A few days ago I asked my kids, “what is the craziest thing you have done as a kid“? Granted half of them are still kids, so a silence followed by “is this a trap?” met my initial request. It made me think about the crazy things I did as a kid (and knowing full well, there are things I don’t know, that mine have done). So in no particular order, here are a few of my publishable, craziest things;
I started driving to work in the peach orchard at 15, months before my 16th birthday. My 76′ Camaro Rally Sport with a 350 engine and holley 4 barrel carburetor “screamed like a scalded dog”. My dad told me “drive straight to work and straight back, no stops in between”. Day 3, I stop on my way home to show off my ride to my buddy, Scott. Now his road, like many around me, was a narrow, backroad with no lines and barely room for two cars to pass. He gets in and I floor it, we took off like a bat out of Hades!
We are flying along and he says, “hey man, you can slow down now”, we were doing about 70! I said, “I have been trying to for the past minute, somethings wrong”. What was wrong is the carberator locked up, basically it was stuck on wide open! I thought to throw the car in neutral, but missed and hit reverse…we did a complete 180 turn and heading back to his house, locked up!
Somehow, by the grace of the good Lord, we see his dirt road, and I just whip it in and turn the key off (what I should have done to begin with). We are both in the floor board, kissing the ground and thankful to be alive! After an eternity, we get out, pop the hood and see the carburetor locked! We jiggle a few things and I slowly head home…I tell my day that there “may be an issue with the carberator sticking” so he oils it up and fixes it. It was 10 years later before I shared that story with him and he said “I thought there was something weird about that day…”
This was one of the 17 times I almost died. a few years later, Scott flipped his car in front of my house around midnight and was flung from the sunroof, the only reason he survived!
I am in the midst of teaching Corban how to drive. He does not like feedback, but I tell him the same thing my dad always told me “watch out for the idiots on the road and don’t be one of them”. He also said “don’t fiddle with the radio….”
Scott is #30 in the basketball picture. He was 6′ 6″, now imagine him in the floorboard of a Camaro, knocking on deaths door.
Alex Putman 