I try to make this easy and fast to upload to the providers of all of our gatherings... If I offend someone, it is not you I am speaking of, I am hopeing that you can relate to me somehow...
I do hope you like my stories, and I would like some feedback, as I am about to release my books, that I have already written, starting back long ago...Enjoy this one
The Night I Stole the Car
Trumann, Arkansas October 14th, 1959:
The girls and I and very few knew this, but at the time that we all were so eager to have just a vehicle to get around in for one night, I offered, to myself, to supply my girl-friends with my Grandmothers car. This was after she had passed away, because Dad had inherited the car, and I was glad. This was to be my car, when I turned 18. It was a blue and white, 1955 Chevy, not the sports type, but with the gas tank in the tail light. You talking about such a funny and thing to watch, gas station attendants+, have to ask Dad, “Hey, sir, come here just one minute…�Dad would look at us all, and we would secretly laugh knowing Dad was really going to have a good time with this one.
My select few I told was one boy, Phillip Shirley, he passed the word, “Carol’s gonna�steal the car…The Car, boys.� He was like a newspaper in Truman. Alice was next but to be a witness that anything went wrong, I let Mary know, through Florence Turner…the best of the best!
I was getting way too old for a babysitter, and Mrs. Prater was babysitting for the night, I planned a week ahead. Ask questions, sort of, slyly to Dad, say “Dad, can I…can I borrow the car this weekend?�with Dad turning to look like Satan himself he only had to look at me that I knew I couldn’t, it would be on then, ol�Daddy O. Muhahahahha. This would be the best, and he, that I knew of never knew, that I did, and succeeded. Though, the adrenalin ran high, my plan, as a 15 maybe 14 year old worked. One note here, Mrs. Prater’s finger had not, yet been cut off.
“Ok, Alice this is what I’m going to do. All week, with Mary listening intently at me for a change, I will play it cool, ask the questions, and by Friday, I should have the car oh, about 10:30p.m. Mom and Dad I already know, have a job, an overnight job…girls. We all smiled, evilly.
On this very night, I went out first and came home. Mom and Dad delivered me to the movie house, I watched, went home, told Mrs. Prater, which was drowsy anyway, goodnight, I had had it. I went to bed…didn’t even have to change clothes before I heard her snore. If my bedroom window was good enough for Dad, it was me too…easy enough, actually I had not planned too many things, you know, just by the seat of my britches, as they say in the South. I had the key already, but that car wasn’t going to start till out in the street…the thing that scared me, was that we had a gravel driveway, so this would have to be a slow and meticulous action. Smoothly, I put that car key in ignition first, only that one thing, then threw that Car in Neutral, and slowly it started moving, I got in. Drove it, braking carefully out to the middle of Mulberry Avenue, pointed right. I smiled, and started that car! I picked up Alice first Mary Gann, Philip Shirley, and before the night was out, most all of our group rode in that car…and I was on schedule also, what schedule, in out, get out, back in�I gotta go now!
The hardest part was yet to come, People. I had to get that thing back in that drive just perfect, without waking Mrs. Prater…she was a hard babysitter, one that I loved and she loved me too. She would have told on me, but in a nice way, got me? So I had to do it right. Without no one about to help me with the end result, I was on my own. Ok, we are going up, gravel, will take a sharp turn, and motor has to be off in drive. If I remember right, the turn onto Mulberry, the stop sign was run, and I just went…just like me, that car, rather the motor went off at the Southwest corner of the house, then the key off…in Neutral, God, I was there�the rest…a piece of cake.
In the window I came, under the covers, and listened for snoring…………………………………�
At 12:01a.m. I heard a snort come from the living room couch, and God, I went to sleep after the most wonderful time of my life.
The next day, business as usual, and no one knew anything around the house, but at school�everyone, everyone was waiting to see if Carol Lee was going to make it to school. Right on time I was…I loved my friends, and sisters and brothers, from that little town, of Trumann, Arkansas, USA!
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