This was a Ford Mustang I had, maybe a 1978 model, I had a lot of cars when I was young. The driveway at our small bungalow house was pretty small, we had 4 cars in the drive most of my driving years there, my dad’s and mom’s car, mine and my brother. It was a lot of work when your car was in the front of the drive and you had to back out all the others to leave. I remember one time when I was backing out of our drive and I was only driving for a year or two, and I was sure I looked all around, but at the very moment I backed into the street a car came quickly around the corner (we lived one house from the corner of a side street) and parked right in front of the white house (in the picture) across the street, which was legal. But, I didn’t see it when I looked, it snuck up on me and parked fast. So when I backed out I smashed into the front left fender with my car! Wow was I surprised to see that car there, like “where did you come from?” then I looked at the driver and it was… my brother!! I had hit my own brother’s car… ugh! And, of course I tried to blame him…
These are all stock photos from the internet, not personal photos, but they are definitely realistic of what I encountered when I traveled to the Indy 500 infield for 3 straight years. The one year that I drove and got busted is the center of my story, somewhere around 1984. There was an 18 hole golf course in the middle of the track, BIG!!
There was always massive crowds in the infield, for the most part a fun crowd, depending on your definition of fun. Thousands of people and hundreds of vehicles jammed into the infield. And from the last picture on the right, I’m blaming somebody in my ancestral family line for my involvement in these shenanigans.
It was definitely a younger crowd and for the most part everyone just wanted to have a good time… I can’t say that the Memorial Day spirit was the only spirit going around the track that day. For some, like the guy taking a nap, it was his moment to crash, and sometimes burn… in the hot May sun!
And the grand finale of the day was to traditionally set a car on fire, I’m not kidding, I went 3 years in a row and it happened every year after the race was over. The burned out car was a trophy to all those in the infield for the race that day!
For about a year I was involved with a limousine company with my 2nd cousin Jim Hanna. This was the first of 2 “family” business’s I totally screwed up.
This was about 1988, I have no idea how I got hooked on these tinted shades, maybe I thought I was the 2nd coming of James Caan or something. So much for the car seat laws huh? Life was sure a lot different in the 80’s.
The home in Walton Hills Ohio, 7060 Hickory Lane, where I moved back with my parents for a while when separated from my wife in my first marriage. I gave my life to the Lord in the backyard in November of 1990.