I seem to mark the passage of time with Holidays and sporting events because they stick out in my life. Today I couldnt help but remember a time when I was a teenager still going to Parker High School. My grandparents lived just down the road from where I do now in Easley. Two neighbor boys, my first cousin, and I decided to go to a drag race in Fountain Inn. My friend had a Plymouth Roadrunner that would fly, and didnt seem to care when I wanted to drive it. We picked up two more guys and here we went. We were bee-bopping to songs on the radio, cutting up, telling jokes, and swapping lies as young boys do. We talked about our future and how we were all going to shake the world some day. That didnt happen, but back then, we had our dreams. We ended up in places I had never heard of...Fork Shoals, Gray Court, Hickory Tavern, got good and lost and never did find the race track that my friend, Sonny, was so sure he knew the way to. Coming back up the road we pulled into a service station for a cola and directions how to get back home. Some pretty girls pulled in and all of a sudden I didnt care if I ever got home. Coming home I hit a downhill on a straight stretch of road and never let my friends know it, but I scared myself when I hammered down on the gas. One mistake, one tire blowout, one dog running across the road and I could have killed all six of us! Im not a daredevil, and thank the Lord that he gave me good sense most of the time. I made a mental note to never be that dumb, or drive that fast again. I kept that promise, and Im still alive to tell the tale. Thank goodness! Anyway, while driving to my sisters house today and listening to the radio, I was thinking about that sunny Thanksgiving afternoon way back in 1971. Gosh, forty-three years, it seems like so long ago now, and yet, when I heard Neil Diamond singing Cracklin Rosie on the radio tday, it wasnt that long ago at all, only yesterday . . .
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 02:28:49 +0000
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