In late January, I was still trying to get jobs at that security company. One time I called in the early morning and asked for work, and the person answering the phone told me that one of the guards at a job had an accident on the way to work, and asked me if I wanted to try. I told him, "Sure!"
I cleaned up real fast, threw on my uniform, and went running out the door. I hit the steps, and fell flat on my ass!
The temperature was thirty degrees, there was freezing rain falling, and everything including the steps and my car was covered with an eighth of an inch of ice. I got up, fortunately unhurt, scraped off the car and headed to work. The roads were like a junkyard with wrecked cars sitting off in ditches everywhere.
I slipped and slid, but did manage to make it, only half an hour late.
On that job we had to sit in our car and guard the gates. The freezing rain continued all day long, and as I sat there in my car, I was thinking, if I would have kept my mouth shut, I could still be at home in a nice warm bed!
One time I was at home drinking beer, and watching a late night movie, and one of those telemarketing specials came on. Buy car wax for nine dollars and ninety five cents plus four dollars and ninety five cents shipping and handling, and they would throw in free, an eight ball gear shift knob, a pair of fuzzy eight ball ornaments for the rear view mirror, and another eight ball to put on your antenna.
I had always been proud of my pool shooting and I had just enough beer in me that I decided that I wanted the eight balls for my pick-up, but I didn't want the car wax.
I wrote down the telephone number, then went and got my wife's credit card. I called the telephone number and explained what I wanted, and of course they told me they couldn't do that.
Three more beers, three more telephone calls, an hour of arguing and bargaining
and I bought the eight balls for two dollars and ninety five cents, plus another dollar and ninety five cents for shipping and handling, and they threw in the car wax for free!
Six threatening telephone calls and three months passed, and I finally got my eight balls and put them on my pick-up.
A month later on a nice spring day, my wife decided that we needed to take a trip up to the big city and take the kids to the zoo. She packed us a picnic basket, and we got up in the morning and left early because we wanted to beat the crowd. The last thing I did before i left the house was to grab the eight ball off the antenna of my pick-up and put it on the antenna of the car.
When we arrived at the zoo there were very few cars.
We unloaded the picnic basket and spent about three hours wandering around the zoo. When we got at the far end, everybody was tired, so we found a nice shady spot and unpacked the picnic basket.
The weather report the night before had mentioned the possibility of some isolated thunderstorms, and there had been some dark clouds on the horizon, but nothing which approached us. As we were eating, a wall of dark clouds started moving in. I pointed them out to my wife and told her we had better pack and leave. My wife looked at the clouds, and said no, they would go by us. Five minutes more and KABOOM! Lightning hit no more than a mile from us.
Before we could get everything packed in the basket, it was pouring down raining. We packed and took off running for the car in the rain. As we ran around in the parking lot in the rain looking for the car, we could see a sea of eight balls in the air. Everybody had seen that same commercial! When we finally found the car, I took that eight ball off the antenna and threw it as far as I could!
After Joe from down at work inherited that money and land from his aunt, he bought himself a cabin out on the river. His cabin was a small, one bedroom house on a spot overlooking the river. It had electricity, water, sewer, and even had a bathroom. The good part though, was that it was up high enough that it didn't flood every year.
When Joe's sixteen year old son got married, Joe told his son and new wife that they could live in the cabin, as long as they were in school.
The marriage was short and violent, and ended in a divorce after six months.
Joe was at court when the judge read the decree, giving the son's ex-wife all the furniture that she and the son had purchased together, and the son's hotrod convertible.
Joe met his son out side of the courtroom and asked him what he was going to do.
The son replied, "I think I'll go fishing, and think about it."
Joe told his son, "You had better think awfully hard, because if I would have given you that cabin, you would be looking for a place to sleep now!"
A couple of months after my wife got that new used car, the brakes started making noises. She had purchased it at the new car dealership, and the car was still under warrantee, so I had her take it back to them.
A couple of days after my wife got the car back from the dealership, she pulled up to a stoplight, stopped, and the brake pedal went to the floor! She managed to set the emergency brake before the car started rolling again. She put the car in park, turned it off, locked it up, and left it setting in the middle of the road.
She then walked down to where there was a pay telephone, called the dealership, and told them to come and get that no good piece of junk!
They sent out a tow truck which took my wife and her, car to the dealership.
There, the service manager told her it was going take a couple of days to inspect and repair the car, and gave her a brand new, bright red Thunderbird to drive.
The Thunderbird had five miles on the odometer, and didn't even have license plates. The service manager told her the lack of license plates was no problem gave her the paperwork for the car, and told her to call back in two, or three days.
My wife called the dealership three days later and asked if her car was done
the person answering the telephone told her that she would have to talk with the service manager. When she asked for the service manager, she was told that he was gone for the day, and please call back the next morning. She asked again if her car was done, and again she was told that she would have to talk with the service manager.
My wife called the next morning, and again asked if her car was done, and again was told that she would have to talk with the service manager. When she asked to talk with the service manager, she was told that he was in a meeting and to call in the afternoon.
When she called back in the afternoon, she was told that he had left for the day, and to call back the following morning.
My wife called again the following morning, and again asked if her car was done, and again was told that she would have to talk with the service manager. When she asked for the service manager, she again was told that he was in a meeting, and to call back in the afternoon.
My wife told the person on the telephone "I am not going to continue to play telephone tag with that service manager, and if I can't get a straight answer, I am going to come down to that garage, get into my car, and tag that service manager around that garage, brakes, or no brakes!"
The person at the garage told my wife that he would personally talk with the service manager, and the service manager would call my wife back in thirty minutes.
"Fifteen minutes later the service manager called and asked my wife, "Are you sitting down?"
My wife said "No. Why?"
The service manager told my wife, "You had better sit down, and then I'll tell you!"
My wife sat down.
The service manager continued, "When the work order for your car was made up, all that was put on it was that it needed brake work. The mechanic went out to get your car off the lot, started the motor and it had brakes. The engine was cold so it was running on fast idle. As the mechanic was driving the car into the garage, the brakes failed. The mechanic opened the driver's door and bailed out of the car. There was a hoist with an engine on it in the garage, and the car hit the engine, which took the driver's door half way off, then the car continued on forward and crashed into a brick wall."
"Are you still there?", he asked my wife.
My wife answered, "Yes, but,....".
That is the reason why I have not been able to talk with you before now,"
The service manager continued, "I have been on the telephone with our insurance company, our mechanics who had to disassemble the brakes to find out what happened, the car manufacturer, our bodyshop, and the owner of the dealership, trying to decide what to do."
"With your permission", he said, "We will repair all the body damage, and put a new paint job on your car. "All parts of your braking system will be replaced. We will extend the warrantee on your car for an additional three years, give you a one hundred percent guarantee on the whole braking system in your car for the entire period, and you can keep the Thunderbird until the work is done to your satisfaction."
My wife agreed. It must have been that pretty red Thunderbird that turned the trick!
My wife had some relatives that lived a hundred miles out in the country, and a week later, she decided to go spend a couple of days with them. I had to work, so my wife loaded up the kids and off they went. Going and coming, the police stopped her five times, checking to see if that pretty red Thunderbird without license plates was stolen!
After the volkswagon lost that wheel, I didn't trust it anymore so I went hunting for another car. I went to an auction held by the Air Force salvage unit.
I had hoped to buy an old truck or jeep, but they didn't have any. There was a little black nineteen seventy Camero there though. The black paint was faded, the body had some rust, one bumper was bent, and of course the battery was dead, so it wouldn't start. The paperwork said it was abandoned and no further information was available. I put a bid in on it of a hundred twenty five dollars, not really expecting to get it.
A week later, I got a letter in the mail saying that I had the top bid on that Camero, and to bring one hundred twenty five dollars and take it. I got a tow truck, and while the driver was hooking up the car, I paid for the black Camero and signed all the paperwork.
After it had been towed home, I checked it over pretty carefully. I pumped up the one flat tire. I checked the oil and it was only a half a quart low, and seemed to be fairly clean.
The radiator was filled with antifreeze, and the brake reservoir was full. The transmission fluid also was where it should be. I connected the battery charger and left it on overnight.
When I went back to the car the next day, I didn't expect much. The car was considered a classic, and while it wasn't in mint condition, I didn't think that anyone would abandon it unless something major was wrong. It had a high performance V-8 with an automatic transmission, and I figured the motor, transmission, or rear end was out.
I hot wired it, and when I jumped the starter, I was surprised when it started turning over right away. I pumped the gas a few times, and the motor tried to start, so I got the lawn mower gas can and dumped a little bit of gas in the carburetor to prime it. The motor started and died. I tried again a couple of more times.
The motor finally caught and kept running. The exhaust was a little bit loud, but not bad for a Camero, and while it smoked a lot when I first got it started, there was no smoke after the engine warmed up.
I let it set and idle for a while, checked the brakes, and then checked the transmission. Park, reverse, neutral, drive, low, and second all seemed to be OK.
I disconnected the battery charger, closed the hood, and slowly backed it out of the driveway. I slowly drove it around the block in low gear and when everything seemed to be all right, I begin going faster and shifting it up.
I drove the little black camero around the block a few times and when everything checked out, I took it to a street where there were few houses and very little traffic. I stopped it, and then floored the gas.
The tires started screaming as the car set me back in the seat! Before I could get my breath back, the transmission had shifted to second, and the tires hadn't stopped squealing. I got my foot off the gas and hit the brakes. I thought, WOW! It's definitely a full blooded Camero!
I drove it around for another week, and when I couldn't find anything wrong, I bought license plates.
A couple of months later I was going to work in the afternoon, and I noticed that there were no cars on the route that I normally took. The road was a two mile straight stretch with no houses on either side. The speedometer went to one hundred twenty miles per hour, and I decided to see what that little black Camero would do.
At fourty five miles per hour, I shoved the gas pedal to the floor! The transmission downshifted, the tires let out a squeal, and the car took off. In just an instant the car was doing sixty five and the transmission shifted back into drive with another squeal of the tires.
Seventy, Seventy five, Eighty, Eighty Five!
At Eighty Five the steering began to get light, as if the front end was lifting.
Ninety, ninety five, One hundred!
At One Hundred, the interior of the car seemed to get quieter as if the wind was more to the rear of the car.
One Hundred Five, One Hundred Ten, One Hundred Fifteen!
When the speedometer hit the peg at One Hundred Twenty miles per hour, I got scared!
I let off the gas and started slowing down. When I got back down to eighty five, I got the nerve to take my eyes off the road and look in the rear view mirror.
At the beginning of that straight stretch behind me, I could see a car coming with it's lights on, and red and blue lights flashing on the top.
I pushed the gas back to the floor! Just a little more and I had to make a turn for the base. I took my foot off the gas, and hit the brake pedal. "Whoa Horses! Slow down car!", I thought as I pumped the brakes, trying to deaccelerate the car for that corner.
I made the corner, and waved to the guard as I drove through the gate at the speed limit. Just as soon as I was out of sight of the guard, I pushed the gas back down, and then slammed on the brakes when I hit the first corner. I turned a couple more corners, and then went on to work.
I used a different route to get to work for the next two months though. With the distance and the speed, there was no way that policeman could have seen the license plate, but I knew he was DEFINITELY going to be looking for that little black Camero!
