Would You Really Rather Have A Buick?

In the summer of 1967 a ten year old Buick, the model with port holes down each of the front fenders, chugged along an old highway in rural Iowa. The highway was essentially a large loop that had been left for the farmers who lived along it when the Highway Department decided to straighten the main highway out. There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the loop during the busier parts of the day, mostly farm trucks and tractors hauling a load to the barns or to the fields. At night traffic was more sparse. The Buick wasn’t even supposed to be there but then neither was the driver. My brother, Bob, was behind the wheel. I was the passenger, the one who was supposed to be driving , but there’s a reason why I wasn’t.

We grew up along this old highway, walked along it, and rode our bikes down it. I had my first job working for one of our neighbor farmers when he told me to drive a tractor from a field back to the farmstead. This highway was the first one I drove on. I was 11 years old. Over the next few years I learned to drive the other tractors and the farmer’s jeep and pickups and by the time I got an actual drivers license I already had five years experience behind the wheel.

We moved from the country to a near by city before Bob could get experience and I always felt a bit bad about that so, when I had the chance I let him drive down country roads. We were moving from the city back to the small town and our folks had sent Bob and me to our city house to pick up a load. We packed the back seat of the Buick with pots and pans, Mom’s china and a box of kitchen utensils and headed back to the country. When we got to the turn off for the town I pulled off the highway. A left turn would take us to town and our new home, a right would take us down the old highway past the house where we grew up. It was getting dark and there was no traffic on the road. Bob nodded when I asked him if he wanted to drive and we switched places.

Bob wasn’t a fast driver then and even on the straight stretches of the old highway he’d only do 25 or 30 mph. The road would easily handle 50 and I’d gone down it a lot faster than that. I told him, “You need to go faster. Get this thing up to speed.” The speedometer needle would creep up to 35 and then 40 as I kept at him to go faster.

Bob had had enough of my scolding by the time we got to the end of the highway so instead of pulling over he turned down a gravel road that had a small S-turn before it became a dirt road and went over three roller coaster hills. When he came out of the S-turn he gunned the engine. I looked at the speedometer when we came up to the first hill. 70mph. The first one put my stomach in my throat, the second hill had a steeper drop and on the third one my head bounced up against the car roof. “Is that fast enough for you?” Bob asked. “How’s your head?”

I was a little put out so I told him, “Bet you a quarter you can’t do that again.”

“You’re on,” he said and drove up to a cross road to turn the car around. Seat belts in 1967 were a novelty nuisance in cars. They usually got shoved in to seat cracks to keep them out of the way. I started digging around the crack to find both ends of mine and put it on tight enough to cut off blood flow to internal organs. This was a bet I was not going to lose. Bob got up to 90mph on the return trip and I didn’t leave the seat. “You owe me a quarter,” I told him.

“You know,: he said, “that really wasn’t fair. The hills aren’t as dippy coming back this way.”

“Fine,” I said, “turn it around.” He did and I pulled the seat belt a little tighter.

Headlights at night don’t really give you a good view of scenery along a roadway. At normal speeds you can see the contour of the road and the weeds along to side and glimpses of the ditch. Bob got the Buick up to 105mph and all we really saw was blur. From the first hill to the second my stomach didn’t come out of my throat. At the top of the third hill we left the ground.

It took three bounces (with some good air time in between) for the Buick to stay solidly on the ground. At each bounce the contents of the back seat attacked us from behind. We were pelted and slammed by pots and pans and kitchen utensils and Mom’s china. The china didn’t do so well. After we stopped and took a few breaths our eyes refocused and among the pots and pans and utensils there were shards and pieces of plates and serving platters and other bits of china liberally scattered on the dashboard, seat and floor. I got out of the car and grabbed an empty box from the back seat. Bob did the same on his side.

“Everything that’s whole goes in a box,” I said. “Anything that’s broken goes in the ditch.” We did find enough unbroken china to fill a small box. We shook the shards out of the pots and pans and put everything in the back seat. We had two empty boxes left over so we threw them in to the ditch, too.

I drove back to town well under the speed limit. Bob kept telling me I should go faster.

We didn’t get caught and that amazed us. We expected to be grounded and banned from even sitting in vehicles until old age but it didn’t happen. Life went on pretty much as before. The closest we came to getting found out was a few days later when I was standing with my Dad at the local gas station. He was talking to the owner about something and we watched my older brother drive up the street and stop at a stop sign. He turned and drove past us. Trailing behind the Buick was a gas tank strap. The gas tank,, now being help by just one strap, bobbed and bounced as he went. Dad turned and asked me, “Do you know anything about that?”

“Nope,” I said. “It must have rusted off.”

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One afternoon a while ago the kids were over and we got to talking about things they did when they were younger. Pat and I knew most of it but then she said, “Tell us something you did that we didn’t find out about. We promise not to get mad.” It took a little coaxing but they each had something. Jeff’s was the topper. He had a swim meet one Sunday morning and took Pat’s Neon. He had to be there early and while the sun was up not much else was. He was running late and was speeding and decided what the heck and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. He got the car up to 100mph on the freeway. Pat was shocked he would abuse her car like that. I was shocked that a Neon could do 100. We kept our promise and didn’t get mad but after they left I went out to double check the gas tank straps. Just in case.