
Dear Yolanda,
~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Photo courtesy of the Bend Weekly
© All Rights Reserved
It was not hard to be renegade in the sleepy Los Angeles suburb of West Covina during the 1960s.
Emerging from the conservative ‘50s,
all you had to be was a disagreeable teenager, especially in this
Anglo-Saxonite community where most of the local power brokers attended Rotary
Club pancake breakfasts with an alarming regularity. Come to think of it,
regularity was also a big deal during this era.
My home town was very much like
the place portrayed in the movie, “American Graffiti.” It was a teenage car
culture, and after I turned 16, I had a driver’s license. Not long after, I had
a car. My parents were upper middle class, so I did not have to actually earn
the money to buy a car. And my mother was eager to be free of having to take me
places, and then, pick me up and bring me home. Her life was busy enough, what
with Women's Club luncheons to plan, bridge parties, country club appearances
and the ongoing burden of supervising housekeepers and gardeners – all this along
with a husband who actually expected her to make dinner on a regular basis.
Yes, regularity was a pretty big deal during this era.
Nowadays there are lots of
restrictions on young drivers, but when I got my license, I was free, turned
loose on the streets without any restrictions or guidelines. Just a few hours
of driver’s ed. But I was a pretty good driver. I’d had experience, what with
all those times I took my parents’ cars out on the road when they were away for
a weekend trip. Yes, I remember learning how every intersection was not
necessarily a four-way stop as I propelled my mother’s lumbering, razor-finned
Cadillac straight toward a passing car who, much to my surprise, had no stop
sign. I hit the brake pedal just in time.
Then there was that lesson
about road rage, what we used to call, “mad” or “angry.” I thought driving was
a competition, and that the object was to beat the other drivers. After all, I
wasn’t actually going anywhere. So I jammed down the gas pedal and managed to
pull the great white whale in front of this other guy in an old, compact car
who had tried his best not to let me into his lane. While I was waiting behind
another car at a stop sign, he got out and walked up to my car, signaled for me
to roll down my window, which I did, then punched me in the face.
By the time I had my own car, a
dark green 1965 Ford Mustang – the fastback model – I was seasoned. I’d make my
car too fast to catch, and I certainly would never roll down my window again
for anybody.
In those days it seemed like most of my friends and rivals were working on their cars, customizing old Chevys, putting in big carburetors, high performance shifters, custom exhaust systems, giant racing slicks – even whole new engines. This was long before the state-mandated smog check. Nobody checked the condition of our cars when we renewed their registrations, so all modifications went undetected. I was not one of the more talented kid mechanics around, although I could gap a spark plug. I was a musician, a guitar player, and I did not like getting my fingers stained with grease. So I took the money I saved from teaching guitar lessons and working in a local pizza parlor and went to a speed shop in a neighboring city to let the experts juice up my horsepower. The first thing they did was rip out all the smog prevention equipment.
“You don’t need all this
stuff,” I remember the mechanic saying. Years later, when I tried to trade the
car in on a new model, the local Ford dealer would disagree. “You’ve got no
smog equipment! We’re going to have to replace it all just to put the car on
the lot.”
Oops!
Except for a little cash for
dating and guitar strings, I’d put all my money into my car – a nice racket for
the speed shop – and after a while I began racing my car on Saturdays at the
nearby Irwindale Speedway along with all the other high school amateurs. But as
a renegade teenager, the real thrill was street racing. It was like being a
gunslinger in the Old West, just prowling around town, looking to challenge
somebody to a shootout.
Yes, I had my share of speeding
tickets, but I was never caught racing. Most of us weren’t. There were not that
many police officers cruising around town in those days.
There was always the occasional
race during the day, when I’d just happen to pull up next to another kid in a
hot car after school. Who was faster? We just had to find out! But weekend
nights were the real prime racing time. It was like jousting, trying to prove
our nascent manhood to our girlfriends, or to somebody else’s girlfriend.
Sometimes the races were
organized.
Some guy with greasy hair had a
new Camaro 280z and swore he could take me. Bets were made and the next
Saturday night my friends blocked off both ends of a sleepy suburban street
about a half-mile long while we lined up our cars. About twenty high school
kids gathered at the finish line. Camaro boy couldn’t catch me, even though his
car may have been faster. I was always incredibly quick off the starting line.
That’s what won me the race set
up by the speed shop at Irwindale Raceway. There was another kid, a rich kid
whose father owned a shopping center, who was already out of high school, who
came to the speed shop with a Mustang pretty much like mine. The speed shop
mechanics figured this guy would be good competition for me. After they’d done
their best to expand his horsepower, we set a date.
The early part of the afternoons at Irwindale were spent doing practice runs, called “qualifying.” You had to turn a good enough time in your particular class to compete in the early evening, before the actual professionals did their stuff for the audience who sat in bleachers on either side of the quarter-mile track.
We both edged our cars into
starting position, our engines almost window-shatteringly loud because we’d
opened up our “headers” (high performance exhaust systems) to bypass the
mufflers. From experience, I knew the slight lag time of my car – from the time
I hit the gas pedal to the car’s forward surge – allowed me to start a half
second before the green light flashed.
We waited, then the first
yellow light flashed on, moving down toward the green light. The moment Rick’s
brain told him the light was green, I’d already jumped out from the starting
line. He was momentarily stunned, and even though he turned a faster time, he
never caught me. It wasn’t really about how fast you went, it was about who got
there first. Mind over horsepower. I made it to the finish line first, won the
trophy and renewed admiration from my girlfriend.
Yes, it was a moment.
Of course now as a responsible
adult I am appalled at my behavior, risking accident and injury on the streets
of my sleepy suburban town. Perhaps that’s why it made so much sense for all of
us to go just outside of town to the Chicken Ranch.
There was a long, straight road
inside the Chicken Ranch property, made for trucks to pick up eggs and
chickens, I suppose. Nobody stayed with the chickens at night, especially not
on Saturday nights. This particular night had not been the first time high
school hot rods had raced there, but it was my first time.
There were dozens of competitors from area high schools and junior colleges, and dozens more who just came to watch. It is a solemn testament to the short-range saturation of the teenage brain that none of us had entertained a single thought about potential consequences. Rubber burned and smoked and engines spit and roared as pair after pair of racers hurtled down the improvised racetrack. After I made my run, the growing chaos of beer-swilling youth amazingly enough triggered some fledgling sense of adult apprehension, and so I left. As I exited the entrance to the Chicken Ranch, I was passed by a long line of police cars.
That was the last race ever
held at the Chicken Ranch. It was my senior year, and before long, I’d own a
more practical car, have a more practical girlfriend, and grow a little less
renegade as the wild anarchy of my teenage years passed. After all, I had to
prepare for the wild anarchy of my twenties.
Anarchy,Not just for the dispossessed anymore,It's catching on like wildfire,A fad,A new sport for the upper crust,For those separated from the great massBy privilege,Power,Perception.This perception of superiority,Now this is the motive force,Not just for the well-to-do anymore,No,Even the lowest inhabitants of the social orderFeel superior these days.Now,In our cities and our streets,In our homes and office buildings,In all manner of public and private places,Now,No one is safe from this self-righteous anarchy.This is war.To each their own pure self,The pure self that needs no law,That bends to no man, woman or child,That considers not its own frailties,Sees no larger world beyond itself,Enforces its iron rule without mercy,No matter how trivial or mundane its kingdom may be.Nor more humility,No backing up,No admission of error,Of guilt,Of responsibility.All actions and motives of the pure self are beyond question.We encounter one anotherIn our day-to-day livesAnd exchange the menacing glance.All is understood.Ours is the age of the pure self.© All Rights Reserved
I don’t think people carry around with them a fixed ideology. I think a majority of people, they’re going about their business, going about their lives – they just want to make sure we’re making progress.”
“We’re not going to rule out ideas because they’re Democrat or Republican. We want to just see what works.”
~ President Barak Obama at White House press conference ~ November 3, 2010
Yes, civilization represents the evolution of ideas about freedom, compassion and justice.
Yes, there are ideologies that enshrine these ideals, that are worth defending.
Yes, there are ideologies that seek to destroy our democratic way of life.
Our greatest freedoms come from the evolution of ideologies, the flexibility of ideologies, the tolerance of ideologies, the willingness of ideologies to accept new realities, to discard the mistaken notions of the past and embrace change.
In our political system, it is the realization that we are all human and subject to error and mistaken judgment that moves us forward.
In choosing between ideological certainty and the real world of human experience, America has thrived because we as a people have been willing to accept the truth, even when it challenges long-held beliefs.
No one can predict the future. No one knows where all the decisions we make will lead us as a nation. But with a pragmatic eye open to reality, even when it comes into conflict with a sacred ideology, we can learn from the real world of actual events and embrace change.
Because none of us can predict the future, because none of us knows everything, because none of us is perfect, we must set absolute certainty aside. We must come together and compromise. We must extend our vision beyond a nation of winners and losers who are constantly at war and continue our journey together toward a more perfect union.
Thank you ladies and gentle worms. Tonight, I’m going to start out with a tribute to all of you. That’s right, a musical tribute to human beings.