Hi Bob...
Going to kill two birds with one stone here... in my early days of midtown Manhattan living I was driving a '65 Dodge Coronet with a slant six motor... spray painted a dull blue... trailer hitch welded to the a-frame... the Blue Goose... loved that car... the second week I took up my life of sin in the city, my boyfriend was heading out to work, looked down the block and saw the Goose sitting on the sidewalk... curb running on the bias under the car... what the f... he walked down the street... someone had hit it during the night pushing it up onto the sidewalk into another car for megabuck damage...
S came storming back to the apartment, grabbed the keys, and went back to the car with me following obediently. Drove it off the curb. Right rear wheel was bent so bad it looked like the a-frame was a gonner, right rear fender folded, popping the trunk. S changed the tire... car was fine... the trailer hitch saved the a-frame. Trunk had to be tied down with rope. My father later rigged a boat light to the crushed right fender... served as the tail light/blinker. The car passed inspection (Jersey registration)... My white-haired father took it through wearing his shabby work on the house clothes... think they felt sorry for the poor old slob...
We drove that car another 10,000 miles including a number of trips back and forth to Michigan... took it a while to get up to speed but once there it could cruise with the best of them... no one messed with us once they got a gander at the back end... :-)
Exhaust manifold finally rusted out leading to its demise...
Next thought... driver training via the race car venue...
The trailer hitch on the Goose was used to tow the trailer for S's early 70s "No-ver"... commonly known as a Nova... S had a heavy duty Queens accent... he had completely rebuilt the engine and was starting to test it out on various Jersey tracks...
He was probably the best driver I've had chauffeur me around... I learned a lot just by observing him... one thing in particular was watching traffic using mirrors... would watch his eyes while he was driving... learned how to do that... also watch a lot of racing on TV... love the way those guys steer out of trouble... the object lessons have served me well over the years...
Back to the No-ver... It met a rather ignominious end...
He and his ex-wife had a brutal (verbal) argument... he got in the shower... she decided to kill herself... popped a handful of sleeping pills, grabbed his keys while screaming a few epithets, ran out of the house and fired up the car he had spent all afternoon detailing... He ran out of the shower soaking wet, grabbed his pants, and managed to pull them on. Got outside yelling at her to come back with the car... too late...
The sleeping pills hit her. She passed out at the wheel, flipped the car and managed to hit about 10 parked cars before coming to a halt resting on the roof... The speedometer was frozen at 80 m.p.h. The rescue team had to cut her out of the back seat. She was in a coma for three days. S said if she hadn't been in one after that he would have put her in one...
ROTF...
And he was the one known as the maniac... must have been... he married her twice... the second divorce was the final one... and then I got him... :-)
Man, those were the days... life is excruciatingly boring these days in the hills of NJ.
memories.k²
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