over it... The state trooper had stopped me to inform me that my car was not legal because the plastic didn't qualify as an "SAE approved" lens.
He gave me an improper equipment citation, which wasn't a problem (per se) because there was no fine and it didn't go on my record. But when I asked how soon it had to be repaired his response was along the lines of "Just don't let me catch you driving it again until it's fixed". And that was a huge problem because there was no way I could afford the necessary bodywork.
That was the last straw. The Charger was expensive to drive - it got 10 to 12 MPG and would only run on two brands of premium. I was behind on the payments and my insurance (about $400 a year in 1972 dollars) was about to expire. It had to go...
Aside: It wasn't until very recently that it finally dawned on me how immature it was to hang on to the Charger while my mom was in the hospital, the utilities were being cut off and I was being evicted. But the thought of getting rid of it honestly never crossed my mind... I guess that's a pretty good indication of how I feel about cars :-)
I started out by telling everyone that it was for sale. I was asking somewhere around $400 (I still owed $200) and nobody showed any interested. (I suspect it had something to do with the gas and insurance cost.)
After that failed I headed into Denton and spent the morning driving around between all the car lots in town. None of the "major" dealers would even make an offer on a 6 year old muscle car, let alone one that needed body work. (Maybe I should have gotten rid of the racing decals in the back windows...) There was only one place in town (a small used car lot a few blocks north of the courthouse) that showed any interest... I was desperate and the owner knew it. He offered me $230 and I took it.
Aside: It's hard to describe what I felt like at that moment...
My mom was still expected to die at any time. A month or two earlier I had been evicted and was living off of the kindness of strangers. Our pets had ended up at the shelter. I'd gotten rid of almost all of my possessions (including my guitar amp). The only 2 things I had left in the world that I really cared about were my 1953 Telecaster and that Charger - and now the Charger was gone.
It was like being punched in the gut... The car was worth a heck of a lot more than $230, but I was out of options. I had tried to work something out with the loan officer (who was a member of my church) but he said his hands were tied. I was utterly defeated... There was nothing to do but throw in the towel...
So - the dealer wrote up a bill of sale and drove me to my bank. We went up to the window, he paid off the loan and got the title (he had called ahead), gave me my $30 ... and that was it...
Of course, when I got back to Argyle all the guys were like "I would have given you way more than that for it!". But I sincerely doubt it... Talk is cheap :-)
A few weeks later I happened to be passing by the car lot and saw that the Charger was on display. Not only was the bodywork done but it had a new paint job and new wheels and tires... It looked amazing! I think the guy was asking around $1200 for it. (Probably twice what he had in it.) ... And that was the last time I saw it.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Hot Pursuit
As I've mentioned many times before, there wasn't a whole lot to do in and around Argyle, Texas back in 1972 but we still managed to amuse ourselves. I mentioned "rat racing" in an earlier post, but that was just one of many related activities... I think I also mentioned that my '66 Charger was one of the faster cars in the area - and that was a factor in many of our night time pursuits. (Yeah - that's a double entendre.)
BTW: I should point out that there is a distinction between "quick" and "fast". The first refers to acceleration, while the second refers to top speed. The Charger was not exceptionally quick, but its torque curve and gearing were ideally suited to reaching speeds in excess of 100 MPH in a relatively short time. There just weren't many cars around that could keep up with it on a straight stretch of road.
The evening would usually start out innocently enough... Someone would say "Hey - let's go for a drive". Then they'd suggest we take my car and I'd say "OK" ... Then a few minutes later I'd be asking "What are the water balloons / rocks / shotguns / spotlights for???" And they'd tell me not to worry about it :-) ... And every now and again (for a variety of reasons) we would end up being chased. Luckily, it was never the cops... Well, except for that one time in Denton. But that was in Steve's car - and the cop didn't really chase us - he waited for us to come to him :-)
I could usually outrun whoever was on our tail, but when that failed I'd head for Brush Creek Road. There was a tiny gravel drive off to one side just past a rise in the road. It was largely obscured by trees and undergrowth and was all but invisible at night (you had to know it was there). So I would top the rise, kill the lights, hit the parking brake (no brake lights) and quickly turn into the bushes. Inevitably, whoever was chasing us would just drive right past... Nobody ever figured it out. (Thank goodness.)
Aside: One night we realized that we were being tailed by Steve's dad. It was weird because he wasn't exactly trying to catch us but we couldn't quite shake him either... Furthermore - he was anticipating our every move - as if he had done it before himself :-) Eventually he broke off and headed home. We expected him to say something about it the next day, but he never did... Maybe he was just bored...
I'm really not proud of a lot of what happened (even if I was only the "driver")... Heck - I'm still not sure why I went along with it...
Once again, I find myself marveling at that fact that I survived to adulthood :-)
A final Charger related story:
There were two drive-in theaters in Denton back then. One was south of town and showed second run movies. That was where the teenagers used to hang out. The other one was north of town and had recently switched to showing "adult" material (no one under 18 allowed). Yeah - I know. It's hard to believe they got away with projecting that stuff onto an outdoor screen, but it was a college town and the theater was in the boonies, and they had a large fence so you couldn't see it from the road... Still...
So one evening Steve, Royce and I decided to go see a movie. (It one of those "women in prison" flicks - don't remember exactly which one.) Now, I was already 18, but Steve and Royce were 16. Royce was a big guy and could easily pass for 18, but Steve - not so much :-) And that's where the car came in: The '66 Charger had a large flap behind the back seats that folded down into the trunk. It was easy for a person to hide back there and not be noticed and you didn't have to open the trunk to let them out. (They watched for people getting out of trunks at drive-ins because they charged per-person.)
The plan worked perfectly. I showed the woman in the ticket booth my driver's license. She looked at Royce and didn't even ask to see his ID. I parked the car, Steve crawled up out of the trunk into the back seat and we watched the flick.
In retrospect it's not much of a story... Just one of those "coming of age" things - but it does highlight one of the cool features of the 1966 Charger... And it really is the last Charger story...
BTW: I should point out that there is a distinction between "quick" and "fast". The first refers to acceleration, while the second refers to top speed. The Charger was not exceptionally quick, but its torque curve and gearing were ideally suited to reaching speeds in excess of 100 MPH in a relatively short time. There just weren't many cars around that could keep up with it on a straight stretch of road.
The evening would usually start out innocently enough... Someone would say "Hey - let's go for a drive". Then they'd suggest we take my car and I'd say "OK" ... Then a few minutes later I'd be asking "What are the water balloons / rocks / shotguns / spotlights for???" And they'd tell me not to worry about it :-) ... And every now and again (for a variety of reasons) we would end up being chased. Luckily, it was never the cops... Well, except for that one time in Denton. But that was in Steve's car - and the cop didn't really chase us - he waited for us to come to him :-)
I could usually outrun whoever was on our tail, but when that failed I'd head for Brush Creek Road. There was a tiny gravel drive off to one side just past a rise in the road. It was largely obscured by trees and undergrowth and was all but invisible at night (you had to know it was there). So I would top the rise, kill the lights, hit the parking brake (no brake lights) and quickly turn into the bushes. Inevitably, whoever was chasing us would just drive right past... Nobody ever figured it out. (Thank goodness.)
Aside: One night we realized that we were being tailed by Steve's dad. It was weird because he wasn't exactly trying to catch us but we couldn't quite shake him either... Furthermore - he was anticipating our every move - as if he had done it before himself :-) Eventually he broke off and headed home. We expected him to say something about it the next day, but he never did... Maybe he was just bored...
I'm really not proud of a lot of what happened (even if I was only the "driver")... Heck - I'm still not sure why I went along with it...
Once again, I find myself marveling at that fact that I survived to adulthood :-)
A final Charger related story:
There were two drive-in theaters in Denton back then. One was south of town and showed second run movies. That was where the teenagers used to hang out. The other one was north of town and had recently switched to showing "adult" material (no one under 18 allowed). Yeah - I know. It's hard to believe they got away with projecting that stuff onto an outdoor screen, but it was a college town and the theater was in the boonies, and they had a large fence so you couldn't see it from the road... Still...
So one evening Steve, Royce and I decided to go see a movie. (It one of those "women in prison" flicks - don't remember exactly which one.) Now, I was already 18, but Steve and Royce were 16. Royce was a big guy and could easily pass for 18, but Steve - not so much :-) And that's where the car came in: The '66 Charger had a large flap behind the back seats that folded down into the trunk. It was easy for a person to hide back there and not be noticed and you didn't have to open the trunk to let them out. (They watched for people getting out of trunks at drive-ins because they charged per-person.)
The plan worked perfectly. I showed the woman in the ticket booth my driver's license. She looked at Royce and didn't even ask to see his ID. I parked the car, Steve crawled up out of the trunk into the back seat and we watched the flick.
In retrospect it's not much of a story... Just one of those "coming of age" things - but it does highlight one of the cool features of the 1966 Charger... And it really is the last Charger story...
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