More about cars and N.Y.C.
Back then hundreds of cars were stolen, in the city every day! The New York Post said "The average life span of a Corvette (sports car) parked on the street was 24 hours!"...........One time coming back from R.I at 2:00 a.m. I took a wrong turn in the South Bronx’s.........NOT a place you would want to be in, that time of night. As I was driving around trying to find my way back to the express way, I could see the sparks form the cutting torches, people cutting up the cars they stolen the day before. I was Praying "Please God get me out of here"
We would see the cars that broke down on the Brooklyn Bridge the night before. They were pushed to the end of the off ramp. We would pass them on our way to the factory at 7:45 a.m.........they had no tires...........pass them again going to lunch.............no trunk or doors.............pass them on our way home that night..........no engine or seats............next day, it was just the shell sitting there.
A Brother in my Hall, got a flat tire on the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Express Way) A road, that back then had so many pot holes in it........you would swear it was shelled by mortars......Any way, he gets out of the car and starts jacking up the back end. Just then.........a car pulls up in front of him and 4 black guys jump out and before he could say a word, they start jacking up the front end of his car.........."HEY what are you doing" he asked ............."HEY MOTHER F.....KER!..........YOU GET THE BACK TWO ...........AND WE WILL GET THE FRONT TWO"......they said ........"But this is MY car".......he said .........."yeah?"...they said ......"YES" he said..........10 seconds later they were down the road, looking for more parts. This is a true story.
They didn't always have to work on that Saturday mornings at Bethel. An exBethelite told me that back in the 50’s that some Bethelites jump in their car Friday night after work and tried to drive to Chicago and be back for breakfast by Monday morning. They didn't make it and they crashed their car and three of them died. So Knorr figured that if they had been working, that would have never happen. New light, work on Saturday mornings. That man was a genius.
My soon to be brother in-law Mike Stillman.......had a 1946 orange pickup truck with a camper on the back, made out of old barn wood .........the camper door looked like an old out house door, with a half-moon on the back.....and above the door it said ......."KEEP ON TRUCKING".......Calvin Chyke hauled him into his office one day and told him, that he was a disgrace to the organization and how dare he put on his truck "KEEP ON TRUCKING" He said that EVERYONE knew that REALLY meant KEEP ON F....KING! Oh.........those brothers they just love to have fun with us. There are two types of people in the "Lord's house" the testers and the testis. He never took it off he was in the ink room and bullet proof.
As Bob Dylan said........"Some of us are prisoners.........and some us are guards."
I was walking to the factory one morning in the winter of 1974. I walked by my car and some kids sprayed painted my car with the words "F....k you" on the front fender. I thought......... did they really mean "Keep on Trucking." I laughed to myself, I wished I had painted it on there instead of them.
Oh yes! I waited until someone said something before I took it off....................."But. Brother I didn't put in on there.”...I said...." "WE KNOW THAT, just get it OFF."
God.........I wish you could have seen my car. I have a picture of her somewhere. "Road Warrior part II" I would drive down the FDR..........Radio on, with Elton John on playing "Rocket Man"......It was like parting the Red Sea.......a 1/2 mile ahead of me......... people in their cars would start moving into the other lanes.
They knew someone was coming, who had NOTHING TO LOSE!
As Bob Dylan said....... "When you got nothing......you got nothing to lose."
Two months before my sentence was up. "I was serving a 1 to 4 for impersonating a minister" ....I was walking to the factory one day, my car was parked next to the park. As I passed I notice that someone had taken a ball peen hammer to my wind shield, right were the driver looks out! As I looked down the street, I saw ALL the cars parked, new and old. ALL of them had their wind shields smashed..............then I looked up the hill..............all were smashed.I counted 53 cars with smashed windshields that morning, someone had some fun the night before!
Well, that was the death blow for my baby.They wanted 85 bucks for a new wind shield. There was no way I could put another dollar into that car.............So I drove it up to Rhode Island (180 miles away) one Saturday, with no wind shield it, it was 25 degrees, heater blasting, hoping the cops didn't pull me over. I parked it at my soon to be in-laws house and parted it out........sold the transmission rear end to a friend, keep the engine and tires.......sold the gas tank to Roy Baty, he welded it into his van, because of the gas crisis, now he could buy 35 gallons of gas at a time. In the end, she looked just liked one of those cars at the bottom of the Brooklyn Bridge.......R.I.P. sweetheart. My first real love!
Next up............... Love and sex in the "Big House"