I’m exhausted from my first day at my new job, so I’m posting a story from my olden blog days. Even my old readers will want to read it again, because it’s so fucking awesome.

Part I - The Origins of Blue Thunder

I went to a Catholic high school and graduated in 1986. It was the first year they tried “Project Graduation,” a poorly disguised plot to keep us seniors from killing ourselves while driving drunk. The night of the last day of school, we all came back to the school for “Project Graduation”. They locked us in the school until four a.m., in a completely alcohol-free and unwanted-pregnancy-free environment. Nuns, priests and teachers supervised us. It was OK, kinda lame. But what made us participate, and what kept us there? They were GIVING AWAY A CAR AT THE END OF THE NIGHT! Yippee!

Now, my family was dirt poor when I was in high school. This sweet nun, Sister Mary Catherine, knew of my poverty. She was the one who drew the name of the winner of the car at the end of the night. We were all assembled in the auditorium. Everyone was excited because they heard it was a used Camaro they were giving away! So when Sr. Mary Catherine drew my name, I was SO HAPPY! She hugged me and said, “I prayed for you to win!”

Or maybe she said this. My memory is a bit murky.

Anyway, the point is, I couldn’t believe it! My own CAMARO!

My friends and I rushed out to the parking lot to hop in my new Camaro! Only it wasn’t a Camaro. It was a baby-blue, 1974 Chrysler Newport 4-door. It’s back seat was so big, it could sleep 8. It had it’s own zip code. It was the type of vehicle you could sublet out to a trucking company for the purpose of transporting large quantities of interstate commerce. It was fucking huge.

My friends and I cracked up laughing. The car died like 3 times as I was trying to drive it out of the parking lot.The car had glass packs in the muffler, so it was LOUD. Some grandma really must’ve had wild times in that car.

Because of the glass packs, the car came to be known as . . . BLUE THUNDER!

An artists’ recreation of what Blue Thunder looked like.

Part II - Revenge of Blue Thunder

So, after I won Blue Thunder, I tried to drive it for a couple months. But it was so HUGE! (Aah, there’s a phrase I don’t get to say very often). ANYway, when I started college in August I had enough scholarships to cover the tuition, so I used my student loan money for the educational purpose of buying a 1976 Datsun 280Z. I gave the Newport to my parents, who gave it to my brothers, who refused to give me a ride to work in it when my Datsun was broken down. (They didn’t have jobs, so it wasn’t like they didn’t have time…. OH CRAP, there goes my issues again. Sorry, I’ll get to the point).

The point was: MY BROTHERS WERE SPOILED FUCKING ROTTEN BRATTY ASS SPELUNKERS! Uh, no, that wasn’t my point….

Oh yeah, Blue Thunder’s Drive of Doom.

Anyway, my brothers ended up with the car. They had a lot of fun in that car.

One day, they had a great idea. My brothers Mark and Mike, and their friends Billy, Joe and James all decided to take the car down to an area of the subdivision that already had the roads and driveways built, but no houses yet. They decided to take the boys old go-cart (see? SPOILED!) that they had broken trying to “tinker” with the motor. Their plan involved tying a rope to the back of Blue Thunder, have some idiot sit in the go-cart and hang onto the rope.

As Blue Thunder rounded the curve to the left, at maximum 74 Chrysler Newport speed, the idiot holding the rope would let go and steer the go-cart to the right and into the paved driveway of a vacant lot. There, within the line of trajectory, they had built a ramp from the driveway off into the lot. The go-cart (and accompanying idiot) would then become airborne and land in the dirt of the vacant lot. Please consult the professionally drawn map to help you visualize the situation.

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