HOM: JohnBoy

John Loew was another Navy guy who spent a lot of time out at OB and we got to be good friends. His pride and joy was his little yellow Opel GT sports car and his addiction was fast driving. I used to tease him about his driving. We were in the fast lane on I-5 and came up on a bunch of slower drivers. (They were only going about 10mph over the limit!) When he complained about losing time, I said that if he was in that big a hurry he should just use the emergency lane -- so he whipped into it and passed the knot of traffic. Trouble was, he also passed a motorcycle cop he hadn't noticed. We pulled back into the regular lane with the Patrolman right on our bumper with lights and siren on. John ignored it, commenting that he couldn't be after us. When the cop pulled up alongside and rapped on the driver's window with his fist, John decided the guy really was after him and pulled over. I don't remember what excuse John gave, or the words from the chewing out he got, but the cop was angry enough to give him a ticket. One night when we were heading back to base, he complained that his headlights seemed awful dim. He seemed a bit embarrassed when I pointed out that it was after midnight but he still had on his dark sun glasses. He took them off, thought for a minute, commented that "The sun ALWAYS shines on cool people." and put them back on. On another memorable day, he misjudged a bit while weaving through traffic and clipped the bumper of a car he swerved past just hard enough to scratch the paint on his front fender. We were sitting in a restaurant when he told me about it and I razzed him about taking too many chances. He disagreed and told me -- with gestures-- that he handled his car as well as he handled his own body, and then knocked over his glass of water. I rested my case. ---------- Flashback: NNC, and my little Ford Falcon. We were down by Kuna when I decided to see if I could get the tires to spin & lay a little rubber, hard to do with that little six-banger. I revved up the engine, popped the clutch -- and broke a motor mount, which let the engine tip and the fan blade sliced open the radiator. OOPS! ---------- TBC (Me) (Home)