ONE OF THOSE SCARES YOU DON’T FORGET
July 6, 2019
It was this time of year but in that part of the country, it was cold. It was below freezing day and night. It was many years back, long back. It was early January in the year ’60, I think. I was in school in Michigan, an engineering college, and we were out for mid-year break, a long one, in that cold, cold winter.
At that time, I had a car, a ’52 Ford four door sedan, two tone green. It was an older person’s car, a family car, one you wouldn’t notice except that the driver was young. I had it equipped with seat belts.
I put four on the floor and a 4:11 rear end in the back. It was an eight cylinder Ford Flathead with milled aluminum heads, three two barreled carburetors on the manifold, some cutouts on the lighting system, and otherwise from the outside, an older person’s four door sedan, one not to notice.
I was on a mission. I was travelling back from the mountains in Virginia, a load of hooch in the trunk. It was a mission to deliver that merchandise from the mountains of Virginia to the cellars in Michigan. And I got top dollar, too. Those “Big Three” executives wanted a quart for their wine cellars. It had to be in the green glass mason-type jars with the wires down over the lids. You know the kind.
It was late at night, then the safest time to travel. The interstate system was under construction but a long way from completion. So you drove on those long, lonely roads with switchbacks to help you get over a hill, a mountain, and back down the other side.
The trip was going well. I violated no laws. I drove civilly. Around two a.m. I came around a bend on US 25 and leading into a small Midwestern town. I was going a bit over the limit but not enough to be noticed. Except that ahead were two troopers and at each side of the road with those lights going. I panicked.
I picked up speed and hit what we now call “black ice.” I went this way and that and got over that patch okay. Only now, I had an escort. I had attracted their attention, none of us wanted it, but there it was. I thought it was a roadblock waiting on me. Wrong. The troopers were merely warning those on the road of the icy conditions.
I got off the highway and onto side streets. Mind you, now, it was the middle of the night and I had an escort, now with sirens as well as lights for all the world to notice. And I had a load in the trunk they didn’t need to see.
I cut out the taillights and the brake lights. I left the headlights on. Directly, there were street lamps so I cut off the headlights.
Fortunately, there was no other traffic. I skidded around this corner turning the wrong way and using the gas pedal and the gears to steer that ’52 Ford Flathead. And then I went around that corner and then back around and down the other way.
I pulled into an alley, in those small towns in the Midwest then, they had graveled alleys where people drove down to outside garages, where they kept those burn barrels for trash, where the garbage truck came down a couple of times each week. I found what I was looking for.
There it was ahead of me, an open garage door. I quietly pulled that Ford Flathead into that garage, got out, and pulled the rope to lower that garage door. For a long while, I could still hear the sirens. Then the sirens stopped but the patrols continued. Then the patrols stopped. I waited another hour or so and gently lifted that garage door not knowing what to expect.
Nothing. I started that ’52 Ford and backed slowly out of that borrowed garage, quietly thanked the owner, slid back onto the hard surfaced streets, and at the other side of town, it was still hours from light, rejoined US 25.
Whew… I wore myself out on that one. So, reflect on what in there is worthy of that, and I’ll see you again, soon, out there looking for Trouble.
Copyright © by Gene Benedict 2019 July 6
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