Happenings in my purple ‘55 Chevy

I had a lot of fun running around in my little old Chevy and you will hear all about it except the things I shouldn’t have done, and I am sure that you don’t want to hear about those anyway.

One day I went to Moses Lake to see a friend (Jim Brasheers) there as I got there I saw him unpacking as if he had been hunting, except one thing. He picked up this old suitcase as if it were very heavy but he put it aside very gently as if it had something very expensive or exciting in it. As I got out of the car he excitedly called me over to him and asked me if I knew what he had and I said no as I was leaning over it to open it and look inside.

Jim grabbed me and threw me away from the suitcase so I asked him what was so important that he would treat me like that, to which he answered that he had a live Bobcat that he wanted to do something special with. I wondered what specialty he had in mind. We put the Bobcat carefully in the trunk of my chevy and closed it. Then he explained. After driving about 1/4th the way back to Othello and I let Jim and the suitcase off to put it alongside the road so we could hide and watch, then I went to the next turn, turned and pulled the car off to the side. Quickly I ran to where Jim was then we moved to a hiding spot where we watched cars pass for about ½ hour when a car stopped and took the suitcase in and while driving off we saw car doors fly open and about 5 people came soaring out of that old beat-up car. The Bobcat came sauntering out and looked around, then ran off into a field.

I have never told this story to anyone as I have been too embarrassed, now you are the first to read it. My friends and I knew of a pond that was out of the way over by Warden. So a bunch of us would pile in the car and go skinny dipping there. And we didn’t think anyone else knew about it, so one night after we were all undressed and in the pond when some girls from Warden came by saw us and decided to play a joke. They did not like us fouling their pond so they gathered up all the clothes and put them in my car and because I had left the keys plainly in sight where one could start the car they drove off with the car and all of our clothes. What were we going to do? We didn’t know what to do, except they didn’t get all our clothes, one of us, I think it was Paul Danielson had put his clothes in a secret place in a dense tree, we as well wondered how it was done but never asked, got out and put his clothes on and went to call for help. Well he never found a phone before these girls found him walking from the pond and gang tackled him and tied him to the steering wheel of my car, dropped the keys outside the door and went on their way. We could not get out of the pond or we would freeze as it was later in the summer, about the end of September, so we stayed and turned into prunes. Now we had to wait for the Warden police actually the county police to come get us out, which didn’t happen until about 8:30 the next day, when the girls felt sorry enough for us to call the police and told them about this weird group of boys out swimming in the public swimming pond. The only time any of us had seen the pod was at night when no one else was around so being from Othello and too young to think clearly we thought it was no more than for us alone and we had done it several times. Well the police were laughing so hard and we had broken no law so they let us go after taking our names, addresses and being warned never to do that again.

Because of the times when bright and flashy newer cars or even older cars painted appropriately were in fashion in those days and because I was not very popular, my car was made fun of quite often, but it was mine, I had title to it, and that was most important. I had paid $500.00 for it where a more traditional ’55 Chevy with an 8 cylinder engine instead of a strait six cylinder would be worth more like $750.00 - $1,000.00 where today the same car might be worth $30,000.00. well I was out cruising in it one night and pulled up to a stop sign coming up to main street. On the right side was an Exxon gas station which has since gone out of business that had two men in it that were doing nothing but sitting. Well the car stalled on me and I pumped the gas several times and tried to start it again and it didn’t so I frustrated pumped many more times and then when I tried to start it once again the front hood of the car blew off into main street and my engine was completely on fire. I had to jump out of the car and stand and watch it burn. Finally I went into the gas station to ask for a fire extinguisher and the men were still sitting, but now they wer both looking at the fire, when I asked for a fire extinguisher one stood up to get one and the other just said “what for it will be through before you can get back there. Just let it burn then claim it on your insurance”. I only had liability though, so I stood and watched all my hard earned money burn while the fire caught the gas tank and blew the trunk lid off just as far to the rearif not farther front hood. We waited for the fire department to come and put the fire out then come in looking for the owner, well the two men looked at me so what could I do except say that I was the owner. The rest of that night I filled forms and talked to around ten million people and finally I saw the one that broke my heart. The man who came to tow my car wanted to charge more than I had or I could give him title to the car and there would be no charge except a $5.00 fee to come out there. Boy, he had me pegged from the very start.

On we go to my next car, not nearly so nice, tomorrow…