Post by Vampyre on Jun 13, 2010 21:41:59 GMT -6
Most of the old timers from Vicki's forum hsve seen this. I am reposting it for Jeannie since she lives in Alabamaow.
In the summer of '73, my family moved from Ohio to Alabama. I was not thrilled about it but there wasn't much I could do about it.
Almost immediately, I made up my mind to get out of there as fast as I could. No skipping school. Pass all my classes and go to school every day I possibly could no matter what. As soon as I graduate, join the navy, but I am getting ahead of myself.
There was one guy there everyone said was bad news. They all pretty much feared him and told me he should be avoided. Well being the new kid, that sounded like he'd make the perfect best friend.
Over the next two years we did become friends and were polar opposites. I was very good at figuring out how to not get into trouble. After a while Don finally learned to listen to me. We had several adventures in that time and this is about our trip to Mobile.
It 1974, somewhere around October I think. Don was arguing with his parents about something so he decided it was time for a road trip. He wanted to go to Mobile and asked me to go.
I had no problem with it. I made him promise we'd me back by midnight Sunday so I could make it to school Monday. He said OK and we were off. We probably had $5.00 between us. We'd work that out later.
To pay for our first tank of gas in Montgomery, Don sold his watch in a pawn shop. It was his idea to go and there was no way I was hocking any of my stuff.
We got our gas and head southward. As we were traveling,I asked him why Mobile. He said he met a girl from there and she invited him to visit.
By the time we got to Mobile, the car, a Dodge 440 Coronet was running low again. I'm not sure how we came but we had to go through the big tunnel they have down there. The engine died from lack of gas about half way though. We just managed to coast out the other side and into a parking lot.
This is when it started pouring down rain. It was about 6:30 on a Friday night. We needed to find something to sell so we could get more gas. I had "borrowed" my step brothers air pistol. We didn't get along so it didn't bother me much if I had to sell his gun for some gas.
I had a bad feeling about this. It was getting late. It's raining hard and we don't know our way around Mobile at all. So we're walking down the street looking for a pawn shop and the next thing you know, cops spot us and want to ask us why we're out and about in the rain.
Don is pretty good at explaining stuff so off he went telling them about coming down to meet this girl and how we ran out of gas. Well they offer us a ride and we fell for it. Actually there was no real way of saying no. We were getting in the car one way or another they were just being polite.
first thing they do before they let you get into their car is a friendly pat down. I told the officer before he started that I had a BB pistol and it wasn't loaded. I didn't want him freaking out when he found it.
Now we're minors in procession of a concealed weapon! Great! on the bright side, we're out of the rain and in a nice warm police cruiser.
When we got to the station, we were separated and asked a lot of questions. since our stories matched up and neither of us had any kind of record they were leaning towards releasing us.
They had Don call the girl and tell her where we were. By the way he was talking, everything sounded just fine. He told them she was going to pick us up at McDonald's.
The cops took us back to the car and told us to lock the BB pistol in the trunk and leave it there until we could sell it. then they dropped us off at McD's.
As soon as they were gone, Don says let's go.
What?
That girl's not coming. She had a fit and hung up on me. I just said that stuff so they'd let us go.
CRAP
It was about 10:30 or 11:00 by now. We were trying to get back to the car by hitching a ride without any cops seeing us. Well this is no easy task in a old October rain. About the time I was about to just give up, a beat up Ford Falcon pulls over.
Don got in the back and I got in the front. I knew we were dead then. The guy, Frankie, said he'd be happy to take us where we wanted to go but we had to go to Bay Minette first. There was a guy there he needed to kill.
Gulp
Now here we are in this beat up old Ford. I can't find a seat belt. It's pouring down rain and pitch black out side, the glove box door is flapping in the breeze and wont shut and Frankie is waving this huge Bowie type knife around talking about how this guy has to die.
While he's waving it around, we're all over the road and as we go down the ramp to get on the highway to BM, we're actually in the we grass just a sliding like crazy. Some how he managed to get us on the road and away we went in to the night.
Don kept asking Frankie questions about who he wanted to kill and why. Frankie started calming down a bit and don asked to see the knife. Go Don! I felt much better when he got it. I upped my chances of living to 50%
Just before entering Bay Minette, there was a restaurant on the side of the road called Franny's I think. Frankie was tired and we told him we were hungry. It was about midnight by then. He gave us about $10.00 and fell asleep in the car.
Don and I ate a big meal. It was the first time we ate in quite a while. The skanky waitress kept hitting on Don. It was pretty funny. We played pin ball games until about 6:00 that morning.
Then some guys came in and bought us breakfast. Don told them how we got stuck with a drunken crazy man and we were kind of stranded.
Oh I forgot to tell you why Frankie wanted to kill this guy. Well Frankie was in love. He wanted to take his love and her 3 kids and run off to Florida and live happily ever after.
One problem, Gene, her husband wasn't to fond of the idea. In Frankie's twisted alcohol laden mind, if Gene was dead, there'd be no problem.
Don and I both agreed, Frankie was nuts. He was also on the short side of 5'5". Gene as we found out a bit later as well over 6'4"
After breakfast, we roused Frankie. It was time for the confrontation. Don and I were kind of interested in seeing how it was going to play out. Don still had the knife. Frankie seemed to have forgotten about it.
Well nothing really happened. Frankie drove by the house a few times blowing his horn like an idiot. Stealth was bot in his vocabulary i guess.
Don talked him into going up to the door knocking on it and then try to talk to the guy. He reassured him we had his back.(another like)
Well the started talking, Frankie's crying. The 'love' is skankier looking than the one from Granny's. After about 30 minutes of this, Don an I decide to hitch back to Mobile, pawn the knife and BB gun get some gas and get out of there.
We walked out to the high raised our thumbs high and waited. It's nearly 9:00 on a Saturday morning now. We're broke, no gas and about 270 miles from home.
A car stops. The guy says he'll give us a ride for $5:00. Don explained to him that if we had 5 bucks we'd not be hitching. the 38 miles back to our car. He left with out us.
The next driver had a pretty nice pick up. He gave us a rid almost all the way back. He had to stop at a store. While he was inside. Don looked in the glove box. The guy was a plains clothes cop! We bailed.
This is here we learned foot traffic through the Mobile tunnel system is expressly forbidden. Seems like CO2 likes to accumulate at the lowest part of the tunnel and kill people off.
This was all explained to us by a very irate city employed driving a pretty nifty truck. It let him change traffic signals when ever he needed to. He was kinda mad at us for making him get off his ass and come save us from our own stupidity.
The nice man dropped us off at our car. We got the B gun, found a pawn shop and sold it and he knife. Next stop was a gas station then walking back to the car. We filled it up and by 11:00 we were on the road again.
Great! We're going home!
No we aren't. We have until midnight tomorrow night.
Crap!
Next stop Dothan! 198 miles or so east. if yo take a straight route. We didn't. We found a quite place and slept for a while. Both of us had been awake for over 24 hours and were exhausted.
As we were rolling into Dothan, It was about 8:30 pm. We saw a carnival and decided to check it out. We found out they were closing down at mid night and wanted some temp workers to help pack the stuff up. They would pay us $25.00 each!
We worked for about 5 hours that night. everything went pretty good except for when a guy we were working with broke some neon lights right over my head. fortunately, I saw he was about to do it and looked away in time to save my eyes. No damage but I got a free Coke
After it was all over Don passed out fast asleep in the back, I was driving. He said to wake him up if I found a good place to eat.
I was 17 then but didn't have a driver's license. I drove pretty good though. Or so I thought. As I came around a curve, I saw a Diner that looked pretty good so at the last minute, I whipped the car in there.
High speed and a gravel parking lot are not good for a nOOB driver. Somehow I did managed to get us parked safely after spinning around about 3 times.
Don bought the food, I filled up the car. Gas was a lot cheaper back in '74. It was now about 5:00 Sunday morning. I have no idea where that place was.
After a huge breakfast, Don was back in the drivers seat and I was crashed out in the back. When I woke up, we were almost to Talladega. Don was getting tired and was ready to head home.
On that dreary rainy Sunday, we pointed he car back towards Birmingham and headed home. I got to school on Monday and had survived another road trip.
In the two or three years I knew Don, we had several trips like this., Usually we had more money but we still had all kinds of mishaps.
In the summer of '73, my family moved from Ohio to Alabama. I was not thrilled about it but there wasn't much I could do about it.
Almost immediately, I made up my mind to get out of there as fast as I could. No skipping school. Pass all my classes and go to school every day I possibly could no matter what. As soon as I graduate, join the navy, but I am getting ahead of myself.
There was one guy there everyone said was bad news. They all pretty much feared him and told me he should be avoided. Well being the new kid, that sounded like he'd make the perfect best friend.
Over the next two years we did become friends and were polar opposites. I was very good at figuring out how to not get into trouble. After a while Don finally learned to listen to me. We had several adventures in that time and this is about our trip to Mobile.
It 1974, somewhere around October I think. Don was arguing with his parents about something so he decided it was time for a road trip. He wanted to go to Mobile and asked me to go.
I had no problem with it. I made him promise we'd me back by midnight Sunday so I could make it to school Monday. He said OK and we were off. We probably had $5.00 between us. We'd work that out later.
To pay for our first tank of gas in Montgomery, Don sold his watch in a pawn shop. It was his idea to go and there was no way I was hocking any of my stuff.
We got our gas and head southward. As we were traveling,I asked him why Mobile. He said he met a girl from there and she invited him to visit.
By the time we got to Mobile, the car, a Dodge 440 Coronet was running low again. I'm not sure how we came but we had to go through the big tunnel they have down there. The engine died from lack of gas about half way though. We just managed to coast out the other side and into a parking lot.
This is when it started pouring down rain. It was about 6:30 on a Friday night. We needed to find something to sell so we could get more gas. I had "borrowed" my step brothers air pistol. We didn't get along so it didn't bother me much if I had to sell his gun for some gas.
I had a bad feeling about this. It was getting late. It's raining hard and we don't know our way around Mobile at all. So we're walking down the street looking for a pawn shop and the next thing you know, cops spot us and want to ask us why we're out and about in the rain.
Don is pretty good at explaining stuff so off he went telling them about coming down to meet this girl and how we ran out of gas. Well they offer us a ride and we fell for it. Actually there was no real way of saying no. We were getting in the car one way or another they were just being polite.
first thing they do before they let you get into their car is a friendly pat down. I told the officer before he started that I had a BB pistol and it wasn't loaded. I didn't want him freaking out when he found it.
Now we're minors in procession of a concealed weapon! Great! on the bright side, we're out of the rain and in a nice warm police cruiser.
When we got to the station, we were separated and asked a lot of questions. since our stories matched up and neither of us had any kind of record they were leaning towards releasing us.
They had Don call the girl and tell her where we were. By the way he was talking, everything sounded just fine. He told them she was going to pick us up at McDonald's.
The cops took us back to the car and told us to lock the BB pistol in the trunk and leave it there until we could sell it. then they dropped us off at McD's.
As soon as they were gone, Don says let's go.
What?
That girl's not coming. She had a fit and hung up on me. I just said that stuff so they'd let us go.
CRAP
It was about 10:30 or 11:00 by now. We were trying to get back to the car by hitching a ride without any cops seeing us. Well this is no easy task in a old October rain. About the time I was about to just give up, a beat up Ford Falcon pulls over.
Don got in the back and I got in the front. I knew we were dead then. The guy, Frankie, said he'd be happy to take us where we wanted to go but we had to go to Bay Minette first. There was a guy there he needed to kill.
Gulp
Now here we are in this beat up old Ford. I can't find a seat belt. It's pouring down rain and pitch black out side, the glove box door is flapping in the breeze and wont shut and Frankie is waving this huge Bowie type knife around talking about how this guy has to die.
While he's waving it around, we're all over the road and as we go down the ramp to get on the highway to BM, we're actually in the we grass just a sliding like crazy. Some how he managed to get us on the road and away we went in to the night.
Don kept asking Frankie questions about who he wanted to kill and why. Frankie started calming down a bit and don asked to see the knife. Go Don! I felt much better when he got it. I upped my chances of living to 50%
Just before entering Bay Minette, there was a restaurant on the side of the road called Franny's I think. Frankie was tired and we told him we were hungry. It was about midnight by then. He gave us about $10.00 and fell asleep in the car.
Don and I ate a big meal. It was the first time we ate in quite a while. The skanky waitress kept hitting on Don. It was pretty funny. We played pin ball games until about 6:00 that morning.
Then some guys came in and bought us breakfast. Don told them how we got stuck with a drunken crazy man and we were kind of stranded.
Oh I forgot to tell you why Frankie wanted to kill this guy. Well Frankie was in love. He wanted to take his love and her 3 kids and run off to Florida and live happily ever after.
One problem, Gene, her husband wasn't to fond of the idea. In Frankie's twisted alcohol laden mind, if Gene was dead, there'd be no problem.
Don and I both agreed, Frankie was nuts. He was also on the short side of 5'5". Gene as we found out a bit later as well over 6'4"
After breakfast, we roused Frankie. It was time for the confrontation. Don and I were kind of interested in seeing how it was going to play out. Don still had the knife. Frankie seemed to have forgotten about it.
Well nothing really happened. Frankie drove by the house a few times blowing his horn like an idiot. Stealth was bot in his vocabulary i guess.
Don talked him into going up to the door knocking on it and then try to talk to the guy. He reassured him we had his back.(another like)
Well the started talking, Frankie's crying. The 'love' is skankier looking than the one from Granny's. After about 30 minutes of this, Don an I decide to hitch back to Mobile, pawn the knife and BB gun get some gas and get out of there.
We walked out to the high raised our thumbs high and waited. It's nearly 9:00 on a Saturday morning now. We're broke, no gas and about 270 miles from home.
A car stops. The guy says he'll give us a ride for $5:00. Don explained to him that if we had 5 bucks we'd not be hitching. the 38 miles back to our car. He left with out us.
The next driver had a pretty nice pick up. He gave us a rid almost all the way back. He had to stop at a store. While he was inside. Don looked in the glove box. The guy was a plains clothes cop! We bailed.
This is here we learned foot traffic through the Mobile tunnel system is expressly forbidden. Seems like CO2 likes to accumulate at the lowest part of the tunnel and kill people off.
This was all explained to us by a very irate city employed driving a pretty nifty truck. It let him change traffic signals when ever he needed to. He was kinda mad at us for making him get off his ass and come save us from our own stupidity.
The nice man dropped us off at our car. We got the B gun, found a pawn shop and sold it and he knife. Next stop was a gas station then walking back to the car. We filled it up and by 11:00 we were on the road again.
Great! We're going home!
No we aren't. We have until midnight tomorrow night.
Crap!
Next stop Dothan! 198 miles or so east. if yo take a straight route. We didn't. We found a quite place and slept for a while. Both of us had been awake for over 24 hours and were exhausted.
As we were rolling into Dothan, It was about 8:30 pm. We saw a carnival and decided to check it out. We found out they were closing down at mid night and wanted some temp workers to help pack the stuff up. They would pay us $25.00 each!
We worked for about 5 hours that night. everything went pretty good except for when a guy we were working with broke some neon lights right over my head. fortunately, I saw he was about to do it and looked away in time to save my eyes. No damage but I got a free Coke
After it was all over Don passed out fast asleep in the back, I was driving. He said to wake him up if I found a good place to eat.
I was 17 then but didn't have a driver's license. I drove pretty good though. Or so I thought. As I came around a curve, I saw a Diner that looked pretty good so at the last minute, I whipped the car in there.
High speed and a gravel parking lot are not good for a nOOB driver. Somehow I did managed to get us parked safely after spinning around about 3 times.
Don bought the food, I filled up the car. Gas was a lot cheaper back in '74. It was now about 5:00 Sunday morning. I have no idea where that place was.
After a huge breakfast, Don was back in the drivers seat and I was crashed out in the back. When I woke up, we were almost to Talladega. Don was getting tired and was ready to head home.
On that dreary rainy Sunday, we pointed he car back towards Birmingham and headed home. I got to school on Monday and had survived another road trip.
In the two or three years I knew Don, we had several trips like this., Usually we had more money but we still had all kinds of mishaps.