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April 12, 2006
On the Road to Springboro
As we continue with The Thugs Take a Road Trip ... Tom, Dick, Sherry and I loaded into The Bruise and shot off for Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. We may or may not have had an uneventful drive on the way down. It's hard to remember as the trip to EKU and the time we spent there was sort of overshadowed by the trip home. So let's fast forward to that.
Kentucky, as you can see is a very green state criss-crossed with just a few highways, byways, and cart paths. We would spend most of our trip to Springboro (remember, we had to drop off Sherry so she could do her laundry) on I-75. And a lot of that time on the shoulder.
As I mentioned in yesterday's entry The Bruise had a fuel-delivery problem; at least that's what I think now; back in '82 I wasn't sure what it was. The symptom was that the car would sometimes just quit running -- it would start chugging and slowing down until it eventually died. Days or weeks might pass between these episodes but the fix was always the same -- I'd wait it out.
As we drove home from EKU the problem reared it's ugly head as it never had before. We had to keep the car floored to keep it running at all. We would pretty much rip up the highway at 80 mph (back when 55 was the speed limit) until the car quit running. Waiting it out really wasn't an option on this trip, so we'd pull off a fuel line, partially fill 12-ounce bottle we had with us, and then dump the gasoline right into thecarburetorr.
Then we'd be back on the road doing 80. Working in this manner we were passing everybody on I-75. Up until the car quit running, then they'd pass us. But we'd eventually pass them again.
There we were, roaring along. Al, uh, Dick was in the passenger seat while Jeff, uh, Tom, and Sherry were in the back.
A little bit of smoke came out of the heater vents. This was surprising -- if you know anything about Beetles you know that having anything remotely resembling something hot coming out of the heater vents is uncommon.
"We're on fire!" screamed Dick.
"No we're not," I replied calmly.
"Pull over!" As Dick finished that statement, well exclamation according to the punctuation I've used, the gas pedal gave up any pretense of having any spring to it and dropped flat to the floor. It would soon be revealed that the spring mechanism on thecarburetorr had sort of melted.
I didn't really pull over so much as limp over but, in any case, I made the berm.
She's gonna blow is not only an excellent title for a porno movie but is often the thing people yell in moments of panic ... when they think something might blow up. Would you care to guess who might of said that? Did you say Dick or even Al? His response to this whole thing still puzzles me. Dick/Al was never one to panic.
"She's gonna blow!" screamed Al as he threw open his door and headed up a bank.
Sherry, Tom/Jeff and I exited the car a bit more sedately, though with some haste..
She's gonna blow played over and over in my mind as Sherry and I slowly backed away from The Bruise. Was she gonna blow? Did Al know what he was talking about? He'd watched the Dukes of Hazard on a regular basis ... things were blowing up all the time there.
As Sherry and I were retreating Dick made his way to the back of The Bruise and put up the trunk. He beat out the flames with a shirt ending our little drama.
We regrouped. Tom and Dick said they were going to start walking to the next exit while Sherry and I retrieved her laundry. The boys weren't too terribly far ahead of us before we had Sherry's laundry bag in hand.
Before we started walking Sherry looked over at me and said, "I think we could hitchhike."
Posted by delmer at April 12, 2006 4:25 PM
Comments
Yeah, Beetles never catch fire...just like those little Pontiac Fierros. You're lucky the bug didn't just spontaneously combust.
Posted by: The Phoenix at April 13, 2006 12:33 PM
Big A. You may want to consider adding to your "stupid things" kink what happened the next day...hint - beer, beer, beer, latch Bruise to van, beer, beer, beer, banging a passed out person's head on side window...return home see smiling Mom as passenger with bruised head from window tries to unlatch car from worng end of van :)
Posted by: Joe at April 13, 2006 1:25 PM