What is your favorite memory of THS?
1. Our daily lunch run / race to the Dairy Queen........and where in the world were the police, I mean every school day at lunch? Really, I mean everyday, day in day out, and no police, ever?
2. Burgess and me sneaking up to the Spudnut Shop regularly between getting back from the bus barn after our morning routes and then going to the office for a tardy slip to get into class......we always told the office "our bus was late this morning". Get out of town! Worked every time....they did ask once, "None of the kids were late" ..... our reply was "well our last stop is the elementary school on the other side of town" (BIG LIE) and got our tardy pass and went on to class.
3. Watching Burgess shave with his electric razor in the principle's office in the afternoon because the "prinicpal" said his beard was too dark and he did not shave.........HaHaHa!
4. Riding motorcycles with Jack Lavender, watching him drag race his cycles and win against most cars, watching him popping and riding wheelies at 60, and seeing him crash over three different mustangs.........and never hurt. I especially remember watching Jack drag race a Ford 428 Cobra Jet with an open hood scoop and open headers on the Love highway east of town, 1/4 mile run at night. Jack won the first run. Big Argument over who crossed first. They agree to run best 2 of 3 for the winner. Second run Jack somehow lost right as they crossed the line. We were standing on the finish line to judge the winner. On the third and final run for the money, the Cobra Jet was screaming (probably over red line) and right near the end line where we were standing, it blew its motor. When the Cobra Jet blew up the motor almost right in front of us, there was a huge explosion with fire coming out of the hood scoop and out the open headers. It was impressive and extremely cool (except for the guy that blew up).......and I remember all of us jumping in our rides and scooting out of there quick and just left that guy and his buddies with the blown motor.
5. But riding on the back with Jack Lavender on his cycle when he popped a wheelie at 60 is still one of the times I was the most scared for my life, ever.........man, that back fender is close to the ground and almost touching when the front wheel is in the air......and I was sitting on the end of that back fender........what a view.....right on the pavement....I was almost touching the pavement with my behind and with my hands hanging on to the back of the seat.....I could not wait till the front wheel was back on the ground (which was like forever) as he kept going and going and going like the Energizer Bunny......AND I never rode on the back with Jack again on any of his scooters.......as it scared me plenty. I can only imagine how scared non bike riders (girls) were when that happened.......! Wow! I bet they hung on for dear life. I know I did...!
6. Or riding on the back behind David Burgess on his motorcycle doing 125 at night on a wet street.......sorta made me nervous........all the frogs were out crossing the street and Burgess was dodging them and weaving back and forth like slalom snow skiers on the downhill......and all I was hoping was that we did not skid out over smashing one of them......I was also glad to get off the back of that cycle that night. And so I never rode on the back with Burgess again, either......but you all know I never rode my cycles like that or scared any of you that way now did I!
7. I am still trying to figure out how Mark Johnson's Superbee was that fast! He took me by about 14 lengths with 6 people in his Superbee with his left hand riding in the window as casual as if he was out on a Sunday drive. He was BAD FAST! I loved that Superbee!
8. Racing Earl Gardner down 6th street from Highway 87, Gales Texaco, down to Maxwell against his Gold Acre Maker 1967 GTO at night. We were doing way over 100 (maybe 125) when we were coming up to about Maxwell. Then there is a city policeman sitting at Maxwell that turned in behind us - on with the race.....on with the pursuit........Earl turned right or South on Dallas and I turned left or North on Dallas (which was the Vigo Highway).........and the policeman had to choose either right or left. He chose right and chased down Earl........We turned around and made a loop to come back and drove by a few minutes later to see the policeman had Earl blowing up a balloon (could have been us / me)..........but none of us had been drinking.......he just thought you had to be drunk to drive (race) like that down one of the main streets (we did it daily)! (Like I said, none of us were drinking - we just crazy insane instead). I still wonder how much that ticket cost and what he wrote on the ticket......"contest of speed or acceleration" (I received one of those one time on dip street) or "Racing" or "120 mph on a 30 mph street" or "just he is crazy insane stupid"!
9. Or how about us looking at and comparing each others shotguns in the school parking lots before school or after school before heading out to shoot a few birds or rabbits. Did we really keep those shotguns in our car trunks or behind the pickup seats with boxes of ammo?
10. And did we really carry a pocket knife to school everyday of our life. I did from 1st grade to 12th grade. I remember playing mumbly-peg and splits in first grade during recess. We only got in trouble if we played knives or marbles for keeps. Really! I understand now why they had school nurses.
11. Or holding hands at recess with Jan Doan (and her cousin Charlotte Doan) in first grade!!!!!!!!!! VaVaVaVoom!
12. First grade, the first week of school in the classroom with Mrs. Wynn, she asked each of us to bring a word to school from out of the newspaper the next day and be able to pronounce it and spell it. I had something like cat, C-A-T, cat. Burgess turn comes around and he stands up and proudly says "Amarillo" and then proceeds to correctly spell it..........I knew from that day on he was one smart cat, C-A-T, cat. Man, his word had a lot of letters. And how in the world would I have known if he spelled it correctly or not?
13. Watching Jimmy Watson trying to eat packages of those mini white powdered sugar donuts at night in a car while dragging dip street. And of course the car had black interior and black carpet. There was white snow everywhere. (A white 1967 Mustang) HaHaHa!
14. After an evening of wrapping everyone's elses houses, we dropped Johnny Emmitt back off at his house first. We circled the block a couple times and waited for their lights to go out. And then we stopped out front and wrapped his house..........I never laughed or giggled so hard in my life while we were wrapping that big Willow tree in the front.......every time the tissue roll would come down it would make a BIG "thump" and we kept expected him or his parents to open their front door and catch us red handed..... I mean who could he blame for the wrap job since we wrapped everyone else that night...surely not us!.....HaHaHa! I was glad my parents’ house had no trees.
15. Throwing a chocolate malt and thawed out (purposely) banana creme pie on Lonny Watson's front windshield on dip street just to see if we could rouse him and then the following 2 hour chase pursuit with us trying to keep him from beating us up and or killing us. He was passionate, we were stupid. It was fun for the first 5 minutes but it became a bad nightmare for the next 2 hours. That guy never quits or gives up. Today I understand his career choice {Worked at and Retired from the Drug Enforcement Administration (Special Agent and Supervisory Special Agent)}. I don't know how we survived that night or from the many other stupid and FUN things we constantly did. I know today that I am about the luckiest person in the world.
