Color it Black and you have the Buick
(A story from 1952)
I had written this story (most of it anyway) about a year and a half ago it got lost in the shuffle somehow. This story has three main characters, Ray, me (Bill), and the 39 Buick Century.
From the time we met in 1938 I was 5 and Ray was about 3 1/2 we became best friends. Ray lived on Atlantic Ave. on Sterling Creek. Our family moved to Manor Place in 1938. Ray and I were sort of loners but we had a good time. We loved the creek and we new it better than any one. We even raised crabs and had floating crab cars that’s what we called them. We always had 100 crabs or so on hand, along with 25 or 30 eels. We also raised clams. We had chicken wire around the bottom of the docks; clams and scallops can swim as well as dig in the mud. There are some neat stories around Sterling Creek some of these stories were written before the Blog.
However, I will have to do them over, enough of that back to The 39 Buick story. This story takes place in 1951 and I was about 17 at the time and Ray was 15. We had to have working papers but Rays father said not for farm workers, we applied or them anyhow. We still had no car; Ray had to be 16 before he could apply for a license so what’s the rush? Ernie Wiggens farm was 4 miles and that was nothing for because we had our trusty bikes. Ernie Wiggens was real old near 70. Anyway Ernie was probably senile like I was at 12.
The first thing Ray noticed was that Ernie had a 1949 Dodge in his garage. When we found out he had it for about 3 years and it had only 5900 miles on it. I had 11,000 miles on my Roadmaster bicycle in less than three years, but Ernie only drove to church on Sunday, and he and his wife went to Florida every other year.
Ernie was fed up with the Puerto Ricans that were sent to pick-to-pick potatoes, corn and other truck farming items. He was only paying them $.75 an hour. We were supposed to get $.85 an hour. We worked 44 hours in 5 1/2 days $50.00 a week seemed pretty good for school kids. For me this was the forth farm I worked on this year. Before this Ray and I worked at Burts dairy and Sills Dairy. Both of these Dairy’s were on their way out and they were history a few years after we worked there. I don’t think we had anything to do with that. Meanwhile back to the cars.
We must have looked at least 10 cars to find a car for less then $700 that was real good condition. We looked at 2 1947-2dr Chevy’s (dullsville). We did find a 1948 two door Pontiac Torpedo it had only 11,000 miles on it. They had backed the car up against a fence wooden fence. The woman that was selling it said her husband had the keys and he was at work. She also said 2 other people were looking at it and they would be back that day. If we were really interested we should leave a $50 deposit on it and we were smart enough to see it was a rip off. A car was in good shape for $700! When she went back in the house, we pushed the bushes back from the fence and we could see the bumper was pushed in about 8 or 10 inches and the left rear fender had a dent. It was called a Pontiac Torpedo but I think it should have been called a Pontiac that was torpedoed.
A year or so ago we had bought a couple of lot cars from the junkyard to experiment with. Sometimes these places would pick up a good car with only minor work and make a good profit. At this time the junkyard on the North Road had a 42 Packard 110. For that car he wanted $900,00 and that as about $300 more than what Ray had. Another Packard we looked at was a 1942 Packard 180 that was a real nice car, it was a 4 door but the owner wanted $1100. The Packard’s were twice the price new than then either a Chevy or Pontiac were. With out a doubt the best car we found, if Ray could have afforded it, probably would have been the worst car he could have bought. A gas station owner that had serviced a 1941 Lincoln Continental knew that the owner of the car had died several months ago. This car was in mint condition and was dark green. It had 292 cu inch V12 with less than 2500 miles. The Lincoln was now owned by a woman in Orient. The car had been in the garage for 7 months and her husband had not driven it for a couple of years. It was another of those legend cars that had been put in the back of a barn and had been forgotten about for years. This car, however, the woman wanted someone in the family to buy it or have someone to take care of it. But, they really did not want to sell it. Ray and I were one of the few that had a chance to try it. The place they kept it was dry and had a cement floor. One or the other family members would start it every couple weeks. We finally had our chance with the Lincoln it started on about the 4th time and the engine had a satisfying rumble to it. We drove of and it seemed a little hard to shift, it ran fairly smooth in second but the shift to third went in with a clunk. We got up to 50 and slowed to 20 for the corner. Then we stopped along side of the road. Lets check the engine.
I said, “ No lets see how fast it will go.”
We were on a side road the road goes past a farm lot for about a mile then goes through a woodsy marshy area for a mile and a half. We had no idea what to expect, we were ignorant of this 12-cylinder monster. I wasn’t driving so I didn’t know what could be worse this 12 cylinder that was completely beyond the unknown.
“Lets go.” I said “just don’t push the gas pedal more than half way in first. “
Just as we took off we both noticed a black cloud right behind us that was about the width of the car and 10 or 12 ft higher than the car. You could not see the road in the back. We had it in first gear.
I said,” floor it. I think it’s coming after us.”
We sort of left it behind at 30 mph. Ray was having trouble shifting out of first and the cloud was catching up. We finally got it in second at 40 mph. We were gradually losing the smoke or rather the smoke was still with us but only a foot from the road. Ray had it in third for the next 2 miles and we never got over 65 mph. On the way back on the main road, we reached about 69 mph. We had to stop twice on the way back as it was over heating. The Lincoln’s brakes had no idea that they might have to stop a car that was doing 65 mph. I guess it didn’t matter that the price was too high $1750. There was no way Ray could afford that car. It’s something I would have bought myself if I had the money. It was one of the classic cars that became more valuable every year $1750 would be giving it away by 1960. This car would be selling for $ 10,000 in 1980, about $20,000 in 1990 and more than $ 45,000 in 2005. In those TV auction shows $ 150,000 was not unusual. Lincolns from 1930 thru 1948 had reach as much as $250, 000 for certain models. It seems crazy but classic cars are one of the best of investments.
Some of the Packard’s from 1930 to 1942 are selling at
Auctions at $400,000 plus there are about 12 American Classics. The one that defies your imagine is the 1930 to1937 Duesenberg, last one sold in 1989 for 3.5 million and the value increases 10 % a year so now it could be
Sold for nearly 4 million. So really even when we were looking for a car that rough running Lincoln we tried was worth two or three times $1750. However, though this Lincoln was mechanically unique it was still dogged by reliably woes.
Anyway we went back to work not too happy with our search.
Ray said, “I had dreams about a black car!”
“What’s wrong with that.” I said
“I just never liked black.”
The first week we worked the farm our boss, when Ernie wasn’t around, was Bob Brown. He always came to work with a stake body Dodge pickup about a 1948. It looked like new because he took good car of it. He was a man of few words. That could be good or a bad thing. The first thing he said to us was do you have any idea of what you are sitting on? What did that mean?
Was the skid of about 40 bags some kind of highly toxic chemicals? We did not know at this time. They were what we were using for a table some times. We had put our sandwiches directly down on the leaking bags. We already had been using it as our lunch area for over a week. When were they going to tell us?
Bob Brown said. “It was Ernie’s job to tell us.”
The bags were pretty beat up besides being packed up side down so you could not read it. We asked Ernie about the bags.
“Hmm bags of poison that’s what that is all right.” He said. “It only at first attacks your butt if you sit on them the rest of you will rot away later. Just don’t plan on having kids they may have two heads. I was just kidding. We have been using it for only two years so we don’t know what it will do. By the way, tomorrow you have to take those big coffee cans and fill them with this deadly white stuff. First you punch about 25 holes in the bottom. Then you will go out in the cauliflower field and shake the poison on each plant.”
There were about 400 cauliflower plants and 150 sprouts to shake the poison on.
“You will notice the plants for a couple days will look limp, but don’t worry. However, you will probably have more of that stuff on you and on the plants. So if you show up I think the plants will be alright.” said Ernie.
Now we find out what happened to all the Puerto Ricans.
Bob apparently overheard us talking about cars. The next morning we were out on the lawn in front of Ernie’s house when a vision appeared before us. It was in the color of black and it was a Buick. We must be dreaming! It turned out to be Bob Brown. We could not imagine him turning up with a Buick. He parked the Buick under a big apple tree behind the garage. We were excited, but at the same time enthralled by seeing the Buick this close. It was defiantly a rush for us.
Bob said, “you were looking for a good car well here it is.”
We asked, “how come you are not driving it?”
“Well for one thing my father has had it for 4 years, but he has real bad eyesight so he has not been able to drive it for most of that time. So I have been taking care of it. I use it on weekends to down town. I have even been in a few Parades with his veterans flag on it. He hated the thoughts of selling it to somebody that wouldn’t appreciate it.”
We were already late for work so what. We had to know the details. The big Buick had a 320 cu. in ohv 8 engine, fold down jump seats behind the front seats. IT was a 4-passenger sport coupe with side mounts for the tires that fit into the fenders on both sides. It weighed 4,165 lbs and there were 3,470 of them produced. When Bob came up with the price of $650.
Ray said, “ I’ll take it.”
“Don’t you even want to try it?”
“No, No,” said Ray “I want it. “
Ray drove the car home and Bob took Ray’s and my bike to his house. Ray must have had his money in a piggy bank because he paid Bob cash right then. Along with the car Bob gave Ray a 3-carburetor manifold, racing carbs and some other Buick parts. As far as he knew the engine had never been apart and the carbs were in the trunk.
I forgot to tell you that we had been planning to go camping on Shelter Island (car camping). If we had a car by September when all the kids were back to school and most of the summer people had left. Shelter Island had in the summer time as many as 20,000 people and by the end of September there was less than 1000. So you can see there would be no place to hide in the summer. We were somewhat familiar with the eastern end of the island as we made 5 hunting forays from Hay beach south. All of our hunting had only taken us 100 yds inland form the beach. We were intrigued by what was behind all that marsh and forest. But let it be known we will find out.
Ray polished that car and checked every part. We planned on taking the 3rd weekend in September 19th and 20th. Ray and I gradually got all our camping stuff ready. By this time we were experts at camping. We had camped by bicycle 5 or 6 times, camped by boat about 5 times, and on foot once. Now we will be camping by car. We were experts all right we even had our own checklists so we would not forget any thing this time. The tent and poles were the last things we put in behind the seats.
Know matter how you plan it when you get to the ferry there is always a line since the ferry only held 10 cars. At this time the ferry slip was on railroad property. The street to the ferry had to be only 1 lane because it was on a residential street and it could not be blocked. When we got there the line was 16 cars long, so we figured 2 more ferries and we should be on the third one. Meanwhile we pondered over what we should do first when we got over there. As we sat there two cars came barreling down the left side of the ferry line and stopped at the front of the line. Wait a minute now there were 2 more ahead of us!
“This is ridiculous.” Said Ray “they can’t start their own line”
“Around here they can!” I said
As Ray got out of the Buick 3 more cars came down the center adding them selves to the head of the line. Ray was getting teed off. The spot were we waiting were the last house and a garden on the right side of the road. The rest of the land used to belong to the railroad now it is just a cleared area all the way to the ferry line with the RR station was on the right side. The ferry had the
Right away across the turn around. We could see the station from where we waited about 200 ft from us. In front of the RR station was a Greenport Police car with two cops were talking throwing the bull. Ray took off down to were the cops were. When he got to them I could see him making motions I couldn’t imagine what he was telling them motioning to our car. He waited a minute then motioned for me to come on. The keys were in the ignition I moved over and started the Buick and for some reason it sounded like a tank
Ray said. “Take it o the head of the line.”
What the h--- did you tell them,” I said
“My Grandmother is waiting on the other side and we were over an hour late already. We told her we would call her if were late I told the cops she might have a heart attack if we hadn’t gotten there by now. We have to call her and tell her what to do if we are not there in the next half hour.”
Our Buick Tank was first on the next ferry. When we pulled out of line to get ahead off everybody else we heard some cat calling like
“Why don’tcha get a real car!”
“Just because you got a Tiger Tank doesn’t mean you can get ahead of us”
Of course they had no choice Tanks Rule.
Our Buick was enjoying itself already and we hadn’t gotten to the Island yet. Its rumbling of its innards were louder than when we first started. Ray new it needed a tail pipe and was not sure about the muffler. When we got off the ferry the main road goes up a hill, on the right aide is a brushy area lurks a Shelter Island Police car. The only thing is Shelter Island had no police car this car was a dummy car made with 2 pieces of 4+8 ft plywood and was a copy of a 1947 Police Ford.
It usually was folded down except for weekends or holidays then it was raised to a car position. How much it really did to deter crime, but it made some out of Towner’s slow down a little. There were two of these imitation Police cars, who knows were. The one nearest to the ferry at sometimes had a flashing light on top. I had taken a bike trip with Ray and 3 other guys in 1950 and it looked like they were new then.
The area we wanted to explore on the inland the area was we did most of our hunting in ‘51 & ‘52. There was a large Golf Club on one end of this area so if we could find that we might be able find the trail. It was about 1 o’clock and we totally forgot what we were doing. Wee were just in a daze both of us, it seemed in a fog. For some reason Ray was going from one side of the road to the other we settled down trying to stay in the middle of the road.
“Were are we?” Ray quipped. “I think we are going around in circles.”
The outside temperature was about 50 degrees so we had the windows up.
I said, ” to pull over until we find out who we are.”
We stopped.
What’s wrong!
When we stopped and opened the doors there was smoke coming from the center of the car. We pulled back the floor mat (which was new) and the floor was rusted out under the mat with the exhaust fumes coming up through the floor. What made it worse was the pipe in front of the muffler had completely rotted through and that pipe was directly under the front seat. We were driving on carbon monoxide fumes. It took us a half hour to figure how to fix it. Ray had a good idea there were a couple of old license plates in the trunk. Lucky Ray carried his tools around with him. We bent the plate around the pipe and wired it to the not too hot looking muffler. We noticed when we got off the ferry that the car seemed louder. Bob did tell us that it would need a muffler soon. Like the next week! It’s a strange feeling like we were waking you up in the middle of a huge forest or being dropped at a cross road with no signs telling you where you were. We hadn’t the remotest idea of what part of the island we were. We just drove and took every turn that seemed to go east. We ran across two dead ends, both were to a private drives. We both felt like idiots and totally stupid. How do we ask for directions from hear to someplace we were not sure we wanted to be? We passed a few people but couldn’t get the nerve ask. After looking at our
14-year-old Buick they sort of backed up. The next person we run across we would ask no matter what. The first lucky person was all in white maybe a gardener.
“Excuse me sir, (he didn’t run away) could you, tell us where we are.”
“Well you are in Pine Lawn Sanctuary”
“Oh you mean this is a place to watch birds?”
“I don’t think some of these people would really like you calling them birds. “Looking at your car it looks like you came to thee right place. Do you have a sponsor or someone who recommended you as our patient.”
“Boy he has got us figured out for sure. Lets get out of hear. “
We would have to look further. So we drove about a mile or so and there were two women standing by a green park bench (the bench said Shelter Island Park).
Ray asked the women do you have any idea where we are, we are really lost.
One of the women answered “boy that’s the worse line I ever heard! If you really want to find the ferry you just go down this street and take the next right turn and then go 2 blocks and turn right at the marina. From there you turn right again at the Baptist Church then you just go strait to East island Park.”
If our brains were working at all we would have realized that we had directions that would take them back where we started. As we passed them one of the girls yelled want to try again. We had the feeling that wasn’t the first time they had pulled that trick. So at least now we could find some directions to the marina.
They gave us directions to the Golf Club, the area we were looking for was right next to the club. We found the area we wanted in about 15 minutes. The time was almost 4 o’clock and we had to find a road that went down in the Hay Beach area that looked like it was not a private road or a road that might have a mansion attached to it. We had hunted on the bay side and there were 3 o 4 dirt roads or should I say unimproved roads. Three of the unimproved roads were across open fields with tall grass and a sprinkle of pines and spruce trees. It looked like it might have been farmed at some time but not in the last10 years. From this road it was about 100yds to the woods. The golf club was the only place of importance on this road and there was only one house near we would go in. We didn’t want anybody to see us drive onto the property. We drove in the dirt road that was used at least then we crossed one bad spot with dead trees could have been a swamp. The road had been filled in and was starting to wash away. Just passed this swamp there was a three sided shed about 16 ft square. The only thing inside was some old farm equipment and misc. junk. The road passed the shed then branched off. We had taken the left branch because it was less traveled on. It was built up in spots and was beginning to look like it might not have been a good trail to pick. Since it was only September so most of the trees and bushes still had their leaves that made it was hard to tell if there was a deep hole in the road. We just let our tank to get us thru. We sure we hit all the deepest holes we could find. We finally got to within about 150 ft of the bay, when we were stopped by a few dump truck loads of scallop shells about 4 feet high and there was no getting around them,
“I hope they didn’t do this to all the roads.” I said.
If you thought it was fun driving a spots car on a winding road try doing that in a “39 Buick with about half the window space of a modern car? Ray had me drive it backwards for 300 feet I only hit two trees, luckily most of the trees along the trail were 3 inches or less. Don’t forget the Buick had no power steering and trying to back up with the potholes and trees was something else. We were dragging some vegetation along with a pretty big branch about 12 ft long. Several other branches were stuck under the floor.
We drove down the right branch this road was better, wider and had been maintained, and went into the woods for 250 ft or so. There was a beautiful view of the bay.
“O brother!” said Ray “I just thought of something and your goanna hate me.”
“Well what’s the problem?”
“I forgot the matches!”
“O great how are we goanna cook the fish?” I said.
“What fish.” Said Ray.
“The fish we talked about catching a couple of months ago when we planned our Shelter Island trip. You said you didn’t even need poles or bait you were going to catch them by hand.” I said
“Did I say that I must have been out of my mind? You seem to like getting things planed and making check lists and all that crap.”
“So what are we eating? I have my hostess cup cakes, a package of hot dogs, a Twinkie, a liverwurst sandwich and 2 6 packs of coke. So Ray what did you bring besides not getting the fish?”
I really hated to ask this question sometimes it makes me sick.
“Well,” said Ray, “ I have my usual 2 cans of Vienna sausages, 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, 2 bags of chips and bag of popcorn.”
We decided we would camp in this spot. It was about 6:30. We took every thing out of the trunk and got things together. I took the barb-b bowl. This is the original barbeque grill made in England in 1948 you fill it with charcoal and light it after it burn down to white ash then things really cook on these stoves-----but they aint worth a crock if you forget the fuel–charcoal.
“How does this work?” I said-
“Oh its easy,” said Ray. “ Just put---“
“There aint no just put you forgot the fuel.” I said, “We are off to a good start. Wait a minute I think we both are missing half our brains”
“Why do you say that?”
“We have a cigarette lighter on the dash ---“
“So what neither one of us smoke!”
“I’m talking about making a fire in your Barb-b Bowl.”
“That’s right, how come you never thought of that?”
“I just don’t have your brains!”
We tried starting a couple pages of a magazine it would burn all right but we could get only a few feet and the paper would go out. There’s no way we could keep the fire burning at all except right by the car with the door open to block the wind. We dragged any small sticks from, near by.
“What are we cooking?” Said Ray
“Well you’re the one who said they could catch fish with just your hands.”
“Well sure in the day light!”
I said, “what will we have instead fried peanut butter sandwiches? May be we can use the flash lights,”
“A good idea.”
We were really getting into it now. We rolled up our pants and waded go out 4 or 5 feet.
“This is how the Indians did it!’ Ray said
I returned, “Oh sure they just pulled out their trusty Ray-O-Vac flashlights.”
“I think they used the moon in those days.”
I was a surprised when in about 10 minuets we pushed several Blowfish up to the waters edge until they sort of grounded themselves. The Ray flipped two of them on up the beach. We became macho in ten minuets we thought we were great.
“However, how do you clean a Blowfish with a hunting knife that never had cut anything but string?
“Blowfish don’t have scales,,,,
”Good you say what do they have?”
“I’ll tell you they have a cross between #10 graded sandpaper, and bison skin. You have skin them,
I had cleaned my share of Blowfish as had Ray. We had all kinds of branches, pieces of wood, beach grass, and dried seaweed we put our kill in the middle conflagration of fire.
You couldn’t see them after we put hem on the fire. The Barb-b Bowl wasn’t made for a three-alarm fire. We had to get them out of there with a couple sticks. We tried moving them but the sticks burned faster then fish. We finally maneuver our still burning fish out of the fire and sort of stamped on them to put the fire out. We did have paper plates so we doubled them up but the Blowfish still burned through. I watched to see what Ray was going to do. He just scraped the fish down to where all that was left of the fish and that was raw as if it just came out of the water. So move over here come the Twinkies and the Hostess cup cakes.
(Don’t let Bill fool you we never had a camping trip that was not a disaster of some sort.)
Ray took the tent and poles onto the high beach, it was a nice spot from there we could see two lighthouse and if you had a good scope you could see my mother’s future house in East Marion about 4 miles away.
“Golf clubs!” yelled Ray “what the hell do we need them for?!”
“That’s what you had in the cellar tied with string in the tent bag. The tent poles must still be there.”
Ray sat down on the still unpacked tent. He just sat there twiddling one of the clubs---
“Well I suppose the next thing you will tell me to use the Golf T’s for tent pegs!”
“Gee I wouldn’t have thought of that, well maybe we can wire a couple together to make a center pole, they would be to short for the sides.”
We only had 6 clubs. We could wire two together for a center with 4 left it just was not going to work. We tried branches and sticks. When we got finished it looked like nothing either of us could describe. No matter how you got in it would roll over to a different position. The sewed in bottom of the tent wanted to be on top the opening and the way to get in was on the bottom. It was a 3-man tent but it was doubtful that two would ever fit. It seemed to be getting muggy it wasn’t supposed to rain but it sure felt like it.
The temperature was about 75 at 8 pm. It was dark before 8. The spot we camped at was dark. We had flashlights but they seemed to give as much light as a lightning bug does. You actually couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It was, also, cloudy that didn’t help any.
With out anything to do we decided to go back and take that last road we hadn’t got to. It was like the others except it went uphill to the highest point on Shelter Island (about 75 ft). When we went down it seemed more than that! The road was washed out near the bottom, with ruts were over a foot deep. The old Buick didn’t care it just made some deeper ruts of its own. There was a chalet on the right they probably go out another way. There was no maintenance on that road. Down near the bottom most of the rocks actually really boulders (any thing over 100 lbs is a boulder) we couldn’t get through that. We had to back up and with no back up lights.
“Brother are we stupid or what? How the hell do get out of here? I said.
I just Ray drive the Buick. I had a flashlight. If I learned something that day it was that the interior lights in old cars is like a worn out nite light today, only half as bright. Trying to hold a flashlight pointing it at all these rocks at the same time was impossible.
With a clang and crash both tail pipes and the muffler all went at the same time. The rear tail pipe was jammed between 2 good size rocks; we never saw the muffler or the other pipe again. There was some swearing before we got the transfer case and transmission over the biggest rocks. We got back to the camp OK, it was 10 o’clock.
Apparently the mosquito’s had their spies out in force.
We were probably the first meal they had in a month. We had to fight them off before we could get Ray in the
Tent, box, kite) or what ever it was. It was sort of a ball sometimes. It started to roll when Ray laid on one side.
I couldn’t leave him like that he might roll into the bay.
I stuck 2 golf clubs in the sand on the bay side and jammed any loose branches under the------what ever
I was. I was pretty chewed up by the time I got in the
Car. It was hot in the car but there was 5 million mosquito’s outside and only a hundred or so in the car.
About midnight it started raining and I couldn’t open the windows. I was feeling sorry for Ray, but I was having my own problems. If any one ever tried to sleep in this car they must have had the steering wheel and steering column removed. I tried every position. The last one I tried was to rest one foot over the steering wheel. I must have tried to roll over and my foot got jammed under the door handle on the drivers side. I finally got loose. This is nuts was I having a good time NOOO!!!!
I yelled to Ray 3 times I could not imagine he could be asleep he must be getting pretty wet by now.
“ MA! Did I just yell Ma I hope not, but I thought I would go check. The tent was still there but the opening was on the bottom I had to roll the tent around to find the screen. When I found the zipper opening to open the screen it was jammed. I had nothing to cut it with so I ripped it with a scallop shell. I was totally grossed out his back looked like a add for a science fiction movie “The Attack Of the Monster Skeeters!”
We both agreed to leave while we were able. The Buick was having a good time even though it lost some of its parts. Ray and I wouldn’t want to drive through town making that much noise especially on Sunday. The roads were so narrow there was no way we could turn around, on this road anyway. We had already rammed 3 trees going backwards to oblivion. The road didn’t go in a strait line for more than 50 ft. One thing we learned was if you pushed a certain size tree you keep going in that direction and when you back up you drive over the branches the other way and they jamb their branches up into your wheel well and this will you’re your mufflers or tailpipes off, if you haven’t lost them already.
We backed up until we found the 16 by 16 shed then we turned around. We had room because of the road branched off by the shed. We figured we were out of that mess. The road was in better shape then the rest of roads. We drove a couple hundred yards and we ran across an iron gate that was tied open with a chain. We couldn’t recall noticing that when we came in. It looked like the road was wider. There was an old Laurel looking bush on both sides of the road and other bushes under the trees. We followed the path but it seemed to look like someone’s yard. The path seemed to disappear and with out thinking fast enough we hit a couple piles of flowers, and a bunch of discolored ribbons got wrapped around our antenna. Ray turned sharp to avoid hitting a big cement jug. Who would be dumb enough to leave that thing in the road? When Ray turned we drove over a big square rock about 10 or 12 inches high it scraped the differential and we stopped. The whole area was overgrown with tall grass and weeds. When Ray got out to check it out, right away he got back in the car.
“I can’t believe it,” he said
“Yes I know.” I said”
We were in a line of 10 tombstones.
“I hope we can get off this one before somebody sees us.” said Ray.
By looking around at what you could see most of the cemetery had been neglected for a long time.
“Can we get it off,” I said
“We have to tray! I hope we didn’t wake anybody.” Ray quivered.
Well if this Buick Tank doesn’t wake anybody hear or down town an Atom Bomb wouldn’t either. We tried moving the car forward and it didn’t move. Before we tried reverse. We could almost see the headlines now.
OLD BUICK SERCHES SHELTER ISLAND CEMETARY FOR ORIGINAL OWNER
Or
WORSE OLD BUICK TANK TERRORIZES SHELTER ISLAND SEARCHES OLD CEMETARY FOR IT’S FAMILY
However, luckily Ray backed off the stone after maneuvering around some difficult ones. We huffed and puffed back toward town, almost expecting to look back and see a bunch of zombies following us. Back on town we must have gotten half of the people in town up early. Every grade or hill Ray let up on the gas and the big Buick strait 8 belched flames that reflected off any house or building. The sound and the multi-colored flames would wake both the living as well as the deaf and even the blind shall see /feel the rumble of the TIGER TANK coming down the trail fearlessly even on Sunday. We managed to get on the first ferry back; we really did not wish to subject our Buick to ridicule. The BUICK enjoyed itself even if never went on a joy ride like this again. I am sure the
Buick had a good time; it only lost its muffler, tail pipes, a head light, windshield wiper and a slightly damaged differential. There were 5 or 6 dents in the bumpers when it was attacked by smart aleck young oaks. The Buick had a better time than we did.
We were hoping to get home with out being noticed. But, when we got off the ferry the attendant ask “did someone die on Shelter Island recently?”
