Goin' Out To Cally – Part 32, Drive-By Boredom

The drive from Arizona to California was another long, boring journey bordering on self-induced insanity. During one of my shifts behind the wheel I took a stab at Tim's 12 minute mark for our time-filling game called Coast. Unlike Tim, I was not lucky enough to have a straight road ahead of me. Instead, as we drove through the hills and mountains of the great southwest, I was faced with weaving roads with dips and valleys and traffic.

Sunday in the Acura

At the top of one of the high mountains I put the car into neutral and the clock started. The car quickly gathered speed down the sloped roads, topping 80 miles per hour rather quickly. Even though I knew it would impact my time, I was forced to hit the brakes to keep the car from swerving off of the road. Being Coast Champion would have been a great milestone, but not at the cost of requiring our own tombstones to achieve the feat. I continued to weave past cars and semi trucks down the mountain, balancing between braking enough to keep us on the road, but not enough to slow my overall time.

Beth enjoying the view from the front seat.

The car continued over the required 45 miles per hour as we hit the bottom of the mountain. We looked at the clock. Ten minutes, eighteen seconds. As the car followed the road up the next mountain the car began to slow. I leaned forward, as if my body angle inside the car would give me some sort of aerodynamic advantage. As the car dropped below 50 miles per hour I held the wheel tight and rocked back and forth, as if the rocking motion itself would some how lurch the car forward.

Eventually, the car dropped below 45 miles per hour. We all looked at the clock. Twelve minutes.

Twelve minutes? Are you kidding me? After all that effort, Tim and I tied?

What a shallow feeling. It was like expecting a creamy fish chowder on Friday nights and, instead, getting my mom's white water chowder.

Okay, I better explain that before I'm removed from the will. I'm the last of eight kids. One of the biggest struggles a parent can have is figuring out what to feed your children everyday. Multiply that by eight and that is what my mother faced week in and week out. Her solution? Assign a meal for each day of the week, then you know what to buy and the kids know what to expect. Mondays was spaghetti or some Italian dish. Tuesday was chicken. Wednesday was usually some sort of stew or soup starter. Thursday was hamburgers. Friday was fish... we're Catholic after all. Saturday was leftovers. Sunday was pot roast.

My mom liked to stretch our dollars and, for example, would augment regular milk with powdered milk and turn one gallon into three. And my memory of our Friday fish chowder always seemed to me like it was made with powdered milk instead of some creamy sauce and with scarcely any fish to be found swimming among the cloudy depths of my bowl. That’s how it got the name white water chowder.

However, despite my skewed and most likely, inaccurate memory, my Mom always did a tremendous job on Sunday's. Our pot roast meals were awesome. It was like having Thanksgiving every week. Homemade mashed potatoes, corn... amazing! I salivate just thinking about it.

And, if we were really lucky, we would find a spoon on our place setting because spoons meant dessert. We rarely got any desserts. That was for special occasions. So, if you approached the table and found spoons next to the forks and knives at each place setting, you knew the meal would be capped off with a great dessert. Usually ice cream… chocolate swirl ice cream with injected layers of glorious chocolate goodness.

The rule in our house was that if you served the dessert you chose last. That way you didn’t load up your bowl and leave little else for the rest. In the late 70’s my parents both started on a diet. Knowing this I loaded up the first bowl with a heaping size of overflowing ice cream. They looked at me and said “That’s too much!”

“I guess I’ll have to have it then,” I said as I put the cold, heavy bowl at my place setting and dished out far smaller portions to my unsuspecting parents.

Okay, I hope I have garnered my mother's forgiveness by now. If not, I’ll have to resort to bribery and self-induced public humiliation.

Tim during one of his shifts behind the wheel

After our time-tying game of Coast, the drive into California was uneventful, other than actually entering California and, eventually, Los Angeles. Our AAA Trip Ticket did not include directions to Tim’s brother’s house. As men, Tim and I just wanted to use our internal compasses and find our own way.

The women, however, insisted we pull over and call them from a payphone to get directions. Easier? Sure. Masculine? Not a chance.

Realizing that women control the universe, we followed their orders and pulled over to a payphone in a less-than upper class area of town. Tim and Beth called on the payphone while Sunday and I waited in the back seat of the car.

A few moments later, a woman stopped her car and rolled down her window. She yelled over to Tim and Beth.

“You guys need to get in your car and go! Now!” she yelled.

Tim walked over to her. “Why?” he asked.

“You’re in south Los Angeles during a gang war and you’re wearing gang colors! Trust me, get in your car and go right now!” she exclaimed.

Tim immediately pulled Beth from the payphone and entered the car. Being naïve and out of state, we were unaware we had entered into the middle of the gang war between two rival gangs, the Cryps and the Bloods. Both claimed areas of the neighborhood and wore distinctive colors to show their allegiance.

Apparently we were wearing one of their colors and were a target by default. In a part of town where drive-by shootings were a daily occurrence, we didn’t take time to figure out which color was offensive. We just put the car into drive and got the hell out of there.

Thank God for that kind woman who recognized our license plate and took a moment of her day to educate us on the urban landscape of the time. It may just have saved our lives.

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Part 32 (Text, Audio) - Part 31, (Text, Audio)
Part 30, (Text, Audio) - Part 29, (Text, Audio) - Part 28, (Text, Audio)
Part 27, (Text, Audio) - Part 26, (Text, Audio) - Part 25, (Text, Audio)
Part 24, (Text, Audio) - Part 23, (Text, Audio) - Part 22, (Text, Audio)
Part 21, (Text, Audio) - Part 20, (Text, Audio) - Part 19, (Text, Audio)
Part 18, (Text, Audio) - Part 17, (Text, Audio) - Part 16, (Text, Audio)
Part 15, (Text, Audio) - Part 14, (Text, Audio) - Part 13, (Text, Audio)
Part 12 (Text, Audio) - Part 11 (Text, Audio) - Part 10 (Text, Audio)
Part 09, (Text, Audio) - Part 08, (Text, Audio) - Part 07 (Text, Audio)
Part 06 (Text, Audio) - Part 05 (Text, Audio) - Part 04 (Text, Audio)
Part 03 (Text, Audio) - Part 02 (Text, Audio) - Part 01 (Text, Audio)