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2003-10-03 - 6:58 a.m.

Joy Ride

I was nabbed for stealing a car and taking my first joy ride when I was 10 years old.

I didn’t really steal it, or at least in my mind it wasn’t stealing. I was just playing with it for a little while. It was grandma’s car and it was there on the little gravel patch in the sideyard by the street begging to be taken on a trip around the block. I’d watched the adults in my life start and drive a car and it didn’t appear to me to be rocket science. Clearly, I could turn a key and maneuver the steering wheel.

My cousin, Johnny, was in town visiting grandma for a few days and we’d entertained ourselves by searching for Sioux Indians in grandma’s back yard, throwing walnuts at the neighbor’s dilapidated garage, playing catch, walking my dog Harriet to Brashear City Park to play on the swings and merry-go-round and wade in the swallow pool. This was long before daytime children’s television shows or videos, computer games, Game Boys or Play Stations, and we had about exhausted our repertoire of play.

The car beckoned.

Our original plan was not to drive the car; we were just going to sit in it and pretend we were driving it on a make-believe vacation. I was the designated driver. Although I had not yet reached my growth spurt and was still small for my age, Johnny, at eight, was a scrawny little chipmunk (so nicknamed because he stuffed peas in his cheeks to be—hopefully—spit out later) and I could wangle him into most any escapade. This little chipmunk did, however, eventually grow into a six-foot-six inch, 280-pound professional football player, centering for Johnny Unitis of the Baltimore Colts, before being traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. But on that warm summer afternoon he was an eager accomplice and he gladly crawled into the car and sat butt-on-heels so he could look over the dashboard and see all the sights on our cross-country adventure.

Hot diggity!! Not only was the car accessible, the keys were hanging from the ignition. Grandma had taken us to the store that morning for ingredients for cookies and had forgotten to remove her keys. An omen: the trip around the block was meant to be. I don’t remember much about the car other than it was a midnight blue Pontiac which—since my driving expertise didn’t include clutching and shifting--had to be manufactured sometime after the introduction of automatic transmissions. Within minutes of discovering the key, I had managed to start the car and was holding tight to the massive steering wheel—its width was nearly the length of my arm span. Johnny was wide-eyed and bouncing in his seat, revved and ready for our trip.

Without understanding exactly how I managed it, I got the car in D, mustered up all the strength I could get in my skinny little leg and stomped the pedal on the floor. Tires squealed and dug into the gravel lot. Rocks spewed, the car blasted into the street and Johnny pitched forward into the floorboard. It wasn’t the most skilled driving or the smoothest trip, but we got to the end of the block before being apprehended and taken into custody.

As luck would have it, the sugar cookies were out of the oven and warm, and grandma came into the yard to tell us our treats were ready. She was surprised by our disappearance and nearly immobilized by shock at the disappearance of her car. Following a panicked look around she finally saw the car: the front half sitting in the Winslow’s front yard, the back half in the street. Thinking she’d neglected to set the shift to Park, she ran to retrieve the wayward automobile before it traveled even farther from home. Already stunned, she was bewildered to find her two errant grandchildren sitting in the car.

“Get in grandma,” Johnny giggled. “We’re going to Disneyland.”

She got in, but she didn’t drive us to Disneyland. While we nibbled the now cool cookies, she drove us around the block. When we got back home she locked the car door and took the keys back in the house with her. But grandma was a cool pal, she never did rat us out to our parents.

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