Today I am having trouble deciding which story to tell next. I was able to speak with Speedy on the phone today. We discussed which story to tell next. We both agreed to save the greatest story of them all for one of the last. We brought up several stories, but I think I have one in mind. Hope you enjoy. Oh by the way, Speedy gave me permission to use the name Speedy in the stories. All other names will be protected by something. Well I won't use any other names anyway. Ok on with the second edition of "STORY TIME"

So it is a Saturday night in the wonderful Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. What is there to do on a Saturday night in Ironwood Michigan? Nothing that is why I moved. But when this story became reality there was something to do. Hide and pray we did not go to jail. Read on to find out why. So Speedy picks me up with his moms car. Not sure of what year the car was, but it was a Buick Skyhawk. Standard transmission, making speedy feel like Richard Petty. Speedy did not drive any vehicle slow. It was to the floor or parked, no in between. So here we are driving around Ironwood just looking to for someone to talk to. So we pull thru the local Mcd's and chat with a few friends. As we leave Speedy picks out a vehicle that he recalls from the night before. A night that I knew nothing about mind you. So to the floor the long slender pedal goes to the floor as the gears are slammed into. As we pull along side the vehicle Speedy looks over at me and says "Watch this." He decides he is going to give the international sign of "Your #1" Thats right the old middle finger up in the air. After this we drop a gear and pass the vehicle and cut in front of them. As we slide around the corner we precede up Douglas Blvd. This as road would be a 25 mph zone for anyone other then Speedy and the people he decided to get upset with us. Well as we are going up the road Speedy decides to tell me what the heck is going on. Apparently on Friday night Speedy and another classmate were out driving around and had an encounter with this same vehicle. So Speedy decided it was payback time. For those of you that know Speedy, you know he never gets to payback someone with something going wrong. So we weave our way up Douglas Blvd. and start heading into town with the other vehicle close behind. Speedy decides it is time for some eratic moves to evade our pursuers. So a quick left onto Ayer St. and we threw them off for just a moment’s time. By the time we hit Mansfield St. we can see their headlights gaining ground quickly. As we hit Park St. in front of the High School we start going down hill. At the bottom of the hill there happens to be a four way stop sign. Not on this night! As we cross the intersection of Ayer St. and Lake St. we have put a little distance between the bad guys and us. However by the time we get just past Lorenson Field we were being tailed once again. This time for the remainder of our journey. Once again Speedy has a brilliant idea. If you have ever driven down Ayer on your way to Jesseville, you know about the corner. Since some of you don't it could be construed as Ironwoods dead mans curve. Not so on this night cause I am here writing about it. I was uncertain what Speedy's intentions were. We could continue on Ayer St. and make our way into Bessemer. Or we have several roads to turn off on. The one road I was not excepting was of course the Road Speedy decided we needed to take. Well decided he had hoped to take. We round a corner and we lose the headlights of the vehicle behind us. Speedy, (in his ultimate wisdom) says "We'll turn off the headlights and they'll never know were we are." Remind you of "Top Gun" "I'll hit the breaks and they'll fly right by us" (Tom Cruise Maverick) So as we are driving down Ayer St. with no headlights and a group of pretty upset people after us Speedy decides he wanted to visit Newport school in the dark with no headlights on the vehicle. Speedy looks over at me and tells me to hang on it is going to be close. As we are both leaning into the turn (as though it was going to help us) Speedy looks at me again and yells, "Hang on we are not going to make it." The car decided that the loose gravel under the tires was not stable enough for us to make the corner and lose our makers. The car, rather then turning slides straight ahead. Of course there would be a stop sign right in front of the car. As we take out the stop sign the ride is just beginning. Just on the other side of the stop sign would be a hill. Fortunately for us, the car stopped before going head on with the ground. Further explanation later on. Got to give it to Buick for their exhaust hangers. So as we are sitting in the car thanking God that we are still alive we see headlights coming towards the vehicle. Speedy yells "Roll up the windows and lock the doors." As the vehicle pulls up behind us we see four slightly large males walk out of the vehicle. One after another we see beer cans being thrown toward our vehicle. The first guy walks up to my door and starts beating on the window. Open this #$&@*@! door or I will smash this window. Not sure how many beers these fellas had drank prior to Speedy pissing them off, but it was Old Milwaukee so how happy could they be. Speedy is like don't do it OZ don't you do it. Ok so here I am 16 years old with some guy in his late twenties early thirties beating on the window of the car I decided I needed to get into on this night. Not knowing what had happened on the previous night. So after about five minutes I convince Speedy that this guy is going to smash out the window of his mom’s car. So I roll down the window. I thought for sure this guy was going to pull me out the window and beat my face in. Fortunately for us it was a short conversation due to some traffic coming down the road. So the guys that wanted nothing more that night then to beat the heck out of some young punks sped off into the night. Leaving behind several empty beer cans. Not looking good for us. Our savior was driving a minivan and decided to pull over and give us a hand. We happen to know this person from school. Not a fellow student, but a teacher. We describe what had happened, of course hiding the fact that the middle finger was used speeding was involved and this whole mess was Speedy's fault. So this teacher tells us to hope in and gave us a ride to Speedy’s house. We give our thanks to the teach and Speedy runs inside and grabs another set of keys. This set was to (correct me if I am wrong Speedy) a Jeep CJ5. It is not your jeep vehicle that most people think of. It was a small truck that was pretty beat down. But it had 4-wheel drive and a chain. So we hop into the truck and proceed back to the scene of the accident. As we are hooking the chain up to the truck another set of headlights head towards us from the West side of Ayer St. This is the jail part. As the vehicle comes closer we can see the image of lights on top of the car. Not Good I told Speedy. As he crawls from underneath the truck he realizes what is going on. Officer he says! So as before Speedy explains the situation leaving out the speeding middle finger and forgetting about the stop sign. However, he realizes that the chase was not to be left out, but a possible way of getting out of trouble. The officer looks with disbelief, but allows us to continue with the extracting of the vehicle from the embankment. As Speedy yanks on the chain with the truck it only moves a couple of inches. With further inspection of the damage we realize that the Stop sign somehow managed to lodge itself up underneath the exhaust pipe. After several attempts and failures the officer decided he needed to get back to the office before the coffee got cold and the donuts got eaten. So he calls a tow truck. The tow truck was able to get the vehicle free from the stop sign and back on the road. I don't recall what we did with the car. I believe I drove the truck back to Speedys and he took the car. But as time passed Speedy gets a letter in the mail from the City of Ironwood. It was a bill for the Stop sign.

STORY 3:I need you to visualize what I am about to describe. Ok so a few years back I got into this model rocket building. You know the ones that you buy this little engine for and you ignite it with four double "A" batteries. Well each battery is 1.5 volts, which equals out to 6 volts. Well being Speedy and me we have to have more power. But there is a logical reason for this increase in power.

Ok so now you know what we are dealing with here. Of course being a model rocket you only use one engine. Well ok I think someone mentioned that the directions stated you use one engine. Not me and Speedy.

So we take the biggest engines that they make and we put one in the middle like it is suppose to be. Well then I come up with this great idea to make it go a little higher. So we duct tape two more rockets on the plane. One on each end were the engines are suppose to go.

So here we have three engines strapped to a plane that is only suppose to have one. But the way we looked at it was it will go higher faster and the rockets on each end should balance out to make it fly straight. NO PROBLEM!

So we place the rocket plane on the launch pad and get ready for take off. Speedy being the electrician that he is hooked the engines up so they would all ignite with the push of the button. So I have the control in my hand powered by those four double "A" batteries. We get a count down and I push the button.

Nothing! Not a damn thing happened. No smoke no bang nothin. So Speedy looks at the connections and assures me that this was not the problem. "We need more power"

Speedy in his ultimate wisdom tells me to hold on he would be right back. So I stay and look over the wires when I hear the rumble of the beast come alive. Speedy’s 19?? Dodge Ram truck. (Sorry Speedy can't remember the year) This truck has several stories all its own. Including the greatest story to ever be told. Soon to come!

So anyway I am under the impression that Speedy is going to get some new batteries from the story. Not this guy. He pulls the truck up just in front of the launching pad and pops the hood. He looks over at me and says "Now we have more power” He opens the hood and pulls a set of jumper cables out from the back of the truck. I am like what the hell are you going to do with that? The engines have igniters that connected to a fuse, which is then connected onto alligator clips that run to the battery source. This is were it gets good!

So we take the battery pack apart and take the wires off. Speedy connects the negative cable to the battery of the truck while I connect both cables to the cables running to the engines. By this this time we have a few interested spectators. Can we get a count down? The count down goes and we hit zero and Speedy hits the positive jumper cable to the positive terminal of the battery in the truck. If you could have alone been there. When doubling the volts please be careful. The plane takes off so fast it was like the real thing. With one exception!

The way the wires were setup caused each engine to start just a fraction of a second after one another. So imagine twelve volts going thru each engine one after another. Well the plane when complete out of control rather then straight up. But this was no ordinary plane. See we had a parachute so there was nothing to worry about. Right?

WRONG! The plane went maybe a hundred feet in the air, but it came down almost as fast as it went up.

When we retrieved the plane we came to relieve that it had not only flown anything but straight, but it had also caught on fire. The parachute was melted and one side of the plane was complete blown out.

Upon further review, we came to the determination that maybe, just maybe twelve volts was a bit much. And that the three-rocket theory did not go as planned. So if you take anything from this story, take this: Never double the voltage for anything. And NEVER NEVER triple the amount of engine power.

Hope you enjoyed this little adventure. If I can get Speedy and Jim to get off theirs asses and help me with the next story, I will have the amazing car chase next

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