agility @ sea

So, you might be telling yourself that after Tim did the big Joy Ride from Cincinnati on route to St. Pete Florida via Ft Bragg he would have learned a lesson. I did learn a life altering lesson, but the epiphany came years later with my Father when I was 19. In this story I’m still in 8th grade and I have a shit-ton of rage.

My parents were out of town. Hum, that seems like a pattern. By this point, my parents marriage had fully disintegrated and my Dad lived in Cincinnati and I ended up with Mom in St Pete. Dad would fly down a couple times a month to sail on Bonnie Vie our Allied Princes 36′ ketch and probably did his best to be a Dad. When the two of them were together they had a short fuse before the arguments would start. The fights were brutal and viscous and left serious carnage. I am very calm in stressful scenarios but when a similar emotionally charged scenario arises, I become again that sensitive child overwhelmed by rage. As they say, we all have our crosses to bear.

Now back to the story, I was a little bored and not sure where my brother Steve was, but he had a Capri with a stick shift and as you know I liked to drive. 🙂 We still had the Cutlass Supreme I drove on the first joy ride but I decided to drive the cool stick car and check out the back roads in the groves behind my school. These were typical Florida Palmetto bush lined sand roads and were deserted. I was enjoying the fast turns so kept speeding up and drove like I was in a road rally sliding through turns and generally creating havoc.

Coming around one turn at probably 60 mph I got a blow out in the front right tire. Crap! I ran off the road into the bushes but regained control and steered out of the bushes back on the road and came to a stop.

I looked at changing the tire, but I don’t think there was a spare or maybe the jack was missing. Anyway, I decided to drive the 10 or so miles back to our home on Snell Isle on a flat tire. At first I was driving slowly on side streets trying not to do too much damage to the tire and wheel but every time I slowed down, the wheel would grate on the asphalt making a horrible sound and I’m sure creating lots of damage.

After a few stop signs I realized that if I didn’t come to a full stop at the intersections the rim would stay on the tire and theoretically not create any additional damage to the wheel. I’m sure I was thinking – maybe I can make it home, park the car and not get caught?

On one such intersection, a four way stop, I did a rolling stop and continued down the road. However, there was a patrol car watching and he pulled me over not more than 100 feet past the intersection.

When the patrolman got out of the squealing lit up police car and approached my vehicle, I decided I didn’t want to face the consequences of having damaged my brothers car and joy riding under age. So I slammed the shifter into first and sped off down the road just as he reached the car. I believe the technical term for that is “fleeing to allude” but what do I know.

The first turn was to the right and since the left tire was still full of air and the weight of the vehicle was mostly on the left, the Capri handled the turn perfectly. One the second block however I tried to execute a 120% hairpin turn to the left and once initiated, the car just kept going forward straight through the stop sign and T intersection. I remember hitting a relatively high curb square on the bare wheel and remember the bone curdling thud of the impact, steel on concrete. Good thing I didn’t think to shift into second gear and get some real speed while this was going on.

After impact, the car lurched over the curb about 15 feet into a lush Bermuda grass lawn and came to rest about 5 feet before a fire hydrant. The engine stooped since I was still in gear so I started the car and floored it but the the suspension was destroyed and the frame was resting on the ground. That car was never the same. Steve, did I say I’m sorry? If not, I was, about the car that is. See picture of my big brother Steve teaching me how to steer a sailboat with his foot a few years earlier.

Well the police officer arrested me and took me to the jail in downtown St. Pete. During the interrogation they kept asking me about drugs because my eyes were bloodshot. I insisted that it was just because I had been on my speedboat racing around Tampa Bay in the morning and that’s what happens when you’re in a boat doing 60 mph for hours without glasses. All true, I kind of lost interest in drugs when I moved away from Cincinnati.

Anyway, after a while they got tired of asking questions and since my parents weren’t around, they contacted my Grandma Gillooly.

By this point, I was busted for taking by brothers car, fleeing to allude and accused of being jacked up on drugs so I was a little tense.

Grandma bailed me out and as we walked down the long steps of the Justice center with her purse held by her forearm and her keys held dangling from her other hand she said, “Tim, do you want to drive?”

I really loved that lady.