Lots of you will remember this title from Ralph Nader’s book blasting the Chevy Corvair. I owned two, but one only briefly because a very close friend wrecked it on my 18th birthday, and before that my dad’s car, and before that a motorcycle I owned, a triple play which I can’t top and will write much about later as I recall the life of one of the best friends I ever had, John Virtue. I maintained a friendship with John through adulthood. He’s been gone quite a few years now and I still miss him a lot. We also stayed as close as we could with John’s wife Carol who finally civilized John as did their two great kids Debbie and Scott. Good friends or not, I was still hesitant to let John drive anything I owned. I did, however, trust him with my life, and now that I think about it, this happened every time I let John drive.
In this epistle, however, John just has a supporting role in what I like to call the best car wreck I ever experienced, and I have quite a few to pick from, with much thanks to John. In this one though nobody was hurt, the climatic crash as exciting as any roller coaster ride I ever took, and absolutely free, at least for John and me. I think it cost Paul Neutsil some and do remember Paul had to work a good number of weekends at a White Creek farm where we took out most of barnyard fence while terrorizing the owner inside of it. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first let’s talk some about Paul, another close friend from CCS, who still stands today as one of the bravest persons I ever knew personally, but then as my dad often said to me, “There’s a fine line between guts and nuts.”
My father actually had to make just this sort of definitive call about Paul when military authorities came back to investigate him for security clearance. Paul used Dad as a reference. Dad told me later it was one of the toughest decisions he ever made, but history proves he made the right one by giving Paul his thumbs up as Paul not only served most honorably in the US Navy, he did so as an officer and, get this, as a member of the famous Navy SEALS.
Most mere mortals don’t have close to what it takes to become a SEAL. The physical standards and psychological toughness required disqualifies all but a tiny minority who earn admittance to this storied organization, the very group that took down bin Laden and most likely hundreds of other very bad guys we know nothing about. Paul was, beyond question, a true warrior, and also a close friend I’ve lost track of years ago, but hope to find again some day.
I was not the least bit surprised Paul made the cut to become a SEAL. Paul told me just after he was honorably discharged from his service obligations that one his specialties was underwater demolition. I told Paul if I ever had to send anyone out to blow something up, he would be at the top of my list. Secondly, I know of no other person as a crazy teenager I feared to cross any more than Paul. He was dangerous barehanded if that was his intention. I personally saw his less than 130-pound body destroy a 250-pound antagonist in under 60 seconds. He knocked the guy right into Hedges Lake. With automatic weapons and explosives, I can’t imagine the possible carnage he could inflict, and can say without question America’s enemies are most fortunate Paul served at a time of relative peace. Peace, however, was not what Paul was generally after when I hung out with him. He liked things fast. I did too, and together we met a lot of people in Washington and Rensselaer Counties who wore badges and uniforms.
I knew almost from the second I walked out of the Jerome E. Wright Insurance building I was destined for trouble. I’d just put insurance on my first road-going motorcycle, a 250 CC Wards Riverside with a broken kick starter, another good story for later. I didn’t have my license yet, only a cycle learner’s permit, and needed a licensed motorcyclist to ride with me to be legal, which is kind of ironic as Paul was the licensed motorcyclist I sought coming out of the insurance office. I smile often thinking of Paul as my supervisor, motorcycle instructor and guardian because I was usually a whole lot safer without Paul around than with him, one of the things that made Dad pause as he considered Paul’s security clearance questions.
It was even worse if we added John to the mix, sort of like pouring gas over a blowtorch. The three of us together were as stable as a rocking box of nitro. None of us should have lived to see our 21st birthday, a prediction State Trooper Bob Endee made to us one night down at the A&P parking lot, one of our usual hangouts as it was for lots of Cambridge teenagers. Greg Baratto often served as a mildly amused audience for our tales of trouble and actual encounters when not vending us hotdogs I loved and probably ate in the hundreds.
Anyway, as I walked out of the insurance office I heard tires screech and lock up on a really nice Olds 442 that pulled over to the curb, not Paul’s usual ride which was a 64 Chevy II running on only five of its six cylinders, but that didn’t stop it from being a frequent missile.
Before going further, I must describe Paul’s personal and most infamous ride. He engineered a brilliant party conversion by converting the rust-bucket Chevy to serve as a rolling keg party. Paul lined the trunk of his GM rattletrap with plastic garbage bags and added about six bags of ice to surround a quarter keg of beer. He cut a hole through the back seat into the trunk and then snaked the plastic hose through it. Voila! Instant tap beer on the fly. We debated if this actually violated the open container law as, technically speaking, the keg was in the trunk, but fortunately never had an official render a legal opinion which I’m sure wouldn’t have been in our favor.
Paul’s ride on this fateful afternoon I will now describe was completely different, however. The new 442 didn’t belong to Paul but to a man he worked for, one who for some insane reason let him drive it, probably because Paul was a diligent and exceptionally hard worker. While Paul was indeed a very hard worker, it was a most serous error giving him a high performance car to play with, perhaps worse than me letting John drive any of my rigs.
I walked up to the car and saw John had a gallon jug of Canadian Ace on his lap and that it was half empty. Had I any sense, that would have been the time to beg off. Canadian Ace was the cheapest beer sold in Cambridge in the early 70s. It came in glass one-gallon jugs the West End Market advertised as “Jug o Beer” for 99 cents. The brew, based on taste memory, was a delightful blend of dirty dishwater and pond scum, absolutely despicable, but dirt cheap, so we always drank a bunch of it.
“Come on, let’s go for a ride,” Paul said, “This thing really flies.” I should have taken this literally. John just grinned and offered me a pull on the jug which I declined as I’d just finished siphoning gas for the motorcycle, still had the residual flavor, and didn’t want to mar the fine bouquet of Exxon’s finest with a shot of Canadian Ace. I did, however, get into the back seat when I knew, even then, it was a big mistake.
We turned right on Main to Route 22. By the time we passed school the speedometer hit 100, but just a quarter mile later Paul applied the brakes, blocked by what’s often called “a deuce and a half,” a military truck with double rear wheels. I doubt the truck topped much over 60 mph and was always driven a lot slower by National Guard soldiers who were participating in annual summer training maneuvers. In response, Paul jerked the Olds into the left lane every five seconds or so to see if he could pass the Guard convoy that appeared to go into infinity.
About the 20th time he pulled out, Paul spotted a gap some 10 or more trucks distant and floored it. This is when I first used a seatbelt without being told to do so. Often a man of few words, John just kept grinning.
When we reached the gap we discovered a problem. There was no gap. What looked open was instead a howitzer towed by a jeep. I looked out of the windshield to see a blue dot headed right at us. I still don’t know what that car was but think it must have been a small sports job because it was able to pull off 22 onto the fortunately paved side where it passed us in a speed blur close enough to reach out and touch. When the Guard guys saw this, the truck behind the canon slowed down enough to allow us to pull back into the right lane. At this point I wanted my motorcycle helmet to go with the seat belt.
We were back to doing something like 40 mph and this simply would not do with a loaner 442 at our disposal.
Paul made a left turn off 22. I can’t recall the name of the road but it’s what we usually called “the back way to Bennington.” Once again, we were flying. Paul made a right off of this road, I don’t recall it by name, but maybe Jim Barnewall might as I’m pretty sure he will remember the accident he also predicted in advance. I’ll explain in a moment.
At some excessive speed I don’t remember, because by this time I was too frightened to look at the speedometer, we went up a hill. At the peak was a sharp turn we never made. Not only was the turn sharp; it also went down hill steeply. We didn’t go down. We didn’t make the corner. That 442 just flew as Paul said it would.
We touched down right in front of a barnyard enclosure. A woman with a pitchfork stood inside next to a manure spreader. I watched the pitchfork fly up one way, the woman jump another, as we crashed though the barnyard, missing the spreader by only a few feet. We then blasted to the other end of the barnyard through the fence again and out into a swampy area near a small pond where marshy ground worked to gradually slow the 442. We couldn’t have picked a softer place to land.
I was terrified long before we were airborne, but not John. As we flew through the air John just tuned to Paul and laughed manically as if this was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. I’ll never forget John’s Joker profile, as that was what I watched in the back seat along with the background events just described. It’s a movie I’ll never forget and the only time I’ve ever been airborne in a four-wheel vehicle. We’ll get to two wheel flights some other time.
Since none of us were injured in the slightest, we hopped out of the car quickly. I looked back to the road and saw Jim Barnewall who had pulled his car over on the side of the road we’d just left to see if we needed help.
John and I ran to Jim’s idling car and hopped in upon invitation.
“I thought you guys might need a ride,” he said. We asked him how he knew this and Jim replied, “When you passed me going the other way I knew there was no way you were going to make that corner.” Good guy that he always was, Jim volunteered to drive us back to Cambridge.
As we pulled away, I looked out of the rear window to see a very angry woman approach Paul as he stood by the 442. A fence post had crashed through the radiator and a stream of steam shot upward while the woman aimed her retrieved pitchfork at Paul’s stomach. I felt a little guilty then, but not enough to go back.