by James Norton

That morning I woke up a teenager on a mission. The night before, George, Roger, Marc and I all decided that we had enough of the cold weather and since today would be twenty degrees warmer than the day before, we would skip school and go fishing.

For me it was a day destined to set itself apart from the John Hughes flavor of the month film type of life I had been living up until that point.

Oh sure, I walked around feeling like Ferris Bueller (yes nitpickers I know that movie hadn’t been released at that point), but just like everyone else in their mid teens, I was full of angst. It would be good to get away and do something different with my friends.

Being the oldest of the group and the only one with a driver’s license, it was my duty to be ready to drive for the entire day and I was up to the task.

Having a car to drive was an odd story in and of itself – the short version is that I got my license at the earliest possible age at the time – sixteen and a half – and one of my friend’s had some money saved. Me having the license and he having the money, we bought a car and put it in his parent’s name so we would have transportation around town.

The only catch was that we wouldn’t take the car too far from home and we always let them know where we were going and when we would be back. We almost always lied about both – we were teenagers – what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

It simple enough to skip school – that was the easy part. The hard part was going to be getting the keys to the car out of the house with George and Roger’s mother home all day. Marc, Roger and I went to Marc’s house down the street and figured we would lay low and see if George was going to get the keys and what kind of escape we would make. We got our fishing poles ready and sat there watching TV and looking out the window keeping an eye out for George and the keys to the Monte Carlo.

After what seemed like only a minute or two, we heard some noise outside and looked out the window – there’s George out front in the driver’s seat yelling “Get in!”

Apparently whatever story he was giving his mother didn’t work, and in an act of desperation, he grabbed the keys and ran out, started the car, and backed it down the street. Here was the first dilemma of the day – George’s mother standing in the middle of the street – right in front of us. If I took the wheel and blew by her without stopping, there goes the transportation. If I let George blow by her, he’d have to drive out onto a main street and take the chance he doesn’t get pulled over and we all get in trouble. In the seat he remained – I’d rather chance the police than his mother any day.

Less than a half block after George swerved around his mother, I made him pull over and I took the wheel – there was little chance of his mother reporting the car as stolen, so we were basically free to do as we wished now.

It was a classic car – this 1977 Monte Carlo – it was the last year of the really long body style and it was previously owned by a little old lady. Little old lady or not, she ordered the car with some kind of purpose – 350 cubic inch engine with large four barrel carburetor, leather covered captain’s swivel chairs, a removable sunroof, a center console (floor mounted) automatic shifter and steel Chevy SS rims.

In the short time since we acquired the vehicle, an important extra had been installed – a very expensive (for someone other than our group if you get my meaning) Alpine stereo and a nice set of speakers. This was the start of something that has changed very little over the years for me – a fast, comfortable car with kick ass sound system.

Seemingly in the clear with nothing to hold us back, we decided to make it a road trip to Cape Cod. After a bit of stressful traffic in Downtown Boston, we had nothing but an open highway in front of us – I stuck my left arm out the window, set the cruise control at 85 MPH and we were off.

To be continued…