The Night…Norris Tried To Kill…The Both of Us…Part 117:05 Jan 23 2013
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This will be my final post on this particular subject and in doing so complete my trilogy of “Damn Near Killed”. I am afraid this story may run a little long…so…should you, whoever you may be, are in need of instant emotional gratification, you should probably go “Home” and peruse photographs of kittens and spiffy sayings.
First a little background information.
Now, Mike Norris and I were best friends all through school…partners in crime…brigands of a feather…scofflaws of the highest caliber. Where one was, so was the other…we lived in the same neighborhood…we made sandwiches and ate them in the grocery store together…played school football together…worked at his father’s Marathon Station together…tortured Norris’s younger brothers together…chased the girlies together…and our friendship even got to the point where we would answer together…”Hey Mike?”…and we’d both answer in unison…”What?”. This used to drive certain teachers insane, much to our amusement, and…of course…we played in bands together. Mike Norris…my “Best Bud”!
Let me introduce you to Larry Hall. He was much older than Norris and I. How we actually came to know him I cannot really say. Larry was a biker of sorts and besides his prize Harley, he also owned an old white milk truck van. He lived just outside the southeast corner of Green Hills Golf Course, a good two miles from us, and he let our band at that time rehearse in his house, being way out in the country it was perfect! No one to call Johnny Law on us, you understand. He also provided us with said white milk truck van, as long as we had a licensed driver, to carry ourselves and our gear to and from gigs. Larry…was a very cool guy and when his friends and he partook of the herb…well…I remember very interesting conversations. Once we watched one of his friends “Surf” inside that white milk truck van to the song “Bang A Gong” by T-Rex…one cannot buy that kind of entertainment! I just recalled his name…”Fred”…we even wrote a song about Fred…an instrumental…titled…”Fred”.
Then there was Harriet Scripps. Harriet was the Norris’s neighbor, across a few back yards and there she lived. Harriet was a divorce’ with I believe one child, a very little girl.
There…that’s plenty of background to tell this tale.
Three things…this was a rare school night gig we played…it was known Larry would not be home when we arrived back to unload our gear…and it was raining. We knew after we finished using the van we would have to walk home…in the middle of the night…in the rain and the walk would be even further than 2 miles for Carlos.
It trickled down to merely Carlos, Mike and I still riding inside the van. I was 14 years old…Mike was 15 years old and Carlos was 16 years old with a drivers license, hence Larry giving us use and we had finished dropping off the rest of the band at their homes.
Carlos was musing he REALLY did not want to make that walk home in the rain, but he felt rather trapped being the only licensed driver. Mike and I told him to just drive himself home and we would take the van back. Even unlicensed we both had had prior driving experience (which will become absolutely clear should I continue writing about our teen shenanigans) and felt more than up to the task.
This left Mike and I taking the gear and the van back to Larry’s in the rain. Having no drivers licenses enhanced our sense of piracy and brought a great joy…yet…Mike finally said that he too wasn’t incredibly thrilled at the thought of walking 2 miles home in the rain and he had an idea. Now this was not the thing one usually wanted to hear from Mike…but…our heightened sense of scofflawness promised smooth sailing…so…I did not object when he drove to Harriet Scripps house.
I sat in the van waiting perhaps 10 minutes while Mike was inside. Finally he came bounding out dangling Harriet Scripps car keys from his fingers. Harriet owned a 1967 green Ford Maverick and Mike had convinced her to let us borrow it, even though we had no driver licenses, so we would have a ride back from Larry’s and avoid a 2 mile walk in the rain. You, at this point, should know that this must have been near 1am, so with having a sleeping little girl, Harriet couldn’t follow us out to Larry’s and then bring us back…this was all up to Mike and I…MISTAKE! I mean really? Who was the adult here?! Harriet really should have known better! This was Mike & Mike! Jesus!
I drove the van back to Larry’s with Mike following in Harriet’s 1967 green Ford Maverick. I noticed on the rainy drive there that Mike would fall back, then race up behind me…fall back…race up…fall back…race up…I thought…*What’s that numbnuts doing?*…but we were at Larry’s in no time and I did not give it another thought. We unloaded the gear.
We jump into Harriet’s 1967 green Ford Maverick with Mike at the wheel and in a very excited state Mike said…”MAN! This car really gets it!”…we shoot down Larry’s long drive like a bullet and onto the first back road to our neighborhood. I was apprehensive.
Harriet’s green Ford Maverick is now hurtling down a rain soaked tar back road piloted by an excited numbnuts. I looked over at the speedometer…60mph….70mph…I was starting to become concerned and I said…I actually said…”Slow down Norris.”…but Mike wasn’t hearing me….80mph…”Norris…slow down!”.
We were quickly…very quickly…approaching a critical point in our journey. Not far ahead there would be a gradual dip in the road that would quickly swell to a crest…maybe 40 yards beyond that crest loomed a large steel bridge, old style, big high side sections, solid, perhaps 20 yards across…another 20 yards after that bridge the road sloped quickly down to an intersection that housed in one corner, a very large tree…an intersection that housed in one corner, a very large tree, with the next road we needed to take.
Stay tuned for Part 2.
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