Author Archives: Jon Reed

Detroit Drag Way

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Like most late-1950’s American teenagers in Detroit, I fell in love with automobiles and began tinkering with our family’s grocery-getter sedan with the help of friends. My best friend’s father had a brand new 1956 “Rocket” Oldsmobile with a relatively-high 202 horsepower for the time. I couldn’t figure out why my friend’s dad bought it, knowing his son’s sometimes wayward inclinations. Does anyone buy a hundred dollars worth of steak, put a dog in the same room, and tell it not to eat it? On many a late night my friend would put it in reverse and floor it until we hit 30 mph. Then he’d shift into drive and the tires would spin in a haze of burning rubber as we screeched forward a half-block. Years later, only after receiving an engineering degree, did I realize how durable that Oldsmobile was. Amazingly, nothing ever broke but his father always complained about his lousy GM rear tires wearing out so quickly.

Michigan’s first National Hot Rod Association drag racing facility, Detroit Drag Way, opened downriver near Dix and Sibley. This was a big event; even families were talking about drag-racing as adventurous outings. One Saturday night, my Olds-friend had been granted the privilege of taking me and another guy out for hamburgers. He had a surprise for us; instead of burgers and milkshakes, we headed to the Detroit Drag Way to race the Olds without his father knowing. I couldn’t believe I was involved in something so obviously wrong, more dangerous than drinking stolen Mogen David wine at a drive-in movie. If the car was damaged in any way, we were dead meat, trust and credibility were gone.

Nearing the drag strip, the night sky was lit by roving searchlights, blaring loudspeakers, bellowing cars, and screaming race fans. It was pandemonium, with howling cars streaking away in the distance every few minutes. I ran to the grandstand area near the starting line to watch. Sure enough, there it was, the two-tone Oldsmobile in line moving up to race into the night. My friend and I cheered mightily as the car’s tires spun with a burnout perfected late at night on neighborhood streets. As the starting lights blinked down to green, Olds-friend gunned the engine and the poor sedan, never built for something like this, howled wanting to lunge forward. Lights were flashing. Race spectators were screaming. A flash of raw fuel and burning rubber flowed over the stands. Focused on the starting light, I didn’t feel a nudge in the ribs at first.

Glancing rearward, I froze. Both my parents and Oldsmobile friend’s parents were sitting two rows up in the grandstand, probably the first and last time they would be attending a family adventure together. Our totally respectable, middle-aged, mid-American parents had decided to visit the drag strip this particular night to see what everyone was talking about. My friend and I, two sets of stunned parents, and a thousand-plus spectators watched as the starting light flashed. My unknowing Olds- friend timed it perfectly, the car gathering its flanks and lurching forward, gaining speed, screaming down the quarter-mile track, loud speakers finally announcing a great run. His speed flashed on a large board at the end of the quarter-mile, a respectable 84 mph, and we ran to meet him on the return road. After excited laughter and congratulations, we told him about our parents in the stands and his wide grin became a wide-eyed grimace. There wasn’t much talking on the drive home. Later, my own parents didn’t seem to think much of the incident, assuming my Oldsmobile friend had his father’s permission.

A few days later, fearing the worst, we three met at a local soda fountain to find out what happened. Olds-friend said when his father returned that night, he thought he would be maimed for life by a sound belt-whipping. But the night’s transgression was so great, apparently, his father just asked what his elapsed time had been before telling him he should go to bed, and that it had been quite a night. I don’t recall his father ever mentioning his GM tires again.

Trombone

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Lowrey Elementary School Band Director, Mrs. Johnson, came into our 6th grade homeroom the first week of the new school year, wanting us to learn to play an instrument and join her band. Two friends and I envied a 7th grader beating drum-sticks on school steps, so we wanted to be drummers in the worst way. Mrs. Johnson saw me in her dimly-lit office next to the band room, offering a new world of opportunity. “Well, my dear”, she asked in a kindly voice over her horn-rimmed glasses, “What sort of instrument were you thinking of playing?”

“Well, Ma’am, I want to be a drummer ‘cause I saw a friend beating drumsticks and it sounded good.” The simple truth was best and she seemed unperturbed by a straightforward answer.

“Tell you what. I’ll loan you drumsticks and a pad for practice, but you have the lips to play trombone. I happen to need a trombonist and can lend you a trombone.” She assembled one before my eyes. “Here’s a mouthpiece for you to practice. Put your lips together and buzz into it like this. You’ll get the hang of it and I’ll see you next week.”

Even at my young age, I knew it was a trap. The trombone was longer than I was tall and a lot more expensive than drumsticks, but I couldn’t get out of seeing her the following week because I had to return the sticks, pad, and mouthpiece.

I asked my friends what happened with their visits to Mrs. Johnson. The first was still in a state of shock. “I have to take this cornet home along with the drumsticks and try them both out. She needs cornets, so she lent me this.” I was mystified my friend had given up so easily on drumming. The other was even less satisfied.

“She ran out of drumsticks because you guys took them all. I have a saxophone mouthpiece to try but I get the drumsticks next week. Dad says Charlie Parker is the world’s greatest jazz saxophonist. Who’s he, anyway?” By the time I got home, I figured Mrs. Johnson had all the drummer-trainees she would ever need. The drumsticks would be taken from my grasp, to be delivered to someone else, and I would be snookered into a lifetime of playing trombone if I wasn’t smart enough to find a way out.

Sitting around the kitchen table a few nights later, my mother said, “I had a call from Mrs. Johnson and she says you have a nice embouchure. Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller were the greatest American band leaders and trombonists ever, except Glenn Miller blew up in an airplane in World War II.”

I was appalled to discover the trap had been sprung. “Mom, all the mouthpiece does is make “Thrrrp” noises and spit comes out. I don’t have trombone lips; I have braces. Why can’t I play guitar? And what’s embouchure anyway?” Diversionary guitar tactics weren’t going anywhere, despite scary visions of trombonists blowing up in airplanes.

“Mrs. Johnson wants to see you tomorrow. She’s going to lend you one to try out.”

Mrs. Johnson had invaded my life to an awesome extent. Who was this Tommy Dorsey so enthralling my mother? I had serious doubts about satisfying her Tommy Dorsey needs but, within weeks, I was a struggling elementary school trombonist. In a few more years, I was an acceptable junior and then high school trombonist. In my senior year, our orchestra was in the play “Brigadoon” with a cast party after the last performance.

My father let me drive his new 1957 V8-powered Chevrolet to the party, a special privilege. However, a rat-faced band member challenged me to race his dad’s new 6-cylinder Dodge Coronet. We decided to race one block. At a signal, we took off and God was kind that night because we didn’t crash. At the end of the block, I had beaten him handily. In frustration, he gunned his car and turned left, his left front hitting the right front of our brand-new Chevrolet. We both got out, shaking. His father’s car had damage but, try as we might, we couldn’t find anything wrong with the Chevy. Then I realized the trombone had been lying on the back seat and was now on the floor.

Driving home, trembling all the way, I knew there must be some damage to the Chevrolet. If I hadn’t been talked into playing trombone by Mrs. Johnson years before, this never would have happened. Next morning, before I could look at the car, my father said, “It’s the strangest thing. I didn’t tell your mother but a few days ago I hit the right front bumper of our new car on a telephone pole. It pulled it out two inches, a lot of money to fix. But now it’s like it never happened. It’s back in place without a mark on it.”

I croaked, “Wow, dad, that’s amazing. They must have a new kind of steel that reforms into place if it’s hit. I’ve never heard of anything like that.” I went outside and checked the bumper in bright sunlight. There wasn’t a scratch or ding. Back in my bedroom, I found a slight dent in the trombone bell, but no one would ever know except me.

Ice Fishing in 1954

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Ice Fishing in 1954 by Jon Reed

Have you ever been ice-fishing? I was thirteen-years-old and couldn’t feel my face in a bitter Lake St. Clair wind as the sky was just turning pink. I was waiting to go ice-fishing, and gusts of wind blew sheets of snow across an expanse of white. My father was inside a bait-shop renting a shanty after our 3:30 am drive to Caseville. I wore a parka over two winter coats, a sweater, several shirts, three pair of pants and socks, and heavy boots. I wouldn’t admit it, but I worried about being miles from shore on a foot of ice over twelve feet of water. A lump of ancient Model T Ford pickup that would take us out sat chuffing a few yards away.

A classmate friend, Eddie, and his father waited inside a big Dodge staying warm. Arriving a half-hour before to rent their own shanty, Eddie was a little slow and yet to figure out we had to sit on the flatbed exposed to the elements. My father came out and we climbed onto the flatbed, handing up thermos bottles of coffee and soup and treble-point fish spears more suitable for Roman gladiator coliseums. We were soon bouncing and roaring our way across Anchor Bay, unable to hear over the open exhaust, flailing tire chains, and wind. After a while, I stood up clinging to the top of the cab for a better view. It was clear for miles and I pulled a scarf over my face for better protection.

Tiny shanties appeared in the distance and we shuddered to a stop near two of them a few minutes later. Typical boxes of 4’ X 8’ plywood, there was room inside for only two people. They were cheaply-constructed because many were lost each year. Inside, a small oil stove would take the chill off. Each shanty was positioned over a pre-cut hole in the ice to fish through after a lid in the floor was removed. Without windows or lights, each shelter provided a clear view into green water below, like staring at a luminescent television screen. Before leaving, our driver said he would return with two more fishermen for the third shanty.

It was odd, watching him drive off, seeing how far away from the shore we were. Caseville was only a line of bare trees miles away. The wind picked up and the shanty stovepipes’ smoke flattened sideways. If there was a problem, we were alone.

Eddie and his father turned toward their hut twenty yards away and my father and I trudged through the snow with them to make sure they were alright. Fishing shanties aren’t necessarily built by the most intelligent people on Anchor Bay, much less to local building codes. They’re slapped together by fishermen, not architects. This particular one had its three foot square hole in the floor just inside the door. After lighting their oil stove a few minutes before, the driver had thrown the lid to one side before removing the overnight skim ice so they could begin fishing. It was an accident waiting to happen.

Too late, no one told my friend to look carefully before entering the hut. Poor Eddie dropped straight down through the hole, with a horrifying yelp, into twelve feet of freezing Anchor Bay. Fortunately, my father was standing just outside and grabbed Eddie’s collar as his head was disappearing in a splash of foam and ice.

“Whoa there, son. We can’t lose you that way. C’mon back here.”

After he had a good grip, he hauled Eddie back out and stood him in the lee of the hut. Eddie was wide-eyed, shaking, his hair turning to icicles as we watched. Eddie’s father stared, gulping soundlessly like a just-caught fish.

If someone falls through ice miles from shore, he’s in a lot of trouble unless he has a quick-thinking father like mine. Rescue from above is impossible. The instant swimmer better have taken a deep breath before going through and able to climb back out in less time than it takes to describe. If he hits his head going down, he’s gone. Rescuers might find him in a couple of months next spring when the ice melts. Eddie would have been dead for sure. As it was, he was lucky to be standing there, much less slowly freezing.

“Are you alright, Eddie? Eddie, can you hear me?” my father asked as Eddie stood there freezing. But Eddie couldn’t get a word out, fast turning blue.

It was obvious his day was done. My father flagged down the Model T returning from checking another shanty, and my friend was bundled inside while his father sat on the pickup bed. That was the last I saw of him for a few weeks. Shaking off images of a dead Eddie floating under a foot of ice, we went back to our shanty to bait minnows and think about a near miss. At the end of the day, we had a bucket full of good eating perch and I had a father who had saved a life.