It is not good to tempt an old man - Part II | Eastern North Carolina Now

   There is always a part II to most of my stories. Most of the time I do not publish them here on BCN because even I know that very few care about Part I, so a Part II is further proof that my own narcissistic tendencies have overcome my better judgement. But I was able to overcome my tendencies this time, so here goes. Bobby Tony

    My company transferred me to Tampa, Florida in 1974. I had just begun to regain my bearings after five years of Post Vietnam Drinking Overload (PVDO). In retrospect, I now know that I led a dual life. By day a dedicated employee of a Fortune 500 company and by night what my dad used to call a "Lost Ball in the High Weeds." Fortunately, my boss was a combat Korean Veteran and he gave me some cover while I sorted out the "Meaning of Life" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085959/ without the humor of Monty Python.)

    I rented a furnished apartment North of Tampa on Lucerne Drive. Even though I had a company car, I decided to keep the 914. Without attaching too much significance to this decision, I now look back on it as a drowning many would when someone tosses him an anchor. You grab it and try to hold on.

    It did not take me long to find out that the dual life I had been living in Atlanta was not going to cut it in Tampa. When you are calling on an industrial based customer base, they expect a more traditional Sales Engineer without the 70s Disco hairdo and clothing. The transition to respectable citizen for me was a morph instead of an abrupt off exit from excesses.

    As the demands of a technical job began to assert themselves, it became apparent that my WILD DAYS were beginning to blur in the racing rear view mirrors of the 914.
Wild Days are in the rear view mirror
    After about a year of struggling with my demons, I decided it was time to get a bit more serious about a career. I had been dating a girl in Atlanta before the transfer and the old 914 and I made many trips back to Atlanta during that first year. As I remember (and Google Maps confirms) it was a 460 mile trip from Tampa to Stone Mountain. Almost all of it on I75. I could make it in about 6 hours.(75 MPH average.) Are you beginning to see a problem here?

    I decided to propose and she accepted. We were married in February of 1975. As they say, the rest is history. We moved into an apartment in Temple Terrace with her furniture. She had a Ford Pinto, I had a Ford 500 company car, and the 914 Porsche. We decided to sell the Pinto. There is that Morph thing again. I had nicknamed the Ford 500 "The Boat." The difference between it and the 914 was that dramatic.
The Boat
    My wife drove the 914 and I drove "The Boat." If you are still with me here, this is the payoff to this overlong narrative.

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    One day leaving work, she accidentally drove the 914 over a parking lot divider. You do not see many of those anymore, but they were in almost every parking lot back in the 1970s. The purpose is to prevent someone from driving straight out of a parking spot . For some safety reason the parking lot Deities thought it was safer for a women to back out instead of driving forward (I told you before it was a morph; it is still in process 41 years later).
Parking Lot Cement Divider
    She drove right over the divider. Because I had lowered the 914 with Gymkhana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymkhana_(motorsport) suspension, it sat much lower than normal. Once she realized the problem she had could not back over the divider again. With the full knowledge that she had cleared the front wheels, she just drove over with the back wheels and went home.

    During that point in our marriage, I was still somewhat in the driver's seat symbolically speaking. She called my best friend in Atlanta and asked what she should do. He was patient when he explained that there was no way he could tell her if there was any damage and she should take it to the Porsche dealer to have it inspected. She did as he said and they determined there was no damage beyond some scraps on the Unibody Frame (See previous post about "Self-supporting steel body.," (See that post here: https://beaufortcountynow.com/post/23484/it-is-not-good-to-tempt-an-old-man.html). Because of this design feature, there are few parts hanging below the bed pan of the 914.
Good Old German Engineering - not much hanging down
    There are plenty of benefits from having lifelong friends, but there are a few drawbacks as well. Lifelong friends generally know quite a few of your secrets and may have even been a part of your excursions toward the ditch of life. That is particularly true of my friend Reg and I.

    I do not remember the exact year, but after I moved back to Atlanta we were having dinner with our wives and Reg and I started telling some of the old stories about our cars. (We carefully avoid stories about our old girlfriends because it always requires mental math to calculate the years of the event minus the years of courtship before marriage). Well the subject of the old Red Porsche 914 came up and my very close confident and friend, Reg, told the story of my wife calling him to asked about the parking lot incident. She had never told me the story.

    I guess I could have gotten mad about the lack of transparency but if you have been married for any length of time you know that is a road you do not want to travel. Hell, women remember things that you only thought about and never did, so going down the road of past transgressions is not a subject you should broach with the boss.

    It took me almost 1000 words to get to this point, but I thought at least the story was worth me putting in the Grandpa Diaries as a lesson to future generations about keeping secrets and close friends.

   All pictures sourced from internet and used for illustration only.

    Conclusion: You may think you have secrets that you wife does not know about, but

"YOU WOULD BE WRONG!!!!"

Grandpa Diaries – Chapter Autos