Young, Dumb, & Full of Cum Part 2: The Wild Ride

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My sister is four years older than me and growing up she had a turntable and nice collection of vinyl records which included a lot of Beatles' albums. I listened to her music exclusively until I turned 12 (1968) and began developing my own musical tastes. 

Once I heard Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" on the radio I had to have it. Fortunately, there was a record store across the street in the Heights Shopping Plaza called Soundtrack that was owned by Bernie Jacobs, who was a local guy. Bernie sat behind the counter and could answer any of your questions about music. It was always fun going in and looking through the records, and of course, talking to Bernie.  

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"Magic Carpet Ride" was the first record I bought from him and it was a 45rpm single and I needed a spindle insert/adapter to play it on my sister's turntable. I liked 45s because the albums (33rpm) had a lot of filler songs and 45s cut to the chase with only one song per side, allowing me to listen to my favorites without having to cue them in and risk scratching the bigger records. And, they were a lot cheaper.

I think I paid about 60 cents for that 45, but back then that was a lot of money for a kid and I had to save up to buy it. The B side had "Sookie Sookie", but I loved "Magic Carpet Ride" so much I hardly played the B side. I quickly became a Steppenwolf fan and "Born to be Wild" became another one of my favorite singles. It was hard-core rock 'n roll filled with a hefty dose of testosterone, perfect for a knucklehead like me…

My music taste changed over the years as did the way we all listened to it. FM radio displaced AM as the best place for rock 'n roll. I thoroughly enjoyed playing vinyl on turntables, but the records scratched and warped if you didn't handle 'em carefully and store 'em properly. 

Next came 8-track tapes and they could be played anywhere there was an 8-track player, including in cars. 8-track tapes were large and the case I kept my collection in looked a lot like carry-on luggage. The tapes would stretch and occasionally you had to take 'em apart to rewind 'em or pull on the actual tape just right to tighten 'em up. I used to jam an empty matchbook in the gap between the tape and the player to get it to play right and reduce the noise of the tape made as it played. Everybody did that.  

Having a nice aftermarket stereo in your car was vital, especially on dates when radio reception might not be great in some secluded areas, which ultimately, was where you wanted to end up…

I bought a Craig car stereo and speakers, top-shelf stuff back in the day, and I installed it in my '66 Chevelle. It sounded incredible. After I graduated high school in 1974 and before I left for Norwich University, I had a distant crush on a girl a year younger than me and I wanted to ask her out. I spoke to a friend of mine who knew Carol and he asked her if she'd go out with me. When she told him she would I immediately called her.

Different_Brian. Getty Images.

This isn't my '63 Galaxie but it's very similar and the same color…

At the time, I had a two-door '63 Ford Galaxie with a 428 Super Cobra Jet that had factory headers, a custom side exhaust, a Borg-Warner T-10 transmission, and a 390 positraction rear end. I installed a mini aftermarket steering wheel, cut in a shaker scoop, added traction bars, and mounted a tachometer on top of the dashboard. I jacked up the front and rear, and it had chrome, deep-dish slotted rims with some really wide tires on the rear (G60s). It was a wicked fast car and I could've smoked the rear tires off the rims if I wanted. It was the perfect date machine too. I installed the Craig system in it and it had a full bench seat in the front. The Hurst shifter stopped right up against the seat in second and fourth gear.

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The day before the big date, my friend Gary and I washed, waxed, vacuumed the car, and when we were done I hung a new evergreen tree freshener on the rearview mirror. All I had to do was score some good pot, fill the Styrofoam cooler with ice and beer, and organize my 8-tracks. I decided Mexican and Jamaican weren't good enough for this date and I made some calls and scored some killer Colombian that was sure to get us high as fuck. I was totally prepared for this date…

I was the perfect gentleman when I picked her up and met her parents. I took her to a local restaurant and after we finished dinner I took off down the highway. I asked her if she liked Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and she smiled and said she did. I slid Brain Salad Surgery into the 8-track player, passed her a lit joint, and asked her if she liked going fast. She smiled again and said she did. 

"Close your eyes girl, look inside girl, let the sound take you away…"

The music was loud, the pot was incredible, and she was high as a kite. I took it up to redline in every gear and by the time I was in fourth and up to speed, we were going 135 mph down Route 95 heading towards Rhode Island. I looked over at her and she had a big smile on her pretty face. I felt like I was making a really good impression, especially on a first date…

"On a cloud of sound I drift in the night, anyplace it goes is right, goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here…"

We drove around listening to music, sipping some beer, and smoking some more pot. I dropped her off at 11:30 and I walked her up to the front door like a gentleman should, extremely confident that she had a great time. I was in love…

The next morning I woke up and a girlfriend of hers who was friends with me called and asked me how the date went. After I said "really good" she interrupted and said, "Really good? You scared Carol half to death. She said you had some pot that made her feel like she was tripping and then you put on some crazy music and went 135 miles per hour down Route 95. What the fuck were you thinking? She NEVER wants to see you again!"

I was shocked. I thought I had a good handle on how to impress a girl on the first date. Apparently, I listened too closely to Steppenwolf's lyrics and I totally fucked up… 

"Well, you don't know what we can find, why don't you come with me little girl, on a magic carpet ride"  

Shutterstock Images.

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Massachusetts set the speed limit at 55 in 1974 to comply with the National Maximum Speed Limit…                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
I started thinking that maybe I should've bought the Mexican and kept it under 100 mph…

That night I went out cruisin' with my buddy Pete in his hotrod Mustang and after suckin' down a few beers and smokin' the rest of that Columbian, I decided I had to at least try and make things right with Carol…

It was 2:00 am and by then me and Pete were totally fucked up. I grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen out of his glove box and wrote an apology to Carol and told Pete to let me out on the main road so we wouldn't wake anybody up with the loud rumble of his car.

I got out, ran up to the front door but I was drunk and I crashed into the metal storm door, making a huge racket that woke everybody up inside. Several lights came on, including the one by the front door, but I didn't panic, I put the note in between the two doors and then closed the storm door and sprinted back to Pete's car. He did not take off slowly.

That proved to be a very bad move on my part and the next call from her girlfriend was much more direct. "Stay away from Carol and her house or her father will call the cops!" Fuck me!

Seven years later, I was married and working as an Apprentice Plumber for my father-in-law. He handed me a new Delta kitchen faucet, wrote an address on a piece of paper, and told me to go there and replace their kitchen faucet with the new one. The address was all too familiar…

When I pulled into the driveway at Carol's house I immediately looked at the storm door, the one I crashed into, and it was undamaged. At least there was that… I rang the doorbell and stood at the front door wondering how awkward this was gonna be. Carol's mother came to the door and greeted me with a big smile. I was pretty sure she had drawn the short straw… Carol and her father were inside and they got up off the couch to say hello to me. I smiled and searched their faces, but there were no signs that they held any ill will towards me. Hey, I was "young, dumb, and full of cum" when I took Carol out, and unfortunately, I made some serious miscalculations as to proper dating etiquette…

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I installed the new faucet and when I was leaving the entire family collectively thanked me for my effort. I think they were just happy I was leaving without incident. I got in the company van and as I was driving away I started laughing my ass off remembering what a complete fucking idiot I was back in the day.

Have I changed now that I'm 65 years old and working for Barstool Sports? You'd have to ask my wife, but I'm bettin' she'd say no…

 "But I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers, oh, still crazy, still crazy, after all these years…"