I always told my friends and family that my life was more suspenseful and dramatic than most of the movies Hollywood puts out. The amount of hierarchical tales of growing up under the roof of a tyranny proves this. But in this paper I would like to tell you the story of five kids and their adventures in a car: a 1983 Pontiac 6000LE. This is no coming of age story; instead it’s the story of ignorance; ignorance is bliss after all.
The day started off well enough, wake up on a Saturday morning and begin to get ready for work. I was alerted by one of my friends, Nick that we were going to go have fun with his car one last time before he donated it. Since he was buying a new car that day I saw no problem with this. I was exalted by the promise of fun and rowdiness and quickly told him that I was in. The rest of the day went as planed, went to work, had some lunch, and hung out with some of my good friends.
As I write this I know it doesn’t sound very responsible, but in the defense of my friends and I, we were responsible for the safety of other individuals. Arriving at my point of destination I picked up my friend Wen and we soon left for Kent’s house. Once we arrived we found that Kent’s girlfriend Angela was there and thought it would be cool if she were to come along, she did and soon enough Nick arrived with his old car.
Thinking on his feet Kent called first dibs to drive the 1983 Pontiac 6000 LE (LE stands for limited edition!). Not knowing where to go to drive the old beast, we drove around town for a while until we saw an empty field next to a supermarket. Going off road in a vehicle that is built for off roading is one thing, but going off road in a car that was built a little after I was born is another. The drive was similar to a “Dukes of Hazard” episode, bunny hopping off of embankments, sharp cornering, fish-tailing at every chance, and the pinnacle of our fiasco, a one-hundred and eighty degree "altima" turn. We were champions of the extreme driving world. The more we drove the better we got, the better we got the more confident we became. The more confident we became the more we wanted to do crazier and crazier things.
Ignorance soon swept over the inhabitants of the car; the opposite of intellect was at work it seemed. Driving in places we had no business of driving, a parking lot, a developing housing community, empty fields, and the good ol' sidewalk. To finish off the night we decided to go drive out onto the local airport strip, used mostly for dust croppers; it looked like a suitable place to test out our driving skills that we had acquired over the night. As we drove up to the airport we noticed a bunch of kids doing what most kids in our town do on a Saturday night, become belligerent through intoxication. This quagmire like situation intrigued us, so we drove onto the airport, and than it happened. It was around sixty kids looking at us as if we just ran over their dog.
Thinking on his toes, Nick asked, “Where’s the airport?” soon after the question, kids were coming towards us, with the acquired skill of driving like a Columbian drug lord, I drove out into the field to flee the mob.
The large throng of intoxicated kids followed us and we soon found out why, there was no other way off the airport but the way we came in. We came to the border of the airport separating the property of the airport with the street and as we attempted to get onto the street the car fell into a ditch and died. Keeping calm, I through the car into park and attempted to start the car back up, the mob was getting closer with every vain attempt of starting the old beast. Finally the car started back up and I threw it into reverse and maneuvered the car out of the ditch.
The get away was on, and there was only one way out. Angry people sprawled across my view; I threw the car into drive and drove the old girl as hard as it had ever been driven before. Evading intoxicated kids and light poles I made it to the exit, but by the time I arrived at the get away point, the entrance was blocked with a long metal chain. I drove around the hanger and jumped the island of grass separating airport property with city streets. Again the car died, this time it seemed for good. High beams flashed in the rear view mirror, and the sounds of multiple engines were coming closer.
Inside my head I was calm, but in the car everyone was screaming at me to “get the hell out of here!” The decision on whether to get out of the car and run was getting closer after each failed attempt to start the car. I gave it one more shot at starting the old girl, closed my eyes, and turned the key. Soon I was on the road looking for a street to turn onto. Staying calm I turned onto Mettler Road and turned onto a small house's drive way. I stepped out of the car that possibly saved our lives and gave the wheel over to Wen.
Learning our lesson and feeling a little shaken by the whole thing we headed back to Wen's house to catch the last part of SNL. Thus concluding our night of uninhibited fun.