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| PJ’s Where There’s Smoke….. |
Someone recently cut a nice set of donuts in front of the Ridge Market (left,) Tru Value and the old St. Inigoes Store. Aside from wondering if maybe Dickie Cullison was back home, it caused me to think about the last time that I burned some tires. In fact, Greg Madjeski and I were just reminiscing about it not too long.
In 1970 I was home on leave from the Army and had orders for Germany. Greg and I were out drinking and partying and had been doing so for the better part of the day and night. Somewhere along the line we got tied up with Tommy White who lived just below the Store. Around 2 a.m. we dropped him off at his house. As I pulled away in my 67 Camaro, Tommy requested “Burn ’em one time for me.” Two a.m., completely drunk and stoned, why not?
I lit the Camaro up and burned my way up the road thru first and second gear. However, rounding the turn there at the Store and trying to pull another gear, I lost control of the car and ended up sliding sideways across the road. We hit broadside into a telephone pole in front of Sonny Dean’s house and struck the pole just behind my driver’s side door. The car wrapped around the pole and then flipped over. Somewhere in that churn I was thrown out of the car and landed across the road in the field that used to belong to Leola Price. Greg was still inside the flipped over Camaro. I remember crawling back to the car with Greg inside and hearing him saying “I think I broke my shoulder.” I helped get Greg out of the car. As Sonny came out of his house he recalls “All I saw was the Camaro upside down with all 4 wheels still spinning.”
The car was totaled and I ended up with some stitches in my right arm, the scars of which I still have. Turned out that Greg did have a broken shoulder. Looking back, I feel very lucky that we both survived the last time I burned tires.
That’s one of the main reasons I’m not too wild about all the burning tire business in general but am particularly not too keen about it there in front of the Store. When I see the burn marks, such as those above, there’s a part of me that smiles and appreciates that there’s still that “Ridge boy spirit” floating around the old neighborhood. Conversely though, when I think about what can, and in my case did, go wrong, I always get a little nervous. Eddie Money knows what I’m talking about.