What I Wanted and What I Had

Like most kids, I always felt like other people had more than I had.  And, of course, I spent a lot of time wishing I had the latest and greatest of whatever, usually to no avail.  If the technology that exists today was around back in the 1960s, it would have driven me crazy, I suppose.  There's no way we could have stayed up to date with the newest version of the iPhone or the iPad.  Heck, we had enough trouble keeping a working version of the iRon that Mama used.  Anyway, in homage to my overly materialistic view of the world, here's a self-indulgent view of my childhood in terms of what I wanted, and what I had...

What I Wanted



The Ultimate:  The 64 pack of crayolas, complete with the ingenious sharpener on the side of the box.  Imagine, a limitless supply of colors, all precisely sharpened.  The possibilities were endless...

What I Had

The Crayola 8-pack.  Purchased at Parsley's 5 Cents to 1 Dollar store.  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, and black.  Precise coloring was possible for the first few uses, then you just did the best you could with the rounded crayon that you were left with.

What I Wanted

A Rock Tumbler from the Sears Catalog.  Every Christmas, I looked very long and hard at this item. I was amazed at the beautiful stones that could be created from the rocks in our driveway.

What I Had

A Woodburning set.  Fun for about 5 minutes.  The fun was always mitigated by an unnerving concern that you were going to be responsible for the house burning down. 

What I Wanted

A Road Grader.  Like the one my best friend Randy had, with the blade that swiveled and the little lever sticking out of the back window that actually turned the front wheels.  Perfect for the miles and miles of roads that Randy and I made every summer.

What I Had

A garden hoe.  You could still make roads, you just had to stand kind of far away to do it.

What I Wanted

A red wagon.  Again, just like the one Randy had.  We hauled all kinds of stuff in that wagon; I think we were still using it when it was just a rusted shell of it's original self.

What I Had

A stick horse.  With a vinyl head.  It was a lot of work riding the range with that rascal.

What I Wanted

One of the all-time great toys, heavily advertised on Saturday morning TV in the 60s.  A tense, fierce battle, ending with a horrible ratcheting sound and one of the kids on the commercial saying, "Hey, you knocked my block off."  It doesn't get much better than that.

What I Had

Mr. Potato Head.  Again, good for about 5 minutes of fun.  At least I had one of the later versions; when Mr. Potato Head first became available, you had to supply your own potato.

What I Wanted

Oh, the incredible things you could make with an erector set.  A toy that undoubtedly led to a high paying career later in life, like maybe an engineer or an architect. 

What I Had

A cardboard refrigerator box.  From Bud Rice's store downtown. Randy and I would each get one, drag them home behind our bikes, and attempt to stay out all night sleeping in them.  Of course, we had to cut a window so we could look up at the stars.  And the next day, we could cut down the length of one of the corners and make a slide on the bank in front of my house.  And you could take off your shoes and run and hit the cardboard in your sock feet and see if you could stay upright all the way down the slope.  And you could do that all afternoon and have an incredible amount of fun.  But an erector set...yeah...that would have been good too.

What I Wanted

A set of real Walky Talkies.

What I Had

Some sound-powered phones that Daddy brought back from the Navy at the end of World War II.  They were 20 years old when I played with them, but they still worked perfectly.  It was the way the crew of Daddy's PT Boat communicated with each other.  Without any other source of power, the energy created by the vibrations of your speech was transmitted over the wires to the person at the other end.  Randy and I even had enough wire to stretch them from my house to his.  And they didn't need a battery!  They were such fun.  Oh, but a walky talkie would have been fun too, I guess.  And maybe some extra batteries.

What I Wanted

Cable TV.  We got one channel, Channel 5 (KFSA) from Fort Smith.  They did offer shows from all three networks, but a little variety would have been nice.

What I Had

A homemade shortwave radio that Mama's cousin Omar Brigance let me borrow.  He had built it from a kit.  Our house had a length of wire outside the front window that had once been an antenna for a radio (back in the radio days), so I ran a wire from the shortwave and connected it to that outside wire and the results were pretty good.  I could pull in transmissions from far, far away in languages that I did not recognize.  Of course, I also got some broadcasts from England that I could understand.  Pretty amazing.  It made me realize how big the world was.  But I guess I could have been watching TV instead.  I guess.

What I Wanted

An awesome tree house.  High enough to see the whole neighborhood, maybe even as far away as Featherston Street...

What I Had

We called it the Smokehouse.  That's my older brother Gary standing in front of it, in costume for a school play.  Half of the building was a garage, and the other part was the Smokehouse.  Both were filled with what the casual observer might call junk, but to a kid it was treasures.  Daddy worked for the phone company, so there were all kinds of broken phones and obsolete telephone equipment.  He also was a handyman who liked to tinker with things, so there were lots and lots of appliances and things that no longer worked that he just couldn't bear to throw away.  You could even climb up on the garage side to the top of the Smokehouse ceiling, where there was even more stuff to play with.  And that space made a great clubhouse; you had to climb up the wall to get there.  There was so much fun stuff in that smokehouse to play with, and Daddy was always bringing in something new.  But a treehouse, I guess, would have been fun too.  Probably. 

Hmm.  Maybe some of the things I had were actually better than those things I saw on TV or in the Sears catalog.  Maybe I don't need an iPad afterall...



The Hangin' on Pine Street

Our guest blogger again this week is our friend Floyd Folsom, who spent his wonder years growing up in Waldron.  Floyd recalls a tale of drama and frontier justice that virtually eliminated all cattle rustling on Pine Street.  Good thing that's all it eliminated...

It was a hot summer day back in 1962 when the hangin' occurred.  It was on the dusty road that would eventually be named Pine Street.  But, let me go back a few years to explain why there was a hangin' in the first place.

It was a much simpler time way back in the 50s.  We bought our first TV in '52 or '53 when we lived across the street from Donald Poe, just a block or so from the Waldron school.  I remember the impatience any six-year-old would have waiting for the TV antenna to be erected and having the TV adjusted to be sure to get the very best picture.  Finally, Dad backed away from the TV and the vast world of Channel 5 from Fort Smith poured into our living room.

I was amazed at the mostly snowy picture that took me to a world of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Commando Cody, John Chandler, and the magnetic hot and cold fronts he slid around on the weather board, Pat Porta and his news broadcasts, and so many more.

I was instantly enraptured by Roy Rogers and Trigger.  Roy quickly replaced Stan Musual as my hero.  I watched episode after episode.  I watched every Western I could because that would surely be the lifestyle I would choose when I grew up.

I noticed that the only way to handle rustlers was to hang 'em.  Now, this was way before Clint Eastwood and his Hang 'Em High movie.  My brother Arthur and I played cowboy almost every day.  We could only wing the shoulder or gun hand because that's how Roy did it.  Occasionally, we would hang some make-believe rustlers we had rounded up while riding our stick horses.

Time marched on and we outgrew the stick horses and Cowboy and Indian wars.  Our family moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico in 1958 because of my dad's breathing problem.  He passed away in May of 1961 and we moved back to Waldron.  My mother had a small white house built across the street from the Yates family and right beside the Bobbitt family.

It is now a hot summer day in 1962 on that dusty street that would later be named Pine Street.  JW and Donald Bobbitt and I were playing a more grown up version of cowboy and rustlers that day.  By this time we were all teenagers.

For some reason, JW and I were the "good guys" and Donald was the rustler.  Needless to say, we caught up with Donald and the herd he had rustled and he knew there would be vigilante justice for sure.

JW and I dragged our prisoner to the front yard where a rather large tree stood.  Every cowboy knew you needed a tall tree to hang 'em high.  We found a rope and even had enough sense to at least not put it around Donald's neck.  JW and I came up with a plan.  He would hold Donald up off the ground and I would tie the rope around his stomach up around the bottom of the ribs.  What a plan!  JW lifted, I tied, and we let him hang and swing.

Things were going as planned until we noticed that Donald looked sorta funny.  His face was real red and he didn't appear to be breathing so good. He hung parallel to the ground and kept swinging his arms with this wild-eyed, excited look while mumbling something we couldn't quite make out.  It finally dawned on us that he was going to die if we didn't do something.  We came up with a plan.  What a plan!  JW lifted him up and I untied the rope.  JW laid Donald on the ground and we watched as he gasped for air while mumbling something we still couldn't quite make out.

It all tuned out well.  In spite of some serious rope burn, Donald made a full recovery.  I think he now lives in Wichita, Kansas.  I figure he's afraid to come back to Waldron lest there be a hangin' party waiting on him. 

It sure is fun playing cowboy and rustler.

That is, if you ain't the rustler.

The Hoosiers

Today's story comes courtesy of Floyd Folsom, a former resident of Waldron whose family were neighbors of ours on Pine Street.  Floyd now lives in Mena.  Thanks Floyd for the laugh!

When I was sixteen years old, a friend and I were “draggin’ main” (You older folks will know that term.) one Saturday night in the small western Arkansas town of Waldron, where we lived. We saw a car parked by the side of the road and a man looking under the hood. I told my friend that we should stop and see if we could help them.

When we pulled in behind the car, I noticed it had Indiana license plates. It meant nothing to me at the time, but I did notice. The man said that it couldn’t be fixed until morning and that he would appreciate a ride to Ft Smith, which was about fifty miles to our north. We discovered that he had a wife and two children with him so we decided to drive them to Ft Smith where they had family waiting.

I had never heard the term “Hoosier” before and didn’t know that it was a nickname for someone from Indiana. After everyone had settled down for the trip, the lady made the comment, “I’ll bet you never thought you’d be carrying a car load of Hoosiers?”

I turned around to face her and answered in my most polite voice, “No Mrs Hoosier, we sure didn’t.” For fifty miles I called them Mr and Mrs. Hoosier. I noticed they smiled a lot on the trip and wondered how they could grin and chuckle like they did considering the circumstances.



My friend and I drove up to Indiana later that summer to visit his sister and we both learned what a Hoosier was. Humiliating it was!


Remember, get a healthy dose of humor today. Doctor’s orders!

The Telephone Man

Daddy, and his younger brother Calton

I watched my Daddy being spoon fed his supper last night.  It does something to you to see that, but that's what it's come to.  His tray had three different colors of baby food on it.  Not actual baby food, but the pureed version of whatever was on the menu of the nursing home last night.  The lady feeding him seemed hurried, and I suppose she probably was; there were others needing to be fed.  "He's probably not going to like me," she said.  She was making him finish, and Daddy in recent years has not exactly been a big eater. 

The odds of Daddy not liking anyone are very small.  He may protest, he may say, "I don't want any more groceries," or something like that, but he'll never dislike you.  His food is now pureed; the last of his teeth came out a couple of months ago.  He hasn't really taken a shine to his new dentures.  My sister is doing a good job of convincing him to wear them though. 

There he sat, in his wheelchair last night, at the table with the worker who was feeding him, when I walked into the dining room at the nursing home.  I was struck by his quiet dignity as he sat there, complying with the unwanted spoonfuls of color relentlessly coming his way.  His toothless jaw seemed set in resolve; he would eat because he didn't want to be a problem to anyone. 

He held a crumpled piece of paper towel in his hand.  His nose was running, and he kept using the paper towel to dry it.  He was coughing too, and by the time the lady left him to eat his liquid dessert on his own, he had started sneezing repeatedly.  I could tell he didn't feel well, and I reached over and felt his forehead to see if he had fever.  He didn't seem to; he said he didn't anyway.  I pulled out my handkerchief and gave it to him, and he immediately put it to work.

He didn't eat much of his dessert, which was unusual.  He also said he didn't want any coffee.  When I rolled him back to his room, I noticed that his scalp had shed a layer of dandruff on his shoulder, from when they combed his hair for supper.  When we got back to his room, I noticed a little sign on his door saying he had been recognized for some little honor, I can't remember now even what it was.  He seems to participate in the various activities they have for the residents, which I find both surprising and delightful.  He is and always has been a people person, in spite of his natural shyness.  He was very isolated when he lived at home after Mama died; I think he missed being around other people.  I'm glad he has that now. 

I backed his wheelchair up so that he could see the TV.  We watched the news.  We never talk much; it's never come naturally for either of us.  I wish that was different.  It's just that way for some fathers and sons.  Sometimes I can get him to talk about PT Boats; he served on one during World War II.  But I've pretty much used up all of my PT Boat conversation starters, so we sat in silence, watching the days events unfold as told by Darren Bobb. 

It was time to leave.  I checked his supply of sweets; still okay on soft Little Debby bars and powdered donuts.  I asked him if he wanted to lay down in his bed; no, he would just sit in his wheelchair.  I put the remote to the TV on the bed beside his chair.  "Do you need anything Daddy?"  "Nope," the standard reply.  "I guess I'll head on up the road.  See you next Thursday."

"Okay.  Come back."

And there he sits, the man who used to climb telephone poles with metal spikes attached to his boots, the man who used to fight fires as Chief, the man who could fix anything that was broken, and charge you about five dollars to do it.  The man who stopped his telephone truck  between Waldron and Mansfield on a cold winter night and brought home giant icicles from the frozen cliffs beside the road.

I was glad I was able to give him my handkerchief.

"I will Daddy.  I will."

My Pet Alligator

I think I inherited from my father a love for the unusual. I guess that’s why, when I was about 12, I decided I needed a pet alligator.

Back then, it was a rare treat to get to go to Fort Smith, and a trip always included a visit to our favorite Fort Smith store, K-Mart. K-Mart was a fascinating place, and after spending time looking at the toys, I always gravitated over to the pet department. The exotic fish and the little hamsters all were nice, but what got my attention was the baby alligators. Yes, K-Mart sold baby alligators as pets. Technically, they were caimans, a close relative of the alligator, but nevertheless, they were awesome. I knew I had to have one.

Incredibly, I somehow convinced Mama and Daddy of the soundness of this idea. So, one Saturday morning, we found ourselves in K-Mart buying an alligator. We had gone up to visit my brother and his wife, and they had driven us over to make the purchase. I very excitedly picked out which alligator I wanted (yes, they had several to choose from), and I also purchased a small rectangular glass fishbowl (not quite an aquarium) to keep it in. They placed my alligator in a little box that had a picture of a hamster on the outside, and we headed back to my brother’s house. Along the way, I could hear my alligator scratching on the box, wanting out. I grew concerned after a bit, because the scratching eventually stopped. I didn’t dare open the box to check on the contents; I wasn’t sure how to put an alligator back in a box. But, by the time we arrived at my brother’s house, I was gravely concerned about my alligator.

In my brother’s kitchen, I prepared for the transfer to the fishbowl. Still no signs of life from the hamster box. Gingerly, I opened one end of the box and tilted it toward the fishbowl. The whole family watched in silent anticipation. Nothing was happening; perhaps the lifeless alligator corpse had become lodged in the hamster box. But suddenly, and without warning, my little alligator sprang from the hamster box into the fishbowl, his fierce mouth agape, emitting a fierce hiss that signaled, “I mean business.”

My sister-in-law, a mild, quiet woman, let out a blood-curdling shriek. My alligator, evaluating the situation, began jumping against the sides of the fish bowl. Fortunately, he was only about 8 inches from head to tail, so he wasn’t quite big enough to make a break for it. So, once a sense of calm was restored, we put a piece of cardboard on top of the fishbowl and headed home.

At home, I quickly realized a couple of important facts. One, my alligator needed a bigger habitat than his little fishbowl. And two, I really knew nothing about taking care of an alligator. I solved problem one by dragging out an old vinyl swimming pool that we had used a few years earlier, the kind with sides made of sheet metal about 3 feet high, and covered with a vinyl lining. I placed an old tire rim under the plastic lining to serve as an island, and filled the pool up with water. As for the care and feeding of an alligator, I attempted to solve this by going up to Buddy Gray’s store and buying two dozen minnows. I dumped them into the water, figuring my little alligator could then have a snack anytime he wanted it.

Unfortunately, my little alligator didn’t appear to know how to catch fish. However, if I caught a minnow by hand and laid it down on his island beside him, he would oblige me by biting the minnow in half when it started flopping. However, he seemed content to just kill the minnow and showed no interest in actually eating it. He would take a bite of raw hamburger meat, which I eventually became brave enough to allow him to snap out of my hand, much to the awe and amazement of anyone who happened to be watching.

But, as summer passed and fall arrived, tragedy struck. One morning, as I was on my way to school, I stopped by to check on my alligator and found his lifeless body curled up in a fold in the vinyl. I don’t know if the temperature had dropped too low during the night, or perhaps he just couldn’t find enough to eat. Whatever the reason, my little alligator was dead.

When I got home from school, I prepared his body for burial. I placed him in a cigar box and buried him in a hole I had dug in the garden. Sadness, mixed with a bit of relief. You know, it’s a little more difficult to bond with an alligator than, say, a kitten or a dog. In fact, in absence of that bond, I did get a little curious over the winter about what an alligator skeleton looked like. So, I am quite ashamed to report, the next spring I dug up my little alligator. There, inside the cigar box, was a perfectly preserved alligator skeleton. I kept it as intact as I could, although over the years it ended up being a collection of bones in a little jar rather than a fully formed scientific specimen. And somewhere, I’m not quite sure where, maybe in a box in a storage cabinet in my garage, there is still a little jar full of alligator bones.

The Adventures of Smokey The Crow

This story takes place when I was a little bit too young to develop any memories, so many thanks to my brother Gene for writing this for me.  Here are Gene's recollections along with some parenthetical comments from me:

When we were growing up our Dad worked for the telephone company. He also did electrical and refrigeration repairs on the side. Sometimes he would get real pay for these side jobs, but more often he would get other items instead of pay. He even brought home a 1930 Model A Ford one day.



I remember the day he brought home Smokey the Crow. We were mesmerized; Smokey could actually talk! He had taken the crow as payment for some repair he did for Blue Minor from Boles, Arkansas. He explained to us that some people said you had to split the crow’s tongue so they could talk, but Smokey disproved that because his tongue was not split.

For growing crows

He had a wire cage about 4 foot square made out of the same black sticks we got from the furniture factory to stake tomatoes and beans. They were nailed together and covered with chicken wire. We kept Smokey in that cage and Dad kept his wings clipped so he would not fly away when we got him out to feed him. Feeding him was an interesting job. We would mix him some “Pablum” baby cereal and separate a clothes pin to dip it out for him. We had to hold on to the clothes pin as hard as we could because Smokey would swallow it too if he got it away from us. I guess he really liked that cereal because he would make a “yum-yum” sound while eating.


We learned very soon that Smokey was very accurate when he had to go to the bathroom. We had to be sure not to get too close to the cage after he had eaten, if you know what I mean. For this reason we eventually let his wings grow out and got rid of the cage. There was a very large Elm tree by the driveway, and it soon became Smokey’s favorite roost. He would sit up there and exclaim “Hello” to anyone who passed by. Our Grandmother (Me-Maw) worked as a cook at Bill and Jo Cope’s Café. She would walk past the house on the way to work and return in the afternoon after work. Smokey took to greeting her with “Hello” in the morning and he would then escort her to work and go get her in the afternoon. I never could figure out where he wore his watch. (Mama used to tell about a day when Memaw was sick and didn't go to work.  Smokey became concerned, and went down to check on her.  He lit on her screen door and scratched until she came to the door!)

One of Smokey's relatives

Smokey was a very enjoyable pet to grow up with but he sometimes got himself into trouble. Our neighbor, Sophia Floyd would hang her laundry on her clothes line behind her house. I suppose Smokey liked the different colors, so he would land on the clothes line and look at the bright colors. Refer back to my earlier mention of Smokey’s accuracy and you can imagine the trouble he brought onto himself. Due to this we had to get rid of Smokey so I have to believe that Dad took him out to a large group of crows and introduced him to the group where he lived out a very long and fruitful life. I always say “Hello” to any crow I see, in case it might be one of Smokey’s grand kids.

(My brother Gary recalls an incident in which Smokey went missing one day.  After searching the neighborhood, it was discovered that a local hooligan who shall remain nameless had hit Smokey with a rock, breaking his leg and causing him to fall out of his tree.  The hooligan then took Smokey to his house.  When this was discovered, Daddy went to get Smokey and gave the hooligan a quarter for feeding him.  I remember this incident as well, but other family members think it may have happened with a different crow.  In any case, the broken leg eventually fell off and we had a one-legged crow.)

I'll bet that we probably weren't the only family in Waldron that had a pet crow!

Runaway!

The 1967 Ford Custom 500 that would eventually
become my car, pictured a few years before it tried
to do away with me.

It was a weird mixture of embarrassment and fear, that moment as I hurtled down Highway 71, behind the wheel of a car that seemed to have taken on a life of it's own, completely impervious to my commands.  My main concern was to keep from killing anyone who had the misfortune of being ahead of me that day.  I was going to have to figure out some way to bring this little drama to a close, but for the life of me I couldn't think of how.  All I could think of, oddly, were the words of that great cartoon character George Jetson, "Jane!  Stop this crazy thing!"  But I'll get back to that.

It happened at the conclusion of one of the happiest and most joyful periods of my life.  I had just graduated from Arkansas Tech University, and was moving back home to begin my post-college life.  Later that summer, I would be hired by the school district I had grown up in, Waldron, to teach fifth grade.  I would also buy a new car, a new 1978 Mercury Monarch, to replace the vile little machine that had tried to kill me. 

The little ghetto apartment I rented while I did my practice
teaching with Fort Smith schools.

I had spent the past 10 weeks doing my practice teaching, which is now called internship, at Morrison Elementary School in Fort Smith.  Those ten weeks confirmed that I had chosen a profession that I loved, a profession in which I would in fact spend the next 29 years looking forward to going to work each day.  Morrison was a small school in the northern part of Fort Smith, near the Arkansas River.  It was built as an "open classroom" school, meaning there were no walls separating the individual classrooms.  It was a little difficult for me at first, because I felt like I was on display to everyone in the building, but I soon adjusted to the concept.  There was only one class for each grade, and my class was Doris Collins' fifth grade.  Mrs. Collins was an older teacher, a gifted artist in fact, who could whip up a bulletin board for any topic just by painting it.  She was great, and gave me so much encouragement, once even telling me that I was a naturally born teacher.  I learned a lot from her, and she made my practice teaching experience a really wonderful time.  The kids were great too.  Many of them were from the local housing project located near the school, and I really bonded with them.  When I left after ten weeks, they put on a little skit, and one of the boys had a fake moustache and played the part of me.  I was so touched by it that I almost teared up.  I kept several little mementos from that time, including a note from a little girl who was participating in a contest from World Book.  The representative had visited our class, and the students were to prepare a little notebook full of coloring sheets to be turned in when he came back.  He made it clear that neatness was one of the main criterion for judging the book.  A little girl named Teri was going to be gone when he came back, but she entrusted me to turn in her notebook for her.  To make sure I didn't forget to turn it in, she left me this straightforward and to-the-point note:

I had arranged to rent a room from an old lady who had a beauty shop over by Sparks Hospital.  I moved in on a snowy February day, and my humble surroundings were like a palace to me.  I was so glad to leave behind forever my dorm, Paine Hall, at Arkansas Tech.  This little apartment had a little kitchen, a bigger room that was the living room and bedroom combined, and a tiny little bathroom.  But that little place was dear to me.  Usually, when I went home from college on weekends, I was in no hurry to get back.  But now, when I went home, I found myself eager to get back to my little ghetto apartment.  I was sad to leave it behind.  But on that weekend, I had traveled back to Russellville to go through graduation, then headed back one last time to my apartment to load up, and having done so, headed down Highway 71 to Waldron.  Along the way, my little Ford Custom 500 had one last surprise in store for me. 

I was south of Mansfield, in one of the rare straight stretches on that portion of the highway, when I saw the opportunity to pass a slow-moving car in front of me.  I eased around the car, stepping on the gas to speed up to complete the maneuver.  Once around the car, I pulled back into my lane and took my foot off the accelerator.  To my surprise, the gas pedal stayed where it was, and my car continued on at the same speed it was traveling when I passed that car! 

Now let me say, in the calmness after the fact, it occurred to me that the thing to do would have been to put the car in neutral and coast to a stop.  This solution, in all it's elegant simplicity, was nowhere present in the moments of the actual crisis.  Realizing that my car was going way too fast for the narrow curves that mark that part of Highway 71, all I could think of to do alternately stomp the brake pedal and the gas.  I briefly considered turning the key off, but I realized that to do that would disable my power steering and brake, and I knew that would be disastrous.

The immediate problem, as I careened crazily down Highway 71, was the traffic in front of me.  Since I appeared to be unable to shut down my demonic car, I though I should at least try to warn all the unfortunate people who were about to be slammed into.  So, as I came upon a little family driving leisurely down the highway, I tried to make my presence known. 

Imagine, for instance, a man driving his wife and kids somewhere, who, upon hearing a distant horn honking, happens to glance into his rear view mirror.  He sees a blue car moving alarmingly fast toward him, with a crazed driver who is alternately honking his horn and waving frantically for him to move over.  He wisely does so, and watches as the crazed lunatic zips past him and hurtles on down the road.  This little scenario is repeated several times.

Finally, I realized that if I didn't find a way to stop, this might not end well.  So, I decided that I was going to apply the brake, and even if it burned up both the engine and the brake pads, I was stopping this sucker. 

And I did.  I put on my brakes, and with the engine racing, eased over to the shoulder of the road and shut down the engine.  And I just sat there.  My heart was racing at the same level my engine had been, and all I wanted to do was not move for a minute.  And then, all those cars that I had passed came along.  Without exception, each driver and passenger stared at me like I was from the moon.  Nobody stopped to help, they just slowly passed by, evidently thankful that I was no longer on the road.

After a few minutes, I started the engine.  Everything seemed normal.  Just to be safe, however, I traveled the remaining few miles of my journey at a maximum speed of 30 m.p.h. 

When I got home, I got a can of spray carburetor cleaner and sprayed the linkage, which appeared to have a little bit of sticky gunk on it.  That did the trick, and my little Ford never had a sticky accelerator again. 

My mom drove that car for a long time after that.  But I was happy when I got my new Mercury later that summer.  It turned out to be a piece of junk, but at least it never tried to kill me.