"Learning" how to drive at eight years old.

This is part one of a two-parter.

My Dad owned a 1931 A-Model Ford with an “AAAOOOGA” horn, shiny jet black with cream colored spoke wire wheels. It was a head turner every time he drove it, which was often in the hot summertimes in the South. The A-model was his fix-er-up car and he did an awesome job with it. He also saved his hard earned dough and purchased a beautiful black 1963 Buick Riviera in spring of 1965. It was the envy of every dad on our street, as it was only two years old when my Dad purchased it, trading in a crappy Falcon and a cool fifteen hundred hard earned dollars for the luxury liner. Let me tell you, this car was loaded with every option; silver (yes, silver) leather, two-plus-two bucket seats with a console that ran from the front all the way to the rear, air conditioning that would chill a 6.5 ounce Coke in the bottle and just about anything else you placed in front of the six carefully positioned vents occupying the awesome dash panel that looked like a cockpit of a fighter jet or a space craft. Ironically, it was a special ordered car by a Delta Airlines pilot named Don Jacobs, evidenced by the silver plaque mounted on the glove box door. It could outrun the word of God and radar, as it came with a 425 cubic-inch “nail-head” dual quad beast of a motor, with “465 Wildcat” painted in red on the breather lid, and it would spin the wide white-wall tires at will. It had a console shifter, and back in the day there was no such thing as a locking steering wheel or any other significant safety features other than the ones that came with a hint of common sense. Safety features like keeping your damn kid and his best buddy out of it when it was parked facing downhill towards busy Avon Avenue. My dad never left the keys in it but it was back when you could park your car on the street and nobody would even consider messing with it. He had owned the Riviera for two years keeping it immaculate, and I mean Marine Corps immaculate. A person could safely eat off any part of that car without worry; it was that clean.

Mikey and I had decided on one summer day we were to be Lost in Space, our favorite TV show other than Star Trek, the favorite of every kid in the known universe back then. Every young boy I knew loved Star Trek, and with the possible exception of the horny Captain James Tiberius Kirk’s seemingly endless quest to mate with everything that wasn’t nailed down or Klingon, it was a great show. This particular day we were Lost in Space and I was the Robot and Mikey was Will Robinson, boy genius and son to Captain John Robinson. Will Robinson always figured out a way to get himself, the evil Dr. Smith, and Robot out of trouble inside of a fifty minute show, so I figured he must have been a genius. I had postulated (I heard that word get used by every space captain on TV) it best to not do the dad/son (My being Captain John Robinson and him being Will, boy genius) thing with my best friend, so Robot would have to do for me as nobody wanted to be the evil Dr. Smith. We climbed into our black spacecraft manufactured by the Buick Motor Company, a division of General Motors, and went through pre-launch proceedings. It was a fine craft; I knew what she could do and was ready to take her out for a blast through the closest galaxy available. We had fashioned space helmets (which actually came in quite handy a few minutes later) from our football helmets (they looked the same) we owned from playing football for the Cascade Saints.

We had a smooth take off and all was going well for a few minutes when Mikey noted that Klingons were hot on our trail and we needed to make a quick escape. Mikey had committed a rather simple faux pas by combining two separate yet equally cool TV shows involving space travel, Star Trek and Lost in Space. It was an acceptable mistake, as everybody knew that Klingons (Star Trek bad guys) had a cloaking device and our sensors would not detect them until it was way too late. Plus, the Robinsons ship did not have photon torpedoes so we were goners if something did not happen fast as far as an escape was concerned. Besides, the USS Enterprise (Star Trek) was on a five year mission, to explore strange new worlds and boldly go where no man has gone before. The Robinsons, on the other hand, were just trying to get back home after the evil Dr. Smith stowed away and purposely screwed up the flight computer, thus avoiding whatever consequences awaited nasty evil doctors back on Earth.

 As a kid, I often wondered if the USS Enterprise ever crossed paths with the Robinson’s vessel would Captain Kirk steer them in the right direction back towards Earth. He’d probably have to make out with the older Robinson daughter first, I figured, an even trade. I also knew if the Robinson’s made it home, it was game over and end of the show as they’d no longer be “Lost in Space.” Maybe after they figured out where they were, they could just ride around some, but, “Happy in Space” doesn’t sound as dangerous as “Lost in Space” so I guessed they’d just stay lost and keep their jobs. There were only three channels back then in all of TV land and the Robinson’s crossing paths with the Star Trek boys seemed like a remote possibility to me. 

Anyway, I hollered for Mikey to do something quick as mixing two space shows might disturb the space-time continuum (I heard that get said a lot so it seemed appropriate) and there’d be hell to pay if that ever occurred. Besides, the Klingon ship had to de-cloak in order to fire its weapons so I, as the Robot, figured we’d make it out somehow. In the excitement Mikey reached down and pulled the Buick’s shifter from P to N, and the ship we were captains of that day was entering a strange new world. Our space craft was rolling towards Avon Avenue, and I was holding onto the steering wheel while standing up in the driver’s seat, an offense that would introduce you to the business end (that’d be the kid end) of my dad’s belt. Remember, Dad was a Marine, and let me tell you this: he quit school because of recess. He did not play, especially when he laid down the rules and you broke them. I was standing up in the front seat of my dad’s pride and joy. I was indeed holding on to the steering wheel and driving it, steering it, or just using it to hang onto, without his knowledge. Mikey and I realized we were about to travel to a place never visited by either of us at such a young age. I really needed Mikey to do the “Will Robinson, boy genius” thing as fast as he could but my greatest fears had come to pass…Mikey became an Earthling faster than Mr. Spock could mind-meld you into submission. I had been reduced to mixing space shows myself as panic quickly set in.

“Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!!” was all this Robot could muster as my hands were both glued securely to the steering wheel…

We were driving a car, or really aiming the craft more than driving, if you insist on correct nomenclature. The steering wheel was more for me to hang onto rather than a device to aid in avoiding crashing into another vehicle. We had gotten up to a decent rate of speed when we crossed Avon Avenue and my young short life passed before my eyes as we threaded between the two cars coming from either direction. I remember the color of the woman’s eyes in the car approaching from the driver’s side, just so you’ll know how close we actually were to one another. I know now that if any one of the three cars brought together by fate, Lost in Space & Star Trek and Masters Jimmy Hall and Mikey Langford, would have had an extra coat of enamel paint sprayed on their metal bodies we would have surely hit each other. It was by the thinnest of margins Mikey and I missed the two cars. Mikey and I injected ourselves into the lives of the two unsuspecting drivers so quickly that neither driver even touched the brakes on their cars as they were desperately trying to get home from a long day’s work or whatever, leading up to our brief and potentially disastrous encounter. Mikey and I had successfully passed phase one of our survival tests and that was not getting killed crossing Avon Avenue. I understood my mom’s reservation about crossing Avon Avenue now, but I am sure she meant walking, not driving, across it. Phase two was coming with a vengeance and that phase involved preventing Dad’s beautiful, cherished, immaculate, clean-as-a-fire-truck Buick Riviera from getting scratched. This would prove to be a most difficult task and the phase we failed miserably. The car was going a good thirty five miles per hour under only the power of gravity that day. Both momentum and gravity did their respective duties that day, and us two, young mavericks at best, were on a journey to what was ultimately a crash site. Truth was we would have rather been doing anything else besides what we were doing at that moment.

When the Riviera left the ground and launched itself into the abyss that was the other side of Avon Avenue things got really interesting. I said earlier that we were wearing football helmets and that would prove to be to our great advantage and I will explain that part now. I am certain that we were a good fifteen feet off the asphalt after we crossed “Don’t Ever Let Me Catch You Crossing Avon Avenue” as I had come to know it. I genuinely thought the name of the road was “Don’t Ever Let Me Catch You Crossing Avon Avenue,” but the little green street signs were too small to hold all of that. I guessed my Mom knew the origins of the streets name because that’s what she called it all the time. My initial thought was “Oh Crap! I’ve crossed Avon and I’m gonna get it now.”

That is what I was thinking as the Buick gently floated airborne towards the landing strip awaiting beneath us. Mikey and I actually had a brief encounter with weightlessness enjoyed only by spacemen, the Robinsons, and most of the crew of the Starship Enterprise, with the possible exception of the guys that wore the Red suits as they always got killed. I envisioned parachutes being deployed (I really just liked saying deployed when I was a kid) but I couldn’t find the button in time.

As a side note, I remember being a kid, taking a dump one time and telling my Mom,

“You would not believe the two Logs I just deployed. Abe Lincoln could have added a wing onto his one room cabin with those two.”

She was not impressed and wondered out loud who I might have heard such a rude and despicable thing from. Truth was, I’d heard my Dad say stuff considerably worse and regularly, but I couldn’t use my Dad as an excuse. She was looking to cast blame upon someone besides me so I gave her Dickey McGrew. Dickey was the first guy we knew that cussed and had a Playboy collection, and we instantly liked him. Moms have ESP, so mine knew right away he was trouble. His mom, on the other hand, was a full-on hottie and the only mom to wear Go-Go boots and a mini skirt to our intramural football games. Oh the shame of it all. I was sure that catching her as a wife was like the dog that actually caught the car he was chasing. She, Raquel Welch and Anne Margaret were the original reason I became and still am a boob man and she populated many a young boy’s dreams back then, namely mine. We used to call Dickey’s mom the “Dairy Queen” and for good reason. She always looked like she was shoplifting two cantaloupes in her tight shirts. She loved me for some reason and would always hug me when she saw me. I really liked it as she always smashed my face into her rack and would not let go until I got dizzy from lack of oxygen. I figured if I were going to die this would be how I wanted to go out and certainly not driving my Dad’s prized possession across Avon Avenue. I hoped my stone would read:

HERE LIES MASTER JIMMY HALL

KILLED BY BOOB HUG SUFFOCATION

That sounded a whole lot better than,

HERE LIES MASTER JIMMY HALL,

JUSTIFYABLY KILLED BY HIS DAD

FOR WRECKING HIS SWEET ASSED BLACK 63 RIVIERA

WITH SILVER, YES SILVER, LEATHER INTERIOR.

Death by boob suffocation would look good on a tombstone and the getting killed by the dad thing took up way to much space. Dickey’s mom was every young boys dream and every married man’s wife’s worst nightmare as she was a veritable Playboy bunny with kids that cussed and had Playboy books. I asked her to adopt me one time, thinking I could get away with cussin’ and I figured a whipping from her must have been like a dream. She called my mom and told her about my plans and I think my mom agreed to the adoption itself, but also told her she would more than likely bring me back after a few days. I was willing to risk it if Dickey’s Mom was willing.

I will return from my Boob Suffocation Death tangent now and tell you first that the flight in our makeshift spacecraft was wonderful but the landing was most unfortunate. Mikey and I slammed headfirst into the beautiful dash with such force that it left black and gold paint marks (The New Orleans Saints colors our helmets wore) on the steering wheel and the glove box we slammed up against during sudden deceleration. We smacked the ground with such force that when we finally stopped, we were both in the back seat, in the floor. I have no idea how we wound up there but it was my first introduction to chaos theory and one I’d not soon forget. I am sure that Mikey had ‘deployed’ in his cut off blue jeans evidenced by the smell emanating from inside the formerly lovely pride and joy of George William Hall, Sr., USMC and United States Post Office supervisor.

I was a dead man.