For my friends with young sons.
I usually accepted disciplinary measures as a cost of doing business when I was growing up. However, if I was grounded and there were no alternatives I did what I had to do. I made a risk management decision. At the age of 14, judgement in this regard was a necessity.
The Endless Summer, a surfing film by Bruce Brown, was playing at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium at 7 PM on a school night. The film was made in 1963 but wasn’t scheduled for release until 1965. It debuted at a high school in the Midwest in 1964 and was touring select civic auditoriums nationally to build momentum. It was my only chance to see it for a year. I happened to be grounded for some reason, it seemed as if I was always grounded for something, and my mother was unmoved by my ardent pleas for a temporary pass.
If a viral grapevine existed in the 60s, The Endless Summer was the first viral item in my life, and I was not going to miss it. I was already grounded. How bad would it be if I got caught? Armed with this logic, I climbed out of my bedroom window, down the side of the brick chimney, through the neighbor’s hedge and walked about four miles to the auditorium. It took about an hour meaning at best I’d be home in bed a little after nine. Risky but worth it.
It was a short film and let out around eight, so I stayed to watch the credits. I had time. But I was literally the last to leave and it was raining cats and dogs. I’d foregone any chance to catch a ride with friends, so I decided to hitch. Always a challenge after dark and in the rain even worse, but an Oldsmobile pulled over with four guys in it. I sat in the rear-right seat by the window. As soon as I closed the door and they sped away I realized they were drunk. Not just drunk but very drunk.
Buckets of rain were pounding the roof. Visibility was close to zero. Traffic signals were a blurry colored glare. The driver swerved and just missed a head-on. An angry horn faded out behind us. The guy next to me took a swig of something from a pint bottle in a paper bag and handed it up front. I said, “Hey, let me out,” in a do it now voice. “I’ll just get out here.” I pointed to the curb. But they didn’t pay any attention. We slid into a narrow tree lined street and he gunned it.
A hairpin turn at the end of the street was invisible, especially going 40 in a 25. We hit the curb, went straight through a chain link fence and fell down a ten-foot ravine. On impact the back door on my side flew open and my hand went to the door jamb to keep from falling out. The front of the car slammed into the mud at the bottom of the ditch and as it hit, the open door snapped back and slammed shut on my fingers and knuckles. I thought they might be broken but it didn’t matter. I had to get out. I grabbed the door handle, popped it open and fell out in the mud.
The two guys in front went through the wind shield. The two guys in the back were in the front seat. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them, and they weren’t happy. I checked my right hand, and my fingers moved so that was good. It hurt like son of bitch, but nothing was broken. I stood up and looked around. Directly in front of me, a few yards away, another chain link fence guarded an athletic field, classrooms on the far side of it.
The car was nose down at 45 degrees. One boy was out cold on the hood, hanging half in half out, moaning. The engine was racing. The interior lights were on contrasting the pitch-black night and the rat-tat-tat of the rain on metal. Some lights on the other side of the field were glimmering though the downpour.
I was frozen in adrenalin shock. There was a lot of blood running in rivulets over one of the headlights. The fucking car horn was blaring and to top it all off, I was grounded! I’m not sure how long I stood there, maybe several minutes, maybe less. A siren wailed in the distance. It was time to go. I waded through knee-high weeds and wet mud to the chain link fence, climbed it one handed like boot camp in seconds, fell over the top and took off running. At the far side, under the eaves of a hallway patio, I turned around for one last look. No one had seen me.
When I got home, I couldn’t climb the chimney with my hand, so I slipped in the kitchen door. I hid my wet clothes behind the washing machine and put on a dirty T shirt and dry jeans from the pile. I made two bologna sandwiches, took them up to my room with a large glass of cold milk and swallowed them whole like a reptile.
Epilogue
This had very little effect on my judgement as a teenager, but it had a marvelous effect on my ability to manage risk in later years. Of course my mom never knew. Mothers do not know 90% of what their sons do. They think they know, but that’s our little secret. If I were offered a billion to have and spend today, or the choice of going back to that night and doing it all again, I’d say keep your pennies.
"The Endless Summer" made $20 million worldwide after its release. Newsweek named it one of the ten best movies of 1966.
Hi Derek, thank you and yes, I believe in all that.
As for the dude on the hood and his pals... It all happened so fast... No sympathy from me for them! I think that would have happened whether I was there or not. Once I was over the fence, I never thought about it. I just wanted to make it home before 9. Life!!! just live it, man. Before you know it, it will all be over.
I decided when I got on substack instead of complaining about how bad things are in 2024, I'd write about how different (wonderful) things were when I was growing up. Just to go back for a few minutes and remember.
Felt like I was dreaming your story. Epic