I raced a BMW 2002 down the PCH with a yellow one and a construction crew a billion years ago!
Ever heard of the peter principle? Sooner or later every man rises to his level of incompetence! Well I was literally the last man standing and so at nineteen was promoted to foreman on a construction crew which I had no business being in charge of. I also had the keys to the company van.
My 'Crew' was "Cliffy", an ex-marine and a 60s acid casualty who gave all directions based on his knowledge of penal and correctional facilities....take a left past the sheriff's substation, keep going past the county jail...."Flaky Jake" a speed huffing maniac who was alternately a two fisted lumberjack/carpenter or a thick headed, simple minded reject depending on whether or not he was coming on or off a high, "Mickey the New Yawker" who was supposed to be an electrician but who had to settle for throwing wall board when he wasn't sitting around his pad in his underwear doing his best Micky Rourke impersonation, his friend Pete or tom or who gives a shit whose only contribution to the crew was the endless laughs at his self-proclamations of being a 'Jersey journeyman caulker" (kawlkuh..) and the boss's son who despite being larger and generally more stout than a Hereford bull put out about as much work as your average teenage debutante!
Anyway. Boss (who looked disturbingly like Dom Deluise) flaked off to Germany that winter to sell pork bellies on the open market, leaving me with his van full of yet unpaid rejects camped out together in an Anaheim hotel whose Korean owner mispronounced the name so badly the freaking post office couldn't find us!
Weeks went by and I could not get a hold of this clown, while his crew was eating fried potatoes on an electric skillet three times a day. Ole Cliffy was getting stir crazy and took to standing at the hotel door screaming weird shit to the Mexicans living there like, "Yeah baby this is the Motel Hell and I'm Norman Fucking Bates!"
So screw it. I had the van, his tools and his crew. I put an ad in the paper we had work the next day!
Coming back from that job, spirits high and high on spirits we were hauling ass down the PCH when a silver BMW tried to pass us up. Now I might have been imagining it, but it sure seemed like he couldn't get away from me fast enough...and well.. fuck it I'm a dumb shit, I guess I should admit that right up front.
You ain't beating me, unless you BEAT ME! So I recognized right away this guy had a little snap and a big sense of his own mortality, and I also recognized I had neither. So While he could pull away from me on the straights, I knew even in that shitty van I could reel him in in the curves.
And so it went. He'd pull away and I'd catch him in the downhill chicanes, where there was no actual guardrails in the center berm just the upright support struts just daring you to lose control. I'd draft on his quarter panel until he broke the suction heading uphill, only to catch him again at the top of the next curve!
This went on all the way from Santa Barbara to Malibu until just outside of Santa Monica he finally dropped back a gear, snapped off a grudging salute and let me claim victory heading into the homestretch!
Yeah...3 on the tree, one small step for Econoline, one giant step for stupidity!
Yeah, yeah, you are welcome.... .....the old brain pan at this point is as solid as the Chernobyl containment facility, and every now and then my past stupidities spill out like radioactive fog......
I know I've made lots of stupid decisions... like buying a yacht to save money compared to paying rent. That cost me 40k. I didn't have the yacht more than 3 years, a Chris Craft Constellation, 1950 something, 46 footer
46 foot Connie, great choice, my Grandpa on my mother's side had one called the 'Verpatlou' (a contraction of his kid's names)
He was once the Commodore of a Yippee fleet out of Detroit during WW duece, (though with a different boat), and he was the finish line judge (in the Verpatlou) during the hey-dey of corporate sponsored Hydroplane racing.
He was on the 1936 Champion world bowling team, opened several Brunswick houses for the company (and two for himself, Log Cabin lanes and Motor City Lodge), and was a bit of a minor celebrity at a time when bowling was pretty big in America.
In fact he gave up his nomination to the bowler's hall of fame to a teammate who was dying of cancer.
Years later when I went on the water he would track my travels on a giant wall map. I can't tell you how many times I'd have a lockmaster call down to see if I was on board and then lower down cigarettes, coffee or cakes the old man sent me, it was pretty cool!
As far as having a place to post all our crazy stories, I am pretty sure thee is already one, you may have heard of it, it is called 'Just A Car Guy'.
she was a beaut.... lived on it for 3 years. Had 2 Chevy 350s, and I never took it anywhere, because I wasn't going to risk something happening to my home.
Wow, your grand dad was cool! Dang, I was in the Navy 10 years, and no one sent me stuff, not unless it was my birthday or xmas...
Yeah he was my mother's step father so not really related but he was more family to me than my real family.
And if it makes you feel any better my own mother sent Christmas gifts to my brother and an old school friend of ours for years and never sent me one until I was in my late forties, and I suspect that was really only for my new wife's benefit!
I spent fifteen years (maybe a tad more) as a merchant mariner and that brief moment before the old man died was the only time in my life any one ever sent me anything.
Ford van, 3 on the tree!
ReplyDeleteI raced a BMW 2002 down the PCH with a yellow one and a construction crew a billion years ago!
Ever heard of the peter principle? Sooner or later every man rises to his level of incompetence!
Well I was literally the last man standing and so at nineteen was promoted to foreman on a construction crew which I had no business being in charge of. I also had the keys to the company van.
My 'Crew' was "Cliffy", an ex-marine and a 60s acid casualty who gave all directions based on his knowledge of penal and correctional facilities....take a left past the sheriff's substation, keep going past the county jail...."Flaky Jake" a speed huffing maniac who was alternately a two fisted lumberjack/carpenter or a thick headed, simple minded reject depending on whether or not he was coming on or off a high, "Mickey the New Yawker" who was supposed to be an electrician but who had to settle for throwing wall board when he wasn't sitting around his pad in his underwear doing his best Micky Rourke impersonation, his friend Pete or tom or who gives a shit whose only contribution to the crew was the endless laughs at his self-proclamations of being a 'Jersey journeyman caulker" (kawlkuh..) and the boss's son who despite being larger and generally more stout than a Hereford bull put out about as much work as your average teenage debutante!
Anyway. Boss (who looked disturbingly like Dom Deluise) flaked off to Germany that winter to sell pork bellies on the open market, leaving me with his van full of yet unpaid rejects camped out together in an Anaheim hotel whose Korean owner mispronounced the name so badly the freaking post office couldn't find us!
Weeks went by and I could not get a hold of this clown, while his crew was eating fried potatoes on an electric skillet three times a day. Ole Cliffy was getting stir crazy and took to standing at the hotel door screaming weird shit to the Mexicans living there like, "Yeah baby this is the Motel Hell and I'm Norman Fucking Bates!"
So screw it. I had the van, his tools and his crew. I put an ad in the paper we had work the next day!
Coming back from that job, spirits high and high on spirits we were hauling ass down the PCH when a silver BMW tried to pass us up. Now I might have been imagining it, but it sure seemed like he couldn't get away from me fast enough...and well.. fuck it I'm a dumb shit, I guess I should admit that right up front.
You ain't beating me, unless you BEAT ME! So I recognized right away this guy had a little snap and a big sense of his own mortality, and I also recognized I had neither. So While he could pull away from me on the straights, I knew even in that shitty van I could reel him in in the curves.
And so it went. He'd pull away and I'd catch him in the downhill chicanes, where there was no actual guardrails in the center berm just the upright support struts just daring you to lose control. I'd draft on his quarter panel until he broke the suction heading uphill, only to catch him again at the top of the next curve!
This went on all the way from Santa Barbara to Malibu until just outside of Santa Monica he finally dropped back a gear, snapped off a grudging salute and let me claim victory heading into the homestretch!
Yeah...3 on the tree, one small step for Econoline, one giant step for stupidity!
that is the coolest story, and the longest comment, I've ever gotten!
DeleteThank you! Wow!
Yeah, yeah, you are welcome....
ReplyDelete.....the old brain pan at this point is as solid as the Chernobyl containment facility,
and every now and then my past stupidities spill out like radioactive fog......
Oh I'm laughing, imagining the website or facebook page that would have all of us goodballs with stories to tell putting them all on the same site
DeleteI know I've made lots of stupid decisions... like buying a yacht to save money compared to paying rent. That cost me 40k. I didn't have the yacht more than 3 years, a Chris Craft Constellation, 1950 something, 46 footer
Delete46 foot Connie, great choice, my Grandpa on my mother's side had one called the 'Verpatlou' (a contraction of his kid's names)
ReplyDeleteHe was once the Commodore of a Yippee fleet out of Detroit during WW duece, (though with a different boat), and he was the finish line judge (in the Verpatlou) during the hey-dey of corporate sponsored Hydroplane racing.
He was on the 1936 Champion world bowling team, opened several Brunswick houses for the company (and two for himself, Log Cabin lanes and Motor City Lodge), and was a bit of a minor celebrity at a time when bowling was pretty big in America.
In fact he gave up his nomination to the bowler's hall of fame to a teammate who was dying of cancer.
Years later when I went on the water he would track my travels on a giant wall map. I can't tell you how many times I'd have a lockmaster call down to see if I was on board and then lower down cigarettes, coffee or cakes the old man sent me, it was pretty cool!
As far as having a place to post all our crazy stories, I am pretty sure thee is already one, you may have heard of it, it is called 'Just A Car Guy'.
she was a beaut.... lived on it for 3 years. Had 2 Chevy 350s, and I never took it anywhere, because I wasn't going to risk something happening to my home.
DeleteWow, your grand dad was cool! Dang, I was in the Navy 10 years, and no one sent me stuff, not unless it was my birthday or xmas...
lol, no, we aren't going to post the stories of our life on the car blog... that's a thing better left for a facebook page
DeleteYeah he was my mother's step father so not really related but he was more family to me than my real family.
ReplyDeleteAnd if it makes you feel any better my own mother sent Christmas gifts to my brother and an old school friend of ours for years and never sent me one until I was in my late forties, and I suspect that was really only for my new wife's benefit!
I spent fifteen years (maybe a tad more) as a merchant mariner and that brief moment before the old man died was the only time in my life any one ever sent me anything.