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.
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