The Virgin Highway

Set your Wayback Machine for the summer of 1955, and zoom in on Fort Lupton.

The Colorado Highway Department had spent several months removing half of Dad and Grampa's farm in order to re-route Highway 85 west around downtown FL.

Eventually, a brand-new four-lane asphalt highway was built between Brighton and Fort Lupton.

Except for access to side roads, signage and striping, the highway was complete. Temptation took over. One night Mom and Dad went out for an evening to play cards, and I saw my chance.

I went out to the "red shed," a wonderful old rusty corrugated iron garage building that held one of our many hideouts and housed Grampa's lard rendering equipment.

The black 1948 Dodge half-ton was parked in the red shed. To get it out, the driver had to back around a corner inside the building, dodging holes in the wood floor and doing his best to emerge without smashing off either outside rear-view mirror. I successfully did this.

My brother Dick got in the cab beside me. Why he consented to ride along is a mystery to this day – Dick was not and is not one to be anywhere near any mischief.

I drove the Dodge in the two gears I could find, third and reverse. We rolled out back across the farm, sneaking behind the striped barricades at the highway, and headed for Brighton in third gear. As we started out, the fuel gauge read "E" for "dry." Never fear. No worries.

We had a great time – all the way to Brighton with no other vehicles in sight. At the Brighton barricades, we did a clumsy, halting U-turn, and back to Fort Lupton we went. The return trip was uneventful.

I maneuvered the Dodge back into the red shed without destroying any mirrors or dropping a wheel into any of the several holes.

I turned the engine off. I could hear the exhaust system doing that pop-pop-pop-crackle thing, cooling down. At that very moment, I heard the Pontiac coming up the drive. Short bridge game, must be.

Dad didn't seem to notice anything. I was sure he'd hear the muffler cooling, but he didn't. Dick didn't say a word. I didn't say a word.

The next day, Grampa ran out of gas downtown, an indication of the narrowness of our escape from discovery.

I was 13. Dick was 11. So far as I know, Dad and Mom never knew about my little trick. Highway 85 hasn't been that smooth or that vacant since that day.

Word of the week:

The slaughterhouse was on a small hill near the Platte River. At the base of that hill was a warm-water slough, complete with carp, ducks, crawdads, muskrats, cranes and sunfish.

I insist the slaughterhouse was a clean operation. Super hot water and continuous cleaning were the rule. But.

The muck on the bottom of the slough was deep, sticky, and black, black, black. It had this nature, I'm sure, because of the nature of the slaughterhouse effluent. Blood, among other things.

What did Grampa call this substance? "Niggermud."

Those hard-to-crack nuts we only saw at Christmas? We learned to call them Brazil nuts. What did Grampa call them? "Niggertoes."

What is someone called, in Grampa's vernacular, when he goes to Las Vegas and wins big? "Nigger rich."

When a machine or device is repaired in a haphazard or temporary manner, what does one call it? "Nigger-rigged." When a cigarette is passed back and forth among soldiers in a trench and it becomes damp on the end? "Nigger-lipped."

Are these nice things to say, nice words to use? Of course not. You'll hear black people call each other "nigger" but it's no compliment.

Here's what my 48-year-old Webster's dictionary says: "A vulgar, offensive term of hostility and contempt, as used by Negrophobes."

Dictionary.com says, "The term nigger is now probably the most offensive word in English. Its degree of offensiveness has increased markedly in recent years, although it has been used in a derogatory manner since at least the Revolutionary War. Definitions 1a, 1b, and 2 represent meanings that are deeply disparaging and are used when the speaker deliberately wishes to cause great offense.

1. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive.
   A. a black person
   B. a member of any dark-skinned people.
2. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive: a person of any race or origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant, etc.
3. A victim of prejudice similar to that suffered by blacks; a person who is economically, politically, or socially disenfranchised.

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Next week's word: Intercourse. (I know, I know, I never let off do I?)

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