The making of an outlaw!

[1967 'cuda]

After I graduated high school back in '75 I went to work at WALKER Manufacturing in Seward, Nebraska. They made oem & aftermarket exhaust systems. I may not have been the brightest new hire they made.

I worked the first two days without taking any breaks because I didn't know that there was such a thing. On the 3rd day someone finally stopped and asked me why I hadn't been going up to the lunch room. Lunch room? Nobody had told me there was a lunch room. Rather than admit how naive I was, I let them think that I was just a really hard worker.

Over time I became accustomed to leaving the plant for the lunch period and driving to a bar in town that served burgers and chili. It became part of my normal day.

A snowstorm hit while I was at work one winter evening during the 2nd year I worked there. Although the weather was nasty I still followed my regular lunchtime routine. Visibility was crappy on the way into town but the road was manageable. 20 minutes later when I drove back it had changed.

Now it was a full blown blizzard. Traffic was creeping along and it was difficult to see the tail lights of cars more than about 80 foot ahead. As I approached the plant entrance drive I was barely able to make out the vehicle in front of me as he went down a steep 60 foot embankment. All I could see was the beams from his headlights as they flashed up and down through the falling snow in the sky. I was probably moving about 10 mph at the time. As I attempted to pull over to render assistance my right side wheels dropped off the concrete and the shoulder tried to pull the Roadrunner down the ditch. I eased it back onto the pavement and turned on my flashers.

As I opened the driver's door to step out, I noticed headlights coming up fast from behind. I dove back into the car and braced against the steering wheel with both arms. The pickup had spun around one and a half times before striking the back of the Roadrunner in the middle of the back bumper. It was estimated that he was doing around 65 mph at the moment of impact. My rear bumper was pushed half the distance in towards my rear window. Somehow nobody got hurt (other than a severe whiplash on my part). My roll bar supports had limited the impact damage. Without it the car would have buckled beyond repair.

The pickup driver was the son of one of the Seward county sheriff deputies. They tried to sue me for damages because I was stopped on the highway. It was thrown out of court when my insurance company's lawyers pointed out that Nebraska state law required that I stop to give assistance as first person on the scene or be subject to legal ramifications. Although I was found NOT to be at fault, Seward county law enforcement harassed me relentlessly for years afterwards. (the stories I could tell)

I think I began to have a bit of a darker personality after my experience. When it was time to have the car fixed, I decided to change the color from Go Mango to black. Eventually I added the flames.

 

[1967 'cuda]

As time went on I found that if I didn't give the cops a reason to pull me over, they would invent one. At first all I had to do was to be a few miles over the speed limit. Even if other traffic was passing me I was singled out as the one to be stopped. One night I was driving 5 mph under the limit and was pulled over for impeding traffic. - Even though the only traffic around me was the police officer that ticketed me. - And he had obviously been speeding to get behind me to stop me. I don't hate law enforcement. Some of 'em are damn nice people. But there are some I'm not a big fan of some of.

I've always felt that I've held myself to certain standards that prevent me from doing harm to others. I detest vandalism. Heck, I may read what's written on bathroom walls, but I've always felt that it was pretty crumby for someone to deface that property that wasn't theirs. I try to be honest. I don't think anyone's ever thought that I'd cheated them and I know I don't steal. I don't do drugs. Most people would say that I probably don't drink enough. But I do have a bit of a wild streak. I love most forms of racing. I love to go fast. (I rarely do now anymore, but I do still love the power)

As I wrote in the last post, I think that getting to see the less scrupulous side of the law made me 'darker' in some ways. I began to realize that anyone in power has the ability to use that power as they saw fit. - And that although there are those out there committed to 'Serve and Protect', there are also those out there that choose to intimidate and bully or to use the law to skirt the law. I became more of a rebel. - Hooked on the adrenaline rush of going fast and quickly becoming addicted to it. The sound of the big cubed Mopars with a rough idle was music to my ears. Sometimes as I drove down the highways I'd turn the music off just so I could enjoy the sound of the motor. Cars may not have been the only thing in my life, but I had made the transformation into full blown gearhead.

 

[1967 'cuda]

The 'darker' side of me wasn't a bad person.

But I think I felt less inhibited by non-car people. My car shook while standing still and the unspent fuel had a tendency to burn your eyes. I had stopped feeling like I needed to apologize for these facts.

I was young, my hair was a bit on the long side and I got in the habit of wearing black pocket T shirts and Levis. - Not exactly goth, but definitely not colorful.

I spent more time working in the garage. In some ways I probably seemed reclusive. I still rarely engaged in street racing. But I'm sure others may have thought I did it all the time.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Late one night (about 3 A.M.) I had decided it was time to head home to the farm by David City. I had spent a few hours cruising around Lincoln, Nebraska after I'd gotten off work and was driving back through Seward. Home was still 25 miles away. As I passed through the city streets I could see they were deserted. Everyone else had called it a night too.

Seward is not a very large city. There are only a few stop lights. When I approached the second of the two that I had to pass through, it was red. I sat at it waiting for the change to green but it didn't come. I must have been there for almost five minutes. - All the while, the town seemed empty. - Not another moving vehicle in sight.

I'm not sure what came over me. I was bored. I was tired. I was ready to go home. I just sort of thought F*CK it, and matted the gas pedal. Normally this might not have been a big deal. But the Seward police station was a block behind me, the town was quiet, and my car was not. The tires immediately went up in smoke. For a second I enjoyed that adrenaline rush again as the engine roared and the tires wailed. But then as I looked through the smoke in my rear view mirror I could see the cops as they came out of the station. They looked like bees leaving a hive. Although there were about a half dozen steps going down from their door, I don't think they touched any of them.

I had never ever gotten into any real trouble with the law before. But I had just layed down a block of rubber and there wasn't anyone else around to pin it on. I started thinking "What the h*ll did I just do?'

Maybe it was because I was tired or maybe it was because I was a bit rebellious, or maybe it was because I was just stupid. - I don't know why but I kept my foot in it.

In the rear view mirrors I could see the cherries come on. I could see their headlights bounce up and down as they backed out through the dip at the entrance. There were two of them.

Oh sh*t, Oh sh*t, oh sh*t!!! - Was all I could think. I kept it to the floor. About eight or nine blocks ahead the street followed the landscape downward. It was gradual, but probably sixty foot lower than the top. As I got close I glanced at the 150 speedo. The needle had passed the 150 mark and was pointing down at the numbers on the odometer. My car was airborne all of the way til the bottom. It didn't land harsh and my foot stayed down. Ahead the road rose back upwards. I was in a small valley. Back up the road I went, airborne again once I got to the top. My foot didn't budge.

 

[1967 'cuda]

I was literally moving like the proverbial 'bat out of h*ll'. It was bad enough that I had made a lot of noise and that the cops had come after me. But they had already shown me that they would pull me over and write me tickets whether or not I was doing anything wrong. What would they do to me for this? I knew I was in deep. I cursed myself for my stupidity but I kept going.

 

[1967 'cuda]

There was a jog in the highway ahead as the road curved to the left and then back to the right. I took the inside of those curves and slid the car through them. I had finally reached the edge of town. The pursuit vehicles were so far behind me that I couldn't see them now. The two curves put me on a different line of sight.

On the Northern edge of Seward lies a cemetery with lots of trees around it and an intersecting country road just beyond. It suddenly occurred to me that this could be my getaway route. I flipped the headlights off as I approached the intersection and hit the brakes. CRAP!!! My brake lights seemed to light up the entire county! The brakes locked and I slid through the intersection at close to 100 mph. As it whizzed by I nailed the throttle again. I would have to hit the brakes sooner if I was going to turn off.

 

[1967 'cuda]

It wasn't until about a half mile later when I finally saw the lights of the police cars again. I had put quite a distance between myself and them. The next intersection was coming up fast. Once again I hit the brakes. Although I had tried stopping much sooner I still slid through it way to fast to turn. I began to think that stopping to turn off didn't make much sense. At the rate I was pulling away from them I might as well keep going.

I began to think about what I needed to do once I got home. Do I go home? If I go home do I put the car in the shop? I was sure they knew who I was so would I still be in trouble if they didn't catch me in the act? Ya, I wasn't a genius but I was beginning to see that this was not going to end well. For one thing, my folks were going to kill me.

 

[1967 'cuda]

I kept going. The lights behind were barely within sight. As I approached the turn off for the town of Staplehurst I saw headlights coming towards me from the North. I wasn't sure. But at this time of night it wasn't a good sign. There was a good chance that it was a state patrolman. I had been struggling with what to do for several miles. Now I was faced with the possibility of the car ahead being driven by a local state patrolman that had a reputation as being 'far from clean'.

I won't mention his name, but amongst the area car enthusiasts he had become infamous. He was known to brag about some of his exploits at one of the garages that serviced his patrol car. - Often talking about egging people on to try to get them to try outrunning him. - And making it clear that he thought hotrodders were scum.

 

[1967 'cuda]

just out of curiosity, is anyone reading this other than the SWAT team that's being assembled outside my garage?

 

[1967 'cuda]

It's easy to skip details when a person conveys a story to others. I get immersed in the memories of those days gone by. I can still feel the cool night air, see the broken yellow dividing lines of the highway move by so fast that they seem like one solid line, hear the pitch of the engine as I rocketed down the road, and feel the panic as I contemplated what to do.

I was still a teenager. I lived with my folks where I helped out on the family farm in addition to working at a factory 25 miles away. My family was conservative and although I wasn't a trouble maker, I was the most outlandish of my parent's 5 children. - The bad seed. I loved my folks dearly. They were the type of people (though they're gone now) that I looked up to. But the hotrod bug had bitten me and I was hooked.

So, faced with the situation I had gotten myself into I had to make a decision. Either continue ahead and hope for the best or give it up. I decided to pull over.

It was almost as if I was possessed by someone else. I wasn't acting as I normally would have. This wasn't me. But it was.

I had turned off the ignition before they'd arrived. In the silence my mind seemed to go blank. I just sat there in the dark and waited.

It took almost two minutes for the cops to arrive. As the first car pulled up behind me, the second turned around and headed back to Seward. I watched them through the corner of my eye in the rear view mirror as I stared at the gauges. - The red light from the car behind piercing the darkness made everything seem surreal. Time to pay the piper.

A minute or so went by before the officer walked up to my door. My window was still rolled up so he knocked on the glass with his flashlight. I didn't respond. A few seconds later he knocked again. Slowly I turned my head and faced him. He motioned with his hand for me to roll down the window. I did. - And as calmly as I could, I said "Yes?" in a questioning tone. My voice didn't waiver. The panic I was feeling stayed hidden.

I recognized the police officer. He was a new hire. It was his first week on the force. His name was Henry. What made him stand out was his stature. He was only five foot tall. He compensated for his height by wearing a 10 gallon cowboy hat. Although he must have thought it made him look taller, it actually had the opposite effect.

The first words out of his mouth were " Boy, You in a heap of trouble." I'm not making that up. He really said it. Anyone familiar with the old 70s Dodge commercials will recognize that line. Next he said, " You better follow me back to the station." and walked back to his car.

I waited for him to turn around but instead, he returned to my car and said, "On second thought, I'd better follow YOU back to the station."

 

[1967 'cuda]

I know I said it before, but I really wasn't acting as I normally would have. As the officer walked back to his car I fired up the Roadrunner and spun it back around facing South towards Seward. Without lighting up the tires, I accelerated as fast as I could up to the speed limit. In my rear view, I could see the officer running as fast as he could to get back in his car.

I know my Roadrunner wasn't the fastest car around, but it was quick. As I watched the patrol car struggle to catch up I thought that he must have been feeling a little panicked himself.

It was about a ten minute drive back to Seward. I don't remember what I was thinking about on the way back. But I wasn't feeling like myself. I was feeling rebellious. As I got closer to the police station I could see that it was now surrounded by a combination of state patrol, sheriff, deputy sheriff, and Seward P.D. cars. They weren't there earlier. The two street side parking stalls were still open, but so was the stall reserved for the car behind me. I took it. (this behavior was just so NOT ME)

After parking on the street, Henry escorted me into the station. It was standing room only. I never counted how many law enforcement guys there were there, but I remember thinking that I didn't know they had that many. They all stared at me as I walked through the door. You'd have thought that I was Dillinger or Bonnie & Clyde. I was ushered back to a small room behind the front entrance.

Everything still had that surrealistic feeling about it. The room had one hard wooden chair and one small hard wood table. I was told to sit down. On the table was a single bulb lamp with a flexible neck on it. The officer clicked it on and directed the light towards my face. It felt like it must have been a heat light bulb. This room was the stereotypical interrogation room I had seen in all the movies. It was real. - And I was in it.

 

[1967 'cuda]

The officer turned and left, closing the door behind him. I probably could have redirected the lamp away from my face, but I just sat there. I was numb. I could hear a lot of voices beyond the door but I couldn't make out what they were saying. I didn't even try to decipher what was being said.

I think I may have lost all concept of time. I don't know how long I sat before the door finally opened again. I didn't recognize the two officers that came in. The one that spoke seemed like he was in charge. He began to rattle off a long list of offenses that they could write me up for. Disturbing the peace. Exhibition acceleration. Speeding. Reckless driving. Willful reckless driving. Flight to avoid arrest. I think there were others, but those are the ones I remember. He guaranteed me that they could take my license right now.

But then he said something that caught me totally by surprise. He said he was going to cut me a break. He listed off the offenses they could nail me for again and said they were going to let me go. - On one condition. All I had to do was to tell them how fast I was going.

I didn't think I had heard him correctly. It didn't soak in. I must have looked confused when I asked "What?" Any belligerence in my tone was gone. - Replaced by the tone of the confused. I asked him again. "What?"

He repeated himself. "I said we will let you go if you tell us how fast you were going."

I tried not to show it but a certain feeling of giddiness was creeping in. Along with it, so did a bit of my attitude. I looked at him and said I didn't know.

He repeated again that they would let me go if I told him.

I stood my ground and said that I didn't know. I told him that I was pretty sure that I was speeding, but that I didn't know how fast.

The other officer in the room became agitated. He blurted out, "Tell us! We already said we'd let you go!"

I shrugged my shoulders and repeated that I was pretty sure that I'd been speeding but couldn't say how fast.

"Well how fast do you think you were going?!!!" shouted that second officer.

I said again that I didn't know but I might have been going over 70 mph.

That's when he lost it. He threw something on the ground, pointed his finger at me and yelled "Our radar gun here only reads up to 125 mph! When we pointed it at you all we got were two lines across the screen! How fast were you going?!!"

When I repeated again that I didn't know, he stormed out of the room. I actually wasn't lying. I didn't know how fast I was going. The speedometer needle was pointing down at the 40 some thousand miles on my odometer. I knew it was fast.

Over the course of the next half hour or so, a number of other officers entered the room with the same question. Eventually they gave up and told me I could go. As I got up to leave I half-expected everything to change. Walking past the gauntlet of law enforcement, no one said a word. I walked out, got into my car, and went home.

The drive home was quiet. I could see that no matter what speed I drove, a set of headlights behind me maintained about a half mile distance.

I was so thankful for surviving the incident unscathed that I drove extra cautiously afterwards. I obeyed all the traffic laws. But I became accustomed to getting pulled over once or twice a week thereafter when in Seward county. Usually it was with a written warning and sometimes I was written bogus tickets. My glove box overflowed.

 

[jerrysdustydog]

I'll have to admit, I never read a book in my life. I got exceptional grades in HS and college, but never studied. If you ever write a book, let me know. I'll buy and read it. I too, was the class of '75. Perhaps we have more in common than I thought. Great story. You might have missed your calling as a writer.

 

[Basketcase]

I was young, my hair was a bit on the long side and I got in the habit of wearing black pocket T shirts and Levis. - Not exactly goth, but definitely not colorful.


..........

 

[Basketcase]

nothing quite so involved, but I used to work at a IH truck dealership. the dealership sat in the middle of a Y of two roads. i had my first '69 road runner. It had a tired 440,automatic, with 3.91sg. One of the guys that drove a parts delivery van like me was a retire trucker that lived across from the dealer. he was asking me about my car one day, and sad he thought it wouldn't do a good burnout.I knew what he was up to, so I told him to be sitting on his porch around quitting time. He was, and as I got to the edge of the lot,I jumped on it, and in no time there was a nice big cloud of tire smoke. As I pulled off the lot, I spotted a cop sitting at the stop sign on the opposite side of the Y looking right at me. He had me, so I turned to my right and pulled back on the lot and shut the car off. There was enough opposing traffic, and the cop couldn't get turned around right away.I sat there, then i heard his siren and saw him flying down the road. The way the new trucks were parked in the Y, he hadn't seen me pull on the lot. i sat there with a WTF look on my face, and headed home the opposite direction. i parked the car in the garage for two weeks and never heard anything about it.

 

[1967 'cuda]

nothing quite so involved, but I used to work at a IH truck dealership. the dealership sat in the middle of a Y of two roads. i had my first '69 road runner. It had a tired 440,automatic, with 3.91sg. One of the guys that drove a parts delivery van like me was a retire trucker that lived across from the dealer. he was asking me about my car one day, and sad he thought it wouldn't do a good burnout.I knew what he was up to, so I told him to be sitting on his porch around quitting time. He was, and as I got to the edge of the lot,I jumped on it, and in no time there was a nice big cloud of tire smoke. As I pulled off the lot, I spotted a cop sitting at the stop sign on the opposite side of the Y looking right at me. He had me, so I turned to my right and pulled back on the lot and shut the car off. There was enough opposing traffic, and the cop couldn't get turned around right away.I sat there, then i heard his siren and saw him flying down the road. The way the new trucks were parked in the Y, he hadn't seen me pull on the lot. i sat there with a WTF look on my face, and headed home the opposite direction. i parked the car in the garage for two weeks and never heard anything about it.

Life was sure simpler when we were younger. We may have raised a little hell from time to time, but we were usually afraid of the consequences afterwards.

 

[Basketcase]

the only time I got in any trouble with the traffic cops, I had just gotten my '74 Torino, was going to make a Starsky & Hutch car, and i was young and dumb. Had been lead fotting it arounf town. one fo the locals ha a '69 AMX, and I had seen him pelling out numerous times. so when he stopped me off duty to just talk to me about cooling it, i let my mouth over run my brain. so....the next day we had the talk again...only he was ON duty. as i shakely handed him my license,, he said point taken? Yes Sir thank you sir!

 

[1967 'cuda]

the only time I got in any trouble with the traffic cops, I had just gotten my '74 Torino, was going to make a Starsky & Hutch car, and i was young and dumb. Had been lead fotting it arounf town. one fo the locals ha a '69 AMX, and I had seen him pelling out numerous times. so when he stopped me off duty to just talk to me about cooling it, i let my mouth over run my brain. so....the next day we had the talk again...only he was ON duty. as i shakely handed him my license,, he said point taken? Yes Sir thank you sir!

Ya I still think that those times were much more innocent. When we got into trouble it wasn't because we were doing anything to hurt anyone else, we were usually just raising hell. - Sort of like in the old west movies when they'd show the cattle herders coming into town shooting their guns up in the air. The trouble was that some folks thought we were the outlaw gang coming to pillage the townsfolk.

 

[Budnicks]

great story, good read, nice BOOK...LOL...

 

[Budnicks]

Class of "77" baby, awe yes the days when you could get away with allot with usually just a warning...

I was more worried about Pops & his ramifications, than the law myself, I did allot of mischievous stuff nothing really bad, may not be legal but I wasn't a hoodlum either...

Most everything was either drinking {too young} with the buds out on some dirt road somewhere, 4 wheeling somewhere {beer involved too usually} or something having to do with street racing & staying out all hr's of the evening or doing something stupid on my motorcycles or in my many hot-rod/muscle cars...