blogosphereons: The World Wonders and Waits
I have been fortunate to have met and befriended many interesting people in my lifetime.
Many were my teachers while in school. I have most recently been in contact with a fellow who when in his late 20's was a middle school football coach and science teacher. He was a no nonsense teacher who was an iron fisted disciplinarian not unusual for late 1960's southern
school systems. He is now retired and is 70 yrs old. He says I am too fat and will soon die
dragged to a premature death my my large girth. "Nothing worse than over eating!" he says.
Guilty.
Each athletic coach had a wooden paddle with a nickname like baby, or the stinger, or the butt-thwacker, and in those days, the coaches were eager to dole out the swats to any youngster who crossed the line. Punishment was swift and public and full of humiliation when you were chosen for the public paddling in front of the class, which included the girl you were trying to impress, when you were noted to have water falling like rain from your eyes after the butt-thwacker had its way with your behind. The horrors!
Anyway, I last saw Coach W in 1967 when he left teaching because it was becoming "bullcrap" as the teaching was taking a back seat, even back then, to social correctness. He was ahead of his time as they say. He left for a career in the pharmaceutical's industry and did well. Just by chance we ran into each other last year.
We shot the shit for a couple of hours and he learned that I have a great number of nephews and nieces and wondered if I might want his wife's 1992 740 Volvo wagon which she purchased as a new car. It had a few niggling problems, but the price was right and I bought it. He also said she had a 1972 Mustang convertible stored the past 10 years in her father's garage in Memphis and would I like to see it and perhaps bid on it. Yes.
He called me a week ago Friday and said he was ready to take me down to Memphis to see about the mustang. I got ready and picked up my mechanic, Larry Simmons, and we met Coach in Milan Tn where I got in the car with Coach and Larry and his son followed in the Volvo with the barest minimum of tools in the back of the car. He asked if they planned to drive the Volvo to Memphis and wondered if it was a good idea.
I reassured him that Larry had worked out all the problems the car had for about 15 cents and he groaned, "I cain't tell my wife that. I am gonna have to tell her we stopped three times to put fluid in that car on the way down."
En route, coach told me how a "mustang man" had come down to look at the car and appraise it and told them as the car sat, it would command a fair value of from 1 to 3 thousand dollars and offered them $2500 for the car. I was now thinking if the car had any attractiveness at all I was a player even on my meager retirement and disability income. We spoke of our beliefs and spirituality and he must have read that I have a belief in the supernatural for what he did the next time I saw him is by far the best I have ever seen.
But first the mustang: We got to his father-in-laws home which was vacant since his entering a nursing home a couple of years ago because of dementia, and when he opened the garage, the 1972 mustang , screamed to me, "buy me or you will be sorry!" because it was original as can be for that year of car, only the radio had been swapped out. Still original interior, top, and paint. All the car needs to be a serious driver is a paint job and a radio. I asked what his wife wanted for the car and he said "What's your offer?"
"Well, what does she want for it?"
"What's your offer?" Voiced more firmly by Coach W.
"I can give her $3,100." I said.
He got on the phone and spoke briefly with his wife and said, "Sold! Now how are you gonna get it home?"
I looked at Larry and said, "We are gonna drive this sombitch home."
"Naw, you ain't gonna drive this, it hasn't been driven in over 10 yrs." Coach W said.
"Watch us."
Larry had to take the front passenger wheel and the brake drum off as it was frozen and locked in place by brake dust. He and his son dragged it out of the garage into the sunlight in Memphis and started going over it as Coach and I headed out to get air for the tires, brake fluid, and gasoline and a battery for my new purchase. Coach stopped at McD's for a burger, and by the time we got back the car was ready to be cranked. Larry put the battery in the car and I poured 5 gallons of gasoline in the tank. Larry poured gasoline in the carburetor and I got in the car and turned the key.
I was delighted when it fired up and ran for a few seconds. More gas in the carb and it fired three more times, on the fourth fire up it had gas coming to the carb from the tank as the small piece of hose that joined the fuel line and the carb was leaking furiously. Larry scavenged a small piece of fuel line from another car in the garage and we were off and running. I put the car in reverse and let out on the clutch and we headed back to Cedar Grove. The car drove beautifully. We arrived at Larry's shop and tucked it in for the night. Coach W said I was the luckiest man he had ever met. That was then, this is now.
My VW stopped on the corner of hwy 73 and Mt Pelia Rd yesterday am at about 7. I was working under the hood when Coach W. spotted me and pulled his truck in beside my car and asked if I needed a ride. I got in and he took me to the auto parts store for a new filter. He told me his past weeks dealings and I will try to report it just as he told it to me.
"Jacky, I have been to Memphis three times this week, I have put 357 miles on this truck. We had to bury my father-in-law. The nurses at the nursing home said he got restless last Friday evening, and though he has not spoken an intelligent word in 4 months now, they say he sat bolt upright in his bed and declared: "Someone's stolen the mustang! And bad luck is a coming for him." After which he fell back dead in the bed."
I am sure I turned pale in that truck when I heard this. I implored; "Coach, you gotta be shitting me?"
"Naw Jacky, I swear to God, that is what he said. You don't need to worry about that. He was just a sick demented old man."
I pondered more, sick demented, but how could he know about the sale of the mustang?
I continued, "Coach are you sure he said just that?
"Yep."
"Well, I think I will drive that mustang over and you can have it back, I do not want a cursed mustang, after all look my car has broken down and I have only had that mustang one week."
"I don't want that mustang back. Besides this ain't bad luck, it is good luck, I found you and am driving you to get your parts. You could be back on the side of the road in the cold looking at that broken down VW."
I got my parts and he dropped me back at my VW, but I was now only thinking of the curse of the 1972 Mustang convertible. I called Coach W back one more time and tried to bring his car back to him, then he laughed a laugh one hears only when one knows one has been had.
"Jacky, I was just messing with you, that old man, he didn't say nothing about that car before he died."
Hell, I am 57 yrs old, and only now do I realize that a teacher is always the teacher and a student is always the student, no matter the age. Coach W. is a master of psychology and messing with your mind. He is a fine fellow.
Jacky Maybolt, Dupe; Urban Poverty Law Center
"Dreams may be the key to the unconscious, but wet dreams are better with consciousness."
Mother Maybolt, 1926-2008
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