An example of an '88 VW Jetta. Ours was dark navy blue.
Another close call...
When I was 16 I got my driver’s license. At sixteen and 2 two weeks I had my first ticket for speeding! I just couldn’t keep my foot out of the gas. It was just such a rush to me.
I grew up in North Conway, N.H. which was about 1 1/2 hours due west of the Atlantic coast. One day, when I was 17 or so, I picked up my best friend Donnie and we headed toward the coast of Maine to Old Orchard Beach. I was driving my parent’s car that they had bought brand new just 6 months earlier, it was a 1988 VW Jetta. It was a pretty cool car to me at the time and I thought it was pretty quick for its class. Why I would know this....you can only imagine.
Anyway, we had to go through a very, very borrrrrrring part of Maine called the Brownfield Flats. It’s exactly what it sounds like, flat! There is “still” nothing but a house or two dotted every few miles, a two lane road and all the ratty pine trees you could shake a stick at on both sides of the road for 10 to 15 miles. It was the local mecca of speed and would call to young drivers like myself to put the pedal to the metal and let their vehicles reach terminal velocity...or so we perceived. This happened to be one of those times and so we where tooling along at a cool 115 miles an hour watching the trees go by like an old film reel, flick-flick-flick-flick...when we came upon (Very quickly, I might add) a tractor trailer in our lane going 55 miles an hour like we all should have been doing. Well, I had the bright idea of just pulling into the other lane and blowing by him like the wind. Don thought it was a good idea as well and so being 17 and without brains we pulled left and found, to our amazement, another tractor trailer coming in the opposite direction. Someone with a brain MIGHT have thought of that potential before they made the move, but no it was us with plenty of empty space between our ears! We judged the distance, our speed, said a few choice words and made a run at the gap before the two trucks passed each other......could we make it? Well, of course we made it or else I wouldn’t be here typing this silly juvenile story, but I will say that we made a few minor miscalculations and we ended up making the oncoming truck smoke its tires when he locked them up trying not to hit us as we weaved back into our lane justtttt in front of the tractor trailer we were passing....both of their air horns blowing like crazy! I’m not gonna lie.....we screamed like little boys. After we made the pass we looked at each other, white as ghosts, and without anything being said I gently pulled my foot off the accelerator and coasted to a very very very slow and controlled 55 miles an hour and set the cruise control the rest of the way.
I had dreams that night of not making the pass over and over again and each time my conclusion came to us ending up as two unrecognizable piles of scrambled eggs in a crumpled, burned tin-can casket. It was a close one that I still hear Donnie talking about to this day.
Lesson kids: Before doing something this idiotic try rubbing at least two brain cells together to see what might happen. It will hopefully, if done fast enough, lead to a thought that saves your life!
JC