The Driver

After church this morning I was approached in the foyer by a young man I calculated to be in his mid-thirties. He said he was a visitor and his name was Mike. I learned he is the son-in-law of one of the churches elders and I reckon I was pointed out by someone so he came over to talk to me. Mike said,” I really like reading your blog.” He said it makes him laugh and cry and that some of it is entertaining. Mike mentioned a couple of the entries, one of which included the one about Rick Criscione and I going to Mario’s. He went on to say he hopes I’ll continue to write it. I told him that as long as I can think of things to write about, I will do so. His encouragement has led me to write today’s entry.


Back in the summer of 1978, I bought a car from my mother’s friends for $300 and it was one of the coolest rides I have ever owned. It was a 1964 Chrysler New Yorker and somewhere along the way one of my friends dubbed it the “Stanmobile.” To this day, whenever someone talks about that car, it is ALWAYS referred to as the Stanmobile out of respect and awe. The car was huge, white, had blue-green cloth seats and a back shelf big enough to curl up on to take a nap. The Stanmobile sported a rectangular steering wheel and a push button transmission. Under the hood was a big block 413 cubic inch engine with a Holley four-barrel carburetor. I used to joke that the car got 10 gallons to the mile. One time I took it to a parts store in Modesto to have the store owner look at the engine because I needed a part. The man’s name was Charlie Bell and he was a local racing legend who drove Dodges, aka Chrysler products, aka Mopar. Charlie popped the hood and upon seeing the engine, his eyes got big. He reached over to the engine head and wiped some grease off a small area near the carburetor revealing an X stamped into the metal. He told my car’s 413 was not ordinary; it was a HIGH PERFORMANCE 413. Awesome!

I already knew it was fast because of one of several events which I will now recount (admit to). Once, when I was back at home in Ceres, I was performing some routine maintenance on the Stanmobile. My two young cousins, Larry and David were helping me. We took a quart sized bottle of Rislone Engine Treatment which one is supposed to add along with engine oil. Instead and purposely, I filled the secondary two barrels of the carburetor to the brim with Rislone. The third and fourth barrels do not kick in until a certain amount of acceleration is achieved. The carb is fitted with a butterfly valve that stays closed until the extra power is required. This allowed to Rislone to stay in the top of the carb until I would punch the gas pedal, causing it to open and dumping the engine treatment into the motor. Upon doing this, a huge, sustained cloud of thick smoke would gush out the car’s tailpipe causing much laughter inside the Stanmobile.

We added the Rislone and slowly drove into the nearby country and onto a little traveled road. Larry and David urged me to “punch it” and I complied. However, just as I did so, I noticed a yellow Corvette come around the corner behind us at the same moment a massive cloud was emitted from the Stanmobile. This appeared to anger the driver of the ‘Vette and he gave chase, I assume to do us bodily harm. We took off at a high rate of speed, slowing only to negotiate turns. The guy chased us for a couple of miles until we got into a long, straight stretch of road and I floored it. Within a few moments, we were doing 120 miles per hour, and as I watched in my rear view mirror, the Corvette shrank to a Hot Wheels sized car and was soon far behind. Pursuit terminated. We all cheered. The Stanmobile had outrun a Chevy Corvette!

Today’s last confession involves an incident that occurred in San Jose. Five of the “dudes,” Mark Thompson, Mike Huskey, Bill Dobos, Rick Criscione, and yours truly drove in the Stanmobile to a local movie house to see a movie titled “The Driver.” It starred Ryan O’Neal and the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) offers the following synopsis: "The Driver" is a specialist in a rare business: he drives getaway cars in robberies. His exceptional talent prevented him from being caught yet. After another successful flight from the police, a self-assured detective makes it his primary goal to catch the Driver. He promises remission of punishment to a gang if they help to convict him in a set-up robbery.

We loved the movie and excitedly discussed it as we drove in the night back to the school campus. I remember saying how much I wished I could drive like Ryan O’Neal did in the movie and how cool it would be. Upon arrival at the school, one of us had a great idea. I don’t remember the genius who proposed it, but all of us liked it so we executed our plan which was for me to show off my wicked driving skills. Now, at the back of the campus sat the Earl E. Arneson Memorial Field, a softball diamond that had fallen into disrepair due to lack of use. The field was on the lower part of the property next to Coyote Creek and it had a road we drove down and onto the outfield of the diamond. The grass was about a foot high and wet. I punched the car’s accelerator and we started doing 360’s all over the place. Our fun was increased when we noticed several cottontail rabbits eating the rich grass. We chased them, but had no traction and no control of where the car would go as we were spinning around and around and sliding sideways. (Disclaimer: No animals were injured in the course of this event).

After a few minutes of spinning donuts and chasing furry creatures, we drove back up the road into the parking lot of the Beach Hall Boys’ Dormitory where we were met by the Dorm Dad whose name shall not be spoken in this story out of respect for his anonymity. He was accompanied by a couple of other guys who lived in the dorm and they all appeared quite worked up. Our northbound merriment only moments earlier quickly turned south as Dorm Dad lectured us five scalawags on our bad behavior, disregard for authority and poor Christian witness. We reasoned that we had done no damage other than causing the outfield grass to lay down where the car tires had skidded across it. I told him we did not drive on the infield even though we knew that no one used the softball field anymore. After he chewed us out for a while, we were dismissed and drove away. The dudes agreed that it was no fun being reprimanded like that; however, the thrill of our reckless abandon that night was worth the dressing down we had received. To this day, it only takes two words (The Driver) to make the five of us recall and laugh about that night.