Larry was my oldest cousin and was someone that I always admired and looked up to . He was smart, a good looking guy, and above all a good person. He was cool!
One thing Larry was in to in his teens were cars. Three cars I remember Larry having was a 1956 black and gold or yellow 2 dr. hard-top Chevy Bel Aire, a 1958 all black 2 dr. hard-top Chevy Super Sport. These two cars had big V-8 engines and for their day were something!
Looking back, the 1955 and 1957 Chevy's were more popular and thought to be cooler. But, Larry always seemed and usually did just the opposite of what everyone else was doing. He marched to his own beat.
What was really out of step was when he got a new Volkswagon Bug in and around 1959. This vehicle was totally 180 degrees from the V-8 machines that he had owned. With the engine in back, just being a foreign car, terrible heating and worst of all no get up and go.
But, Larry was different. I remember one time in particular, riding with Larry in the Bug down to the, what we called, the four mile corner. This was south of where he lived on highway 14 which went on to Newton. The corner was a straight right angle turn and intended to be taken at a very slow speed. SLOW SPEED. I never knew why they simply did not have a stop sign there.
On this one occasion, Larry wanted to see how fast the Bug could take the corner. There were no seat belts at that time, unless you had them installed yourself. He didn't. I always remember just sitting there in the passenger side hoping and praying that as we went into the slide that we would not roll over. As I recall, he got it up to 35 or 40 mph. Hey! You only live once.
No comments:
Post a Comment