“Cinnamon Girl”
In the fall of 1978 I bought a brand-new 1979 Jeep CJ-5, right off the showroom floor at Dolder Motor Company in downtown Blackfoot, Idaho.
It was a gold metal flake cinnamon brown with orange and yellow vinyl hood striping and lettering in similar colors that read “Renegade.”
My Jeep immediately became “Cinnamon Girl,” named after a very good Neil Young song of the era. In the style preferred by Jeep CJ owners of the time, I put her name in the space below the glass in the fold-down windshield.
Quickly, I removed the factory installed “smog” pump and put on a set of Smithy mufflers and twin exhausts that came out in front of the rear tires.
This thing had an enormous V-8 engine, and once relieved of its breathing problems, it was a formidable beast. Yipes. It would go fast. It would crawl. It would go straight up. It would go straight down. Brown convertible top and brown weatherproof seats completed the ensemble.
Later, as a gift, a girlfriend bought me a matching spare tire cover with “Jeep” imprinted on it. It was one stylin’ vehicle, very macho, very suitable to the mood I was in at the time.
One day after I took delivery of this monster, I invited a lady I knew to come for a ride with me. She consented, and I proceeded to show off. (Disgusting how predictable I was.)
We drove into the wilderness west of the Snake River near Rockford. I saw a sandy ramp where fishermen had been launching their boats, and decided to drive forward, down into the water a little bit, just for fun.
Well it was fun. At a certain perilous point, I put on the brakes, depressed the clutch pedal and grabbed the shift lever, intending to change the transmission into reverse.
Brand-new Jeep. Less than a thousand miles. Regardless, the shift lever came out of the transmission in my hand, dripping oil. I had enough knowledge of mechanical things at the time to know that I – we – could be in big trouble.
I held the brakes on. I kept the clutch pedal depressed so the transmission wouldn’t spin around and “lose my place.” I shoved the lever back into the transmission in a sort of random way. Whew. With the help of God, I found reverse and we backed out of the predicament.
The ride was over. The mood was certainly over. The lady in the passenger seat at the time was another man’s girlfriend. I took her home. Nobody died. Nobody else knew until now.
True story.
“Tired Eyes”
After a few months of the usual adventures associated with Jeep ownership, my fortunes changed. Cinnamon Girl had to be adopted by someone else.
I ended up with a very green 1969 Chevrolet half-ton pickup with bald tires, a broken/missing carrier bearing, worn out shock absorbers and a sloppy, leaky automatic transmission.
My friend Ralph and I had been listening almost exclusively to Neil Young music in this era. One particularly poignant and tragic song was about a drug deal gone bad, an epic titled “Tired Eyes.”
This became the name of my new pickup truck. I went and got a stick-on alphabet set and put "Tired Eyes" in the back window. Later, Ralph and I were out driving around, listening to Neil.
Suddenly a phrase from the song stuck out. Neil whined, “I dunno why, he had bullet holes in his mirrors.”
It had to be done. I stopped the truck pointed down into an excavation, a gravel bank to the front of the vehicle.
I got my rifle from the rack (de rigueur in Idaho in those days) and shooed my friend back away from the scene.
Standing at the tailgate, I shot one hole in each of the outside mirrors of Tired Eyes, first the left, then the right. Ralph shrieked and leaped about in surprise and disbelief. Later, I used clear packing tape to keep the mirror shards in place. This rear view arrangement worked all right until I traded Tired Eyes for a ’76 two-door Cherokee.
True story.
The Harley said tick-tick-tick
For the life of me, I can’t remember the name of the sleazy bar. It’s probably still in business in downtown Ketchum, Idaho.
My friend Guido and I would hang out there sometimes. One night I went by myself, and bellied up to the bar: As was my custom, I ordered a beer, and a beer and a beer.
In a little while, I noticed a young woman. I couldn’t help but notice. She had seated herself on the stool next to me.
Pointing at my three glasses of draft beer, she asked, “Can I have one of those?” I told her as far as I was concerned she could have all of them.
Ahem. Time went on. I ordered more drafts. She immediately began to tell me her sad story. She had had a fight with her boyfriend, and he had left, some days before.
Eventually, the bar closed. The woman invited me to her apartment. Seemingly without a thought as to my safety, I went. Ahem. One thing led to another.
Suddenly we heard it: No mistaking that Harley-Davidson sound. “Oh my God it’s my boyfriend,” the woman said.
The man rode the bike into the driveway and parked under the window. I watched as he dismounted and put a giant padlock on the steering mechanism.
When he started around to the front of the house, I opened the window and jumped out. It was about six feet to the ground. I landed in a flower bed right beside the bike. Shortly, my belongings followed me out the window, and the window went closed.
I gathered up my stuff and listened. The cooling exhaust system was all I heard. It said “Tick. Tick. Tick.” Eventually, I got myself together enough to find my vehicle and return to the safety of my dormitory room.
Parts of this third story are blatant fabrication, hence it becomes fiction. Do you feel a little betrayed? I would.
-0-
Word of the Week: Guise. It’s from Middle English and Old French meaning “way” or “manner.” It can mean a manner of dress or garb, but that definition is thought to be archaic.
Nowadays, it means a false or deceiving appearance, a semblance. Webster’s exemplary sentence is, “Under the guise of friendship, he betrayed us.” It’s the root word of “disguise.”
I suppose if I ever run out of true stories, I could begin writing more under the “guise” of fiction. Hmm. Maybe not.
In the fall of 1978 I bought a brand-new 1979 Jeep CJ-5, right off the showroom floor at Dolder Motor Company in downtown Blackfoot, Idaho.
It was a gold metal flake cinnamon brown with orange and yellow vinyl hood striping and lettering in similar colors that read “Renegade.”
My Jeep immediately became “Cinnamon Girl,” named after a very good Neil Young song of the era. In the style preferred by Jeep CJ owners of the time, I put her name in the space below the glass in the fold-down windshield.
Quickly, I removed the factory installed “smog” pump and put on a set of Smithy mufflers and twin exhausts that came out in front of the rear tires.
This thing had an enormous V-8 engine, and once relieved of its breathing problems, it was a formidable beast. Yipes. It would go fast. It would crawl. It would go straight up. It would go straight down. Brown convertible top and brown weatherproof seats completed the ensemble.
Later, as a gift, a girlfriend bought me a matching spare tire cover with “Jeep” imprinted on it. It was one stylin’ vehicle, very macho, very suitable to the mood I was in at the time.
One day after I took delivery of this monster, I invited a lady I knew to come for a ride with me. She consented, and I proceeded to show off. (Disgusting how predictable I was.)
We drove into the wilderness west of the Snake River near Rockford. I saw a sandy ramp where fishermen had been launching their boats, and decided to drive forward, down into the water a little bit, just for fun.
Well it was fun. At a certain perilous point, I put on the brakes, depressed the clutch pedal and grabbed the shift lever, intending to change the transmission into reverse.
Brand-new Jeep. Less than a thousand miles. Regardless, the shift lever came out of the transmission in my hand, dripping oil. I had enough knowledge of mechanical things at the time to know that I – we – could be in big trouble.
I held the brakes on. I kept the clutch pedal depressed so the transmission wouldn’t spin around and “lose my place.” I shoved the lever back into the transmission in a sort of random way. Whew. With the help of God, I found reverse and we backed out of the predicament.
The ride was over. The mood was certainly over. The lady in the passenger seat at the time was another man’s girlfriend. I took her home. Nobody died. Nobody else knew until now.
True story.
“Tired Eyes”
After a few months of the usual adventures associated with Jeep ownership, my fortunes changed. Cinnamon Girl had to be adopted by someone else.
I ended up with a very green 1969 Chevrolet half-ton pickup with bald tires, a broken/missing carrier bearing, worn out shock absorbers and a sloppy, leaky automatic transmission.
My friend Ralph and I had been listening almost exclusively to Neil Young music in this era. One particularly poignant and tragic song was about a drug deal gone bad, an epic titled “Tired Eyes.”
This became the name of my new pickup truck. I went and got a stick-on alphabet set and put "Tired Eyes" in the back window. Later, Ralph and I were out driving around, listening to Neil.
Suddenly a phrase from the song stuck out. Neil whined, “I dunno why, he had bullet holes in his mirrors.”
It had to be done. I stopped the truck pointed down into an excavation, a gravel bank to the front of the vehicle.
I got my rifle from the rack (de rigueur in Idaho in those days) and shooed my friend back away from the scene.
Standing at the tailgate, I shot one hole in each of the outside mirrors of Tired Eyes, first the left, then the right. Ralph shrieked and leaped about in surprise and disbelief. Later, I used clear packing tape to keep the mirror shards in place. This rear view arrangement worked all right until I traded Tired Eyes for a ’76 two-door Cherokee.
True story.
The Harley said tick-tick-tick
For the life of me, I can’t remember the name of the sleazy bar. It’s probably still in business in downtown Ketchum, Idaho.
My friend Guido and I would hang out there sometimes. One night I went by myself, and bellied up to the bar: As was my custom, I ordered a beer, and a beer and a beer.
In a little while, I noticed a young woman. I couldn’t help but notice. She had seated herself on the stool next to me.
Pointing at my three glasses of draft beer, she asked, “Can I have one of those?” I told her as far as I was concerned she could have all of them.
Ahem. Time went on. I ordered more drafts. She immediately began to tell me her sad story. She had had a fight with her boyfriend, and he had left, some days before.
Eventually, the bar closed. The woman invited me to her apartment. Seemingly without a thought as to my safety, I went. Ahem. One thing led to another.
Suddenly we heard it: No mistaking that Harley-Davidson sound. “Oh my God it’s my boyfriend,” the woman said.
The man rode the bike into the driveway and parked under the window. I watched as he dismounted and put a giant padlock on the steering mechanism.
When he started around to the front of the house, I opened the window and jumped out. It was about six feet to the ground. I landed in a flower bed right beside the bike. Shortly, my belongings followed me out the window, and the window went closed.
I gathered up my stuff and listened. The cooling exhaust system was all I heard. It said “Tick. Tick. Tick.” Eventually, I got myself together enough to find my vehicle and return to the safety of my dormitory room.
Parts of this third story are blatant fabrication, hence it becomes fiction. Do you feel a little betrayed? I would.
-0-
Word of the Week: Guise. It’s from Middle English and Old French meaning “way” or “manner.” It can mean a manner of dress or garb, but that definition is thought to be archaic.
Nowadays, it means a false or deceiving appearance, a semblance. Webster’s exemplary sentence is, “Under the guise of friendship, he betrayed us.” It’s the root word of “disguise.”
I suppose if I ever run out of true stories, I could begin writing more under the “guise” of fiction. Hmm. Maybe not.
Any man, in the right situation, is capable of murder. But not any man is capable of being a good camper. So, murder and camping are not as similar as you might think.
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