I Was Away and my Brother Took my Stamp Collection

[TrueTomHarley]

I was away and my brother took my stamp collection! He just took it, transferring my stamps into his album. I had to take them back.

 

This is the same brother that smashed out the headlights of my Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. I had just pulled into the family driveway, parking right behind our station wagon. As I pulled the car keys from the ignition, I saw the backups lights ahead come on and the wagon shot into me like a North Korean missile launch.

 

This is the same Karmann Ghia that I drove in service as a pioneer and nearly froze solid because there was absolutely no heat in the car, which was typical of all VWs then. So I wondered if I could somehow rig up a kerosene heater inside. But when I tried to fire it up (outside the car) it shot out a foot-long flame. It looked as though I was sacrificing to the gods. No wonder people think we are nuts.

 

These are the same nuts that Davey the Kid thought he might be able to help when he became a shrink. "Poor Davey," I would lament. "He always thought half of us were nuts. Now that he's a shrink, he finds that even the half he thought were sane - they're nuts, too.

 

This is the same Davey the Kid whose story is told in the afterword of 'Tom Irregardless and Me.'

 

 

This is also the same Karrmann Ghia, or one just like it, that was used as the model car for the video on creation that we all saw at the mid-week meeting.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

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I also had ( and still have) a stamp collection that my cousin stole from, so I sympathize with you.

Visualize three brothers with two cars ... a pale green 1957 Chevy, with an automatic transmission, which we will call the "TOW" car,  and another car, possibly mine, (I forget ..this was the mid 60's) with a dead battery) which we shall call the "FORD". I think this happened about 1966.

It was My best friends, Tom Orrick, and Bob Pollard on Quioccasin Road in Henrico County, Virginia, and the three decided we would PULL the FORD with a big, long rope we had by tying the two bumpers together to get (my?) car up to 35 MPH, pop the clutch, and that would start the towed car..

I looked at it and decided that the lurch would bend one or both bumpers, so Tom suggested somebody get in the trunk of the Chevy, sit turned around backwards and wrap the rope around their body, have some slack, and as the TOW car increased speed, play out the slack for the bumper not to be damaged.

It sounded good UNTIL he suggested I do it.

I balked, he volunteered so Bob is driving the Chevy, Tom is in the trunk facing backwards, and I am driving the Ford. There is about 30 feet of loose rope on the ground, one end wrapped around Tom, and the other end tied to the Ford's bumper.

Bob gets to about 15 MPH, the rope gets tight and I have a perfect view of Tom popping out of the trunk like a champagne cork from a shaken bottle, launched almost straight up, and he crashes to the ground, wrapped in rope.

...and this dear Bros. and Sisters ...is why women live longer than men..

.

 

[TrueTomHarley]

You know, I had a story about being towed across the Adirondack mountains driving a dead (they usually were) Opel Kadett, following by ten feet the tow vehicle with flasher lights on in the dark so that they became hypnotizing but I had no choice but to endure (or die) for 120 freezing miles because the battery was dead and I could not use my horn to signal and when I finally got to my apartment I stood on the heat grate for an hour - but your story is better. Popped out like a cork, did he?

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

The Ford didn't budge at all,  so the rope was his radius.