Thread: How about some great stories??

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Originally Posted by glennsexton

I grew up in a small town in the San Bernardino Mountains called Crestline. It was a sleepy little place in the 50’s and 60’s. My father was a small business owner as well as a reserve deputy sheriff and he was fairly well respected as an upstanding citizen. As a youth, I tried very hard to live within the confines of the law and not to bring embarrassment to my father, but sometimes as kids we just don’t think things through.

Halloween was a real treat for us kids. We would really raise havoc by doing all kinds of things that would normally get us sternly disciplined but somehow on Halloween, everything seemed to be okay. This particular story starts with the construction of a “tennis ball cannon”. Now some here may not remember the days when soda came in tin cans and you used a “church key” to pierce the lid and enjoy a Pepsi or a Hires root beer. Well, it just so happens that if you remove the lid completely (with a real can opener), a tennis ball fits nicely inside the can. By removing the ends of several cans and soldering them together (remember, they were tin) you could make a tube – better known as the barrel of your tennis ball cannon. To complete the cannon, we took a can (the “firing chamber”) and punched six or seven openings and placed that side toward the tube. On the other end of the last can, a few small holes were placed to allow the introduction of the propellant as well as allowing some of the spent gases to escape. So picture a tube about 36 inches long that a tennis ball is placed in and rolled down against the last can. Squirt a bit of lighter fluid in the firing chamber, light a match and viola – instant cannon. In the event some fluid got on the tennis ball – it was a ball-o-fire that exploded about fifty feet out of the end of the barrel. The tube gets real hot, so we fabricated a handle for this thing and it looked like a miniature bazooka.

Here comes the car part of this story. A friend had a Willy’s Jeep that we had put a 327 Chevy in. It was a screamer and man could that thing lay rubber. So it only seemed right that the Jeep would be our commando car as we set off Halloween night to terrorize the town with our tennis ball cannon. We were well equipped – having asked the girls tennis coach to keep all her old balls the previous year – and set off dressed as Army men (it was Halloween) and began to shoot people with this cannon and scare the living bee-jee-bers out of everyone in town. Just as we were getting pretty good with our aim, I had a “mis-fire” and this thing let a ball (on fire of course) go into the other lane of traffic. The ball hit the back window, started across the roof of the car and stopped as it hit the light bar at the precise time the sky lit up with flashing red lights – I had inadvertently shot the sheriff. Now the Jeep was mighty quick, but no match for the 427 Ford. John Law whipped that Galaxie around in the street and I still hear that four barrel coming open.

Our salvation came in the form of a dirt road that quickly turned into a four-wheel-drive track, allowing us to barely escape and we took back roads to the safety of my buddy’s house. Sensible kids would have stayed home, but we hopped back into the ’47 Chevy Roadmaster and ventured anew – only to be immediately pulled over and have our cannon, our tennis balls and the one gallon can of naphtha we were using as fuel confiscated. We got a real tongue lashing and ended up having to pay to have the sheriff’s car repaired (seems the tennis ball melted into the roof!)

Years later my dad told me the sheriff reserve had never had so much fun as they later had firing up all of our “ammo”.….

My wife would not let me show my son how to build a tennis ball cannon. Go figger?

I love this site..
Glenn

Love that story. Haven't thought about those tennis ball cans in along time. They were alot of fun. Thanks for the memories

Well, Uncle Bob – now that you mention it I may have – but there were a lot of 55-57’s with built 283 and 327’s dominating the streets of San Bernardino in the sixties. I had a ’57 Corvette (yes I know I should have kept it – but that a different story) and I got a big fat ticket for racing a 1966 GTO down E Street in ‘berdoo – just past McDonalds. He’d been goosin’ that 389 and calling me “chicken” for a few blocks. I was trying to ignore him as he had a newer car with a bigger engine and I really didn’t want to get into trouble.

But the traffic ahead of us miraculously cleared, the light turned green and well, “the devil made me do it…” We blasted down the street for two blocks and were set upon by two bike cops like dogs on raw meat. The ticket was real ugly. It read like a horror novel “75 plus in a 25 zone, failure to yield right-of-way, excessive noise, attempting to evade a police officer, etc.” It was bad.

My father (the reserve deputy) took the keys to the Corvette away. When my court date came, my dad went with (I was still a minor) and I was given a stern reprimand by the judge and told, “if I ever set foot in his court room again he would throw the book at me and it would be a d#$% big book!” I was fined $17 for court costs. The judge initially fined the “adult” driver of the GTO $500, 40 hours of community service and suspended his license for 30 days. He had a loud retort to the judge about “letting that little punk off ‘cause his dad was a deputy.” Bad move – Judge fined him $2,500 and he lost his license for a year plus 100 hours of community service and the judge informed him, “open your mouth again mister and you’ll sleep in my jail for 30 days!”

That was the last of my street racing as I knew I was fortunate to not be in a whole heap more trouble or worst, a morgue slab. Believe it or not, six or so months later, I was eating a burger at McDonalds and who should come up behind me and say, “Hey – I know you; you’re the kid with that ‘vette that I raced and got in so much trouble for!’ I thought the world may end right there (he was an adult – and a big one too!) – But he smiled and introduced me to his “pastor”. Seems that he had turned a new leaf in community service and was working with some of the car clubs in San Bernardino (there were some pretty rough ones!).

Oh yeah – the GTO had me by a full two car lengths!!

Fun trips down memory lane!

Regards All,
Glenn

Great story Dave - I had a friend with a '68 Torino GT with glass packs and that thing was a beast. Automatic but it would set you back in the seat. I think I first saw God when he hit second at WOT on a wet road one night!! A bit dicey, shall we say??

It was about 1973. A buddy that lived a couple block over had this orange 68 Firebird H.O. 400 cid. His dad was a State Farm agent, but Ricky had gotten so many tickets, that the company threatned to cancel him if he kept that car and his son on the policy. So I put it on layaway, giving Ricky 50 bucks here and 100 there till the car was paid for. $500.00 as I recall. I brought it home, knowing my dad would give me a load of crap for buying it. He gets home and the first words out of his mouth " Where did you steal it?" I told him from whom and where, and how I got it. And here is the title, See. Now you have to know my old man, used to be a car guy, and then came IBM. So what does he do gets the title and compares it to the vin. Guess what they don't match. I don't remember exactly what transpired then, but I am sure it took alot of convincing to assure him, and he probably wasn't, that the story was true. After a couple of phone calls to the DMV, I found the owners name and that the car was not stolen, I can remember Ricky buying it from a car lot. Well it turns out a car lot had 2 birds, and had crossed the titles. The other car had been wrecked and junked, the owner had moved back to Puerto Rico. I finally convinced the car lot to help me fix it. After almost 6 months, I finally got the clear title to my 68. All Legal, Dad happy, well at least not wanting to kill me, at least for the car. I drove it for 6 or 7 days and an elderly man rolled thru a stop sign and wiped the drivers door and rear quater pannel. I climbed in and out the window a couple of days and then took a sledge hammer and reworked the door, so it would open and tied it closed with a rope. Damn I miss that car.....................

Back in '57 I had a friend that had a '46 chevy coupe with a blue flame, split manifold and twin straight exhausts - - - - YUP aka NO mufflers.

The last day of school three of us slipped outa class and Bobby Joe backed his Coupe to the double doors that we were holding wide open, as quite as possible. When he got the exhaust tips inside the hall, he showered down on that old I6 and when it racked back on the deceleration the hall locker and window vibrated and shook like a Quake had hit.

Talk about empty some classrooms quickly - - - - we did it that day !

Even tho everyone knew whose car it was, no one ratted and the administration was just thankful that it was summertime and school was finally out !

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh the good old days

One of these days I'll tell the story about getting the old, nasty, rotten outhouse from a abandoned farm and wedging it in the front door of the High School ! After we had painted "Superintendent White's Office" on it !

Originally Posted by MelloYello

Back in '57 I had a friend that had a '46 chevy coupe with a blue flame, split manifold and twin straight exhausts - - - - YUP aka NO mufflers.

The last day of school three of us slipped outa class and Bobby Joe backed his Coupe to the double doors that we were holding wide open, as quite as possible. When he got the exhaust tips inside the hall, he showered down on that old I6 and when it racked back on the deceleration the hall locker and window vibrated and shook like a Quake had hit.

Talk about empty some classrooms quickly - - - - we did it that day !

Even tho everyone knew whose car it was, no one ratted and the administration was just thankful that it was summertime and school was finally out !

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh the good old days

One of these days I'll tell the story about getting the old, nasty, rotten outhouse from a abandoned farm and wedging it in the front door of the High School ! After we had painted "Superintendent White's Office" on it !

Now I would love to hear about that outhouse. Sounds like something I would have done myself.

I'll type it up later but let me say this - - - - "the administration was not as tickled as the students were" and the way they found out the truth was C.S.

IC2,
Oh that story sounds familiar. I was in stationed in Battle Creek, Mi. 64-67 the year was 1966 I had a 1965 GTO 389 4speed tri power, my buddy had a 67 Fairlane GT 390 both cars were screamers. One night after I closed the Standard gas station that I was able to work at part time while in the Army I got back to base and the word was my buddy was in jail. He was caught at a high rate of speed; we needed to come up with a couple hundred bucks to bail him out. We all pitched in we went to get him, bailed him out took him to get his car out of impound and on the way back to base I just had to pull a stupid stunt. The station I had closed up earlier was on one corner at a 4-way intersection the way I was going clearly said no left turn. The light was still red I said this is what my buddy should have done, I made an illegal left turn on red not knowing the police car was parked at the now closed station that I locked up. I had the little GTO going every which way but straight banging gears. Then for no apparent reason the red lights went on I continued to try to get in the gate thinking he would not come after me but I was wrong. I got out of the car and was on my way until I heard HALT. I went to the same station where my buddy was. I gave so many excuses they either felt sorry for me or thought I was crazy so they let me go with a careless driving ticket instead of a wreck less driving.

Loved those 60's

Richard

Originally Posted by techinspector1

It was about 1960 in Dayton, Ohio. I was 18 and driving a '59 Studebaker Lark, 259 cubic inches, Carter WCFB 4-bbl, 3-spd with Hurst floor shift conversion, dual exhaust with cut-outs, Lakewood Traction Masters (anti-hop bars for leaf springs) and Bucron cheater slicks bought from the local Sohio (Standard Oil of Ohio) gas station. She was a legal G/Stock car, right on the front edge of the index. Hot Damn, let's go kill some Chevies.

And I will tell you how the Hurst floor shifter got in the car. Back up a month or two and tech and I are out on a newly completed portion of I-70 just north of Dayton. It was a nice flat stretch and we used it for a late night drag strip until the cops would come and run us off. Earlier we'd been out cruisin' and came across a guy with a pretty hot 51-52 Chevy running a two pot six with a split manifold that he called "The Grey Ghost" and he was sure he beat the Lark. So out to our "drag strip " we went and Richard cleaned his clock, but there was also a guy that had a 57 BelAir, 283 power pack, and one thing led to another and I flagged them off. Richard was a half a car or so ahead of the guy when he attempted to slam second gear. The shift bushings hung up and the race was lost and a mighty po'd Richard to boot. After getting out and unhanging the shift linkage we headed for home. On the way Richard decided to try to slam shift second and since he was still pretty miffed he really tried to jam it and the shift lever ended up where the turn signal lever is supposed to be. When he finally got the car stopped he came climbing out with shift lever in hand and I'm laughing my a** off much to his displeasure. It was broken beyond repair and fortunately there was pretty stout screwdriver in the trunk that he used to shift the car to get it home. The next day a brand new Hurst shifter found a home.

musta been nice in that time period.

My generation got arrested for anything and everything, and we did real jail sentances with killers/rapists/armed robbers.
being a 18 year old getting caught driving fast or with a joint shouldn't get you put away for 5 years.

Drew

Some of the stuff we did as teenagers would curl your hair because it was so da*&^d stupid; like was said: kids don't think things through very well. Well, neither do young adults it seems, 'cause until I left the small town life behind in my mid twenties, we were still pulling some pretty boneheaded stunts from time to time.

Not necessarily car related, but car club related is this:

A bunch of us "young adults", mostly former service members, with a few Marines from the local base, and some other locals formed a car club in the small desert town I call my hometown. There was a legend about the "old days" that had someone planting an outhouse in the middle of the towns two main streets intersection every Halloween for many years, so we decided that it would be a great tradition to renew. We acquired an unused privy from an abandoned homestead out in the boonies and planted it right in the middle of the four corners on Halloween night, 1964. My Bride and I had only been married a few weeks, and she, along with most of the wives and girlfriends thought we guys were insanely immature, but we got a big hoot out of it, and the antics it inspired from other folks in town. First, the CHP came along and was going to push it out of the way, but it got hung up and tipped over onto the hood of his car and fell over on its side, so he went off and left it be. A couple of us ran out from our seats in the restaurant on the corner and stood it back up. People would come by and gawk, and a fair crowd was just standing around in front of the several bars and a couple of cafes just watching and kibitzing about it when a feller who had had one too many staggered down the street and went out and used the thing. Finally, the county road department showed up and drug it off into a vacant lot by the Texaco station. It sat there for months, and someone decorated it for the holidays: a paper turkey tacked on the door for Thanksgiving, and one of the guys from the Texaco ran a cord and put lights on it and a wreath on the door for Christmas. It also got used from time to time, and that was a problem. It finally disappeared sometime in the spring. That was a much talked about stunt for a few years around that little town - courtesy of the local car club.

My friend Dan and I put together a 1929 Model A Businessmans coupe(cloth roof that didn't go down and a rumbleseat) during the winter of 1963 in his dads old barn.
We would scrounge parts from where ever we could being high school seniors with not much money.
Our big plan was after graduation was to drive to California and trade the "A" in on a new Mustang.

We didn't have the correct ignition switch just a funky push button switch we got from a desk lamp. Big fun pushing the switch to kill the spark while moving and retard the spark then pushing it again to get a big back fire.
It always cracked us up watching the people.

In a small town in California we were cruising along and saw a lady coming out of a grocery store with a shopping bag of food and a glass jug of clorex bleach.

Dan said watch this and mashed the button and let out a good backfire-
the lady threw the bag in the air and dropped the brown glass jug of bleach which broke all over her feet.

We laughed so hard , thinking we had to be the funniest guys on the planet.

A couple minutes later we get pulled over by the CHP. Lights flashing and siren screaming.

Amazing how fast I went from laughing my azz off to being scared sh!tless.

Dan said to let him do the talking.
He had the story that these old cars back fire every once in a while.

The cop comes up and said nice '29 -you boys better follow me.
Ah man we felt like we were headed to jail for sure.
We drove through town and turned down a dirt road and stopped at a house with 8 or so Model A's in the yard.

The cop got out and said how would you boys like to have supper with him and his family. We ended up having supper with them and was offered a place to stay for the night(not jail).

He didn't say anything about the lady and as far as we knew didn't know about our little
stunt. We were shown his collection and talked Model A all night
Just a guy that loves the old Ford.

We didn't stop doing the backfire and still got a laugh everytime.

well, being I'm young, I did a real stupid thing just tonight a couple hours ago.. I have been borrowing my moms '91 Toyota pickup ( 3.0L V6 5spd, 3" body lift with 31x 10.5's ) until the dealership puts the truck togther that I'm buying from them... these kids, in a mid '90's Ford Mustang Cobra started high beaming me ( with HID's ) as I turned on an intersection.. possible they wanted to 'play' as the truck has a flowmaster and it rumbles pretty good for a V6, and when I turned, they were in the closed gas station parking lot ( 1.30 AM )... anyway they started high beaming me and riding my tail. so I dropped it into 3rd and punched it, and we were going thru the valley around roads that are fairly windy at 60- 70 MPH. and they were always well behind me. I used both sides of the road to keep the old Toyota on pavement and not rolled over, but there were times I was unsure if it was going to hold the road, but I managed to keep all 4 tires planted and it's all in one peice w/o hitting anything.. I bet they got a little bit of shame, because that Shiny red Mustang got out drove by a rusty old Toyota 4x4..... one of the stupidest things I ever did tho..
oh BTW, I work the night shift. I'm not out terrorizing the neighborhood for no reason. I was just on my way home from work

In 1961, I was stationed in San Diego, and had a very active social life for a guy without wheels. My Li'l Bro was using my '51 Ford for his transport at home, and I didn't want to cut him off, so I wangled a deal on a salvage title '57 Chevy 150 2 door; the title said it was a business coupe, but it had a back seat and full sized non-opening back seat windows.

It had been hit pretty hard in the front, almost head on, and was definitely tweaked. I managed to find folks who could help me from time to time, and with the use of the base auto shop, I got it pulled and pushed back to straight; took it to a frame shop to get it checked, and the guy said I had done as good a job as could be done. Found some relatively straight front metal for it and a bumper, and had meself a early sixties rat with grey primer, black primer, and leftover mint green paint. It had a 235 and 3 speed, but it was a runner for a six; I never could turn down a challenge, and surprisingly, that old six could hold it's own against many eights.

Once I got that thing on it's feet, I started taking advantage of the social connections I had previously only maintained with occasional bus trips, or a thumb ride once in a while. I had female interests in Tucson, Phoenix, El Centro, Blythe, L. A., and even San Ferdisco (I usually flew up there, though; could catch a ride from North Island to Alameda pretty easy), as well as my ol' hometown girlfriends, and a few around San Diego. I ran that poor ol' Chevy near to death, or so some would think. It always gave yeoman service, seldom any trouble, but it did develop one fault that the first time it happened, nearly stranded me, had it not been for the gracious tutoring of a total stranger in the middle of the AZ desert who took a worried sailor under his wing. I was on my way back to San Diego from Tucson, and around Gila Bend, the engine started missing real bad and I couldn't get more than twenty or so mph out of it, and it was into the late evening hours, and dark. I limped in to a gas station, and the owner was still there working on a car in the bay. He listened to it, and said he thought I had a broken valve spring; bypassed all of the usual stuff like bad points, fuel system, plugs, etc., and he was spot on. I pulled the valve cover and he showed me a couple of old timer shade tree tricks to replace the spring, and I was back on the road in a couple of hours. He told me that some times Chevy sixes developed that particular habit, and it would be to my advantage to carry a few springs and the appurtenant other parts and tools to make the fix if I got stuck again, so in addition to my regular tool box, I carried a length of 1/4 inch cotton line to stuff in through the plug hole to keep the valve from dropping into the cylinder, and to hold it up on the seat, and a flat spring compressor, plus a box of valve springs, some retainers and keepers, and an extra gasket or two. I got to where I could change out that number six exhaust spring in less than a half hour, many times on the side of the road.

I traded the poor ol' thing in on a new Pontiac in the summer of '64, and had totted up over 200 thousand miles since I'd bought it.

I have plenty of stories, but this one sticks out in my mind...Back in
the 60ies about 6 of us guys would meet in this little town every Saturday
evening before dark, and go outside of town where there was a long flat
we could run a quarter with room to spare. We had the road marked with
lines..The local law was was a Barney (one bullet guy) and he said he was
going to arrest us if we did not stop that racing..............

He would take a drink now and then, so we bribed him with a 6 pack, and
before long he was dropping the flag for us, as long as the beer lasted.