Bobby and Larry and the Chevy

Yesterday at Bed, Bath, And Beyond we ran into an old friend Bobby McEntyre and his friend Nancy.  I have known Bobby about the longest I have known any person still living and not related.

As they walked off I thought about Bobby.

We used to be neighbors as kids.

Another person who lived directly across the street from Bobby was another friend, the late Larry  Holcomb.  I remembered the time Bobby sold Larry a car.

About 1961 or so Larry came by my family's house in a car he had just bought, a Black '55 Chevy.  He bought it from Bobby McEntyre.  Larry wanted to drive around in it, show it off.  I remember it had a loud engine.

We took it to Varner's (a drive-in restaurant).  We hung out there a couple hours.  Then we left for Larry to take me home.

I was still a teenager living with my parents on Richard Street.  Richard Street is a street that is connected to the 4-Lane, across from Whitewater Park. 

But when Larry was carrying me home that night there was no Whitewater Park on the 4-Lane, or anything else.  It was almost a mile of highway darkness, down a long hill and up a long hill.  Richard Street was just past the bottom going back up, maybe a half block up.

Going down the dark hill on the 4-Lane suddenly the car went dead.  We rolled to a stop.  We could not get it started again.

We decided we had to leave it, but first we should push it to the side of the highway.

As we tried pushing we were not having  much luck getting it to move.  Then in the  distance we heard the rumbling of a large truck coming our way.  We looked up and the truck lights were bumping with the bumps in the road up on top of the hill.

We tried harder to push it, the truck got closer, going fast.

By the way, the I-75 would not come through Marietta for another six or seven years.  The 4-Lane was a replacement for the Dixie Highway (US 41), and now the I-75 would be the 4-Lane's replacement.

But all that was in the future.  In our immediate future was an 18 Wheeler bearing down on us at a high rate of speed in the dark.

Larry hollered something to the effect, "Lets get the heck away!"  And started running away from the more than probably wreck in the very near future moments.

I was not that smart.  It just occurred to me if I jumped into the Chevy and put my foot on the brake pedal the  red tail lights would come on and the driver would see it.

I did just that.  The truck driver saw the taillights and almost turned over swerving and skidding out of the way.  And then kelp on going.

And everybody lived.