Old Brown

When I was stationed on a United States Air Force radar base south of Minot, my primary mode of transportation was an MG Midget that I also used to compete in autocross events run on a K-Mart parking lot on Sunday afternoons. The sport was difficult on my little car and I found myself having to make repairs on a regular basis. One day, at an intersection in Minot, the car stalled and I tried to restart it until I noticed smoke coming out from under the hood. I pulled on the hood release and jumped out of the car, leaving the ignition in the “on” position. When I opened the hood, a ball of fire leapt out at me and I jumped back. A man came running out of a nearby teenage night club with a fire extinguisher, that alas, proved to be empty.

As the orange paint on my little car was turning black, a full-sized Pontiac four-door sedan driven by an airman from the SAC base came around through the intersection and skidded to a stop a few yards away. Like the Lone Ranger on his way to save the bank from robbers, this knight pulled a out small, dry powder fire extinguisher, ran to my car, pointed the nozzle at the fire, and snuffed the flames almost instantly. Just as quickly as the fire had gone out, though, it reignited was a whoosh. Then, and only then did I remember that the car had an electric fuel pump, so I reached inside and turned off the ignition thus stemming the flow of gasoline onto the fire. The Lone Ranger pulled the trigger once more and the fire died. We stood there for a moment looking at the mess, and then after they’d helped me push the car to the edge of the sidewalk, the Lone Ranger and the other fellow rode off into the sunset.

My insurance was of no help, so with the help of some ingenious others, several catalogs, and the local MG dealer, I set about repairing the car at the auto hobby shop on our little radar base.

One of my first needs was transportation. Friends lent me cars when I asked, but the job was going to take some time and to be stuck at a radar base fifteen miles from town was a horrible thought. One day in a corridor at work, I mentioned to Joe, the Training NCO, that I was looking for a car to buy. Joe told me that he had Old Brown that he’d sell me. Old Brown was a 1954 Chevrolet station wagon that had been owned by a number of people associated with or stationed on the site and just about everybody knew the car by its nickname.

That night, a friend and I went to Joe’s house in Minot where I was introduced to his wife and children. Once I had been vetted by the family, I was offered the opportunity to adopt Old Brown for $75.00. Joe and his wife explained that the ignition key was long gone, but because that generation of Chevrolet had an ignition switch with several positions that needed no key, the car would run well. They explained some of the other quirks that I’d likely encounter, such as the need to pump the gas pedal several times before trying to start the car on a cold morning, and the little levers that would some times get hung up under the hood, making it impossible to shift gears, but that evening I went home in my eighteen-year-old Chevrolet station wagon..

Old Brown and I did well by one another and then I finally got my MG running again and the Chevrolet was most often parked beside the auto hobby shop, used by anyone who asked when they needed to go on a parts run. When it came time to renew the insurance, I decided not to and the car fell into disuse.

One Saturday afternoon, my friend Bobby and I were sitting in the otherwise empty NCO Club drinking a beer or two when a fellow from the next town south came in asking if he could put up a poster for a demolition derby coming up. We let him tack it to a bulletin board, drank a beer with him, talked about the weather and girls, and because we were in North Dakota, farming. From time to time I’d glance at that poster and I guess Bobbie saw the look.

“You know, Mac, you’ve got Old Brown,” he said between puffs on his smoke and pulls on the bottle. “We could fix her up for that demolition derby.”

With that, I became a future demolition derby driver. Over the next few weeks, we stripped out most of the glass, pulled out the rear seats, cut out the headliner, and set about creating a demolition derby car.

On the day of the event, we hooked a rope from Bobby’s car to Old Brown, tossed a tool box, some cans of oil, and a five-gallon jerry can of water and pulled Old Brown to the field in the little town of Max where the local VFW or American Legion (I forget which) would stage the demolition derby. For the reader who has been protected from such inanities, a demolition derby is an event in which a number of cars, driven by drivers protected only by seat belts and a motorcycle helmet, are smashed into each other inside a small area outlined by telephone poles laid in a large circle. Basically the rules are simple, cars may not be modified to prevent damage from being fatal (to the car), there is prohibition against intentionally running into the driver’s door, and any driver trying to avoid crashing into other cars, thus keeping his own car running, would be disqualified. There were to be several heats of competition to determine which drivers would earn a trip to the big time – the final.

The draw put me and Old Brown in the first heat with four or five other cars. We were positioned inside the circle, each car pointing in towards the center where, to begin the heat, an official would set off a cherry bomb. For the first time since we’d started talking about the demolition derby, I was nervous. So nervous in fact, that I had to put the car in neutral because my knee was shaking too wildly to keep the clutch pedal down.

From the moment the cherry bomb went off, I started having fun. Up to that point in my life, I’d avoided hitting things with cars. I’d never even run over an animal. But the rules had changed. Slamming the car into reverse, I spun out of the middle of the instantaneous melee and began looking for targets. I’d been advised to use the rear end of the car as a bettering ram and to aim for the front end of the other cars with the intent of crippling them, whether be breaking the steering mechanisms or gashing the radiators to cause the engines to overheat and seize.

Back and forth we charged, dodging each other, absorbing grinding blows, constantly whipping the steering wheel left and right, shifting from first to reverse and back again. I would no sooner smash into someone than someone would crash into me. I took a mighty blow in the grill from a huge 1960’s station wagon and Old Brown began to pour steam from under the hood, but that old Blue Flame engine still put out 115 horsepower and let me continue banging into other cars – for a while. The lack of coolant finally began changing the size and shape of inner parts of the mighty Blue Flame and she began running slower and slower. Finally, the engine quit and an official gave me a flag to hold up that signified that my car was out of the competition.

My adrenaline was still pumped up, but I had to sit and watch as my former competitors continued banging and clanging around until only one car was left running. The tow truck came out and pulled each of the sidelined cars out to where the pit crews could make repairs (or hook them to a tow vehicle and go home). Bobby and I began looking at the damage and discovered that the radiator was still whole, but that a hose had burst. We didn’t have a spare, but we had a lot of black tape, so we wrapped the hose tightly and began adding water to the coolant system. It held, so we could run again in the consolation event they’d hold just before the main event.

The consolation heat was a bunch of battered cars that had been knocked out in earlier heats, but had been put back in running condition like I had done with Old Brown. This time, I wasn’t nervous, I now had experience, and I was ready to bash fenders with the rest off them. The bomb went off and from there on out it was a blur of bumps and bangs, steering around, mostly in reverse, aiming for car’s that were aiming at me, and generally, a whole lot of fun. One car failed, then another and another until I was left with only one opponent, and Old Brown, steaming away, gallantly kept up the brawl and then, miracle of miracles, the other car stalled and would not start. I’d won. Old Brown and I had lived to fight another battle. We were in the main event.

We added some more water, taped that bad radiator hose some more, changed a flat tire, and drove back out into the circle. All the other heats and been started with the cars facing into the center of a rough circle. The main event was started differently. We were all backed into the circle, so that there was a small circle in the center, surrounded by the rear ends of eight or so other cars, all nearly touching. The bomb was thrown into the middle and when it went off, we all moved forward briefly, then shifted our cars into reverse and slammed backwards into the pile, back and forth, and then sliding or being pushed sideways, skidding into first one car and then another. Smoke and dust and steam filled the air as Old Brown and I rammed car after car, joyfully working together as a team. The six cylinder Blue Flame engine, nearly 20 years old, gave its all against mostly younger V-8 motors in larger cars, until Joe’s prediction came through. I nailed the accelerator to the floor and rammed the front right corner of an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon, crushing its radiator and front wheel with one mighty blow. I reached for the column-mounted shifting lever to pull away from the Olds and found it immovable

The two little levers that Joe had said would sometimes hang up did just that. I was stuck in reverse, with the rear of my car imbedded in the front of a car that was no longer mobile. Other drivers saw my predicament and I became the favored target until the officials came by with the flag. I was out of the competition in a car that could still run if only I could get out, open the hood, and unstuck those two little levers. All I could do was watch the other cars battle to the end.

The event was soon over, the dust settled, the smoke and steam dissipated, and the spectators began leaving the side of the hill that overlooked our arena. The officials came around to each car and told the teams that there was a keg of beer being tapped for us. As we sat around on the warm hill on that warm Sunday afternoon, one of the officials came over to me.

“You the guy in the’54 Chevy?” he asked.

When I admitted to being that fellow, the official went on, “You were the only one that looked like you were having fun. All the other drivers seemed pretty serious, but you had a grin on your face the whole time.”

The local Air Force newspaper carried a picture of me and Old Brown that next week with a brief article about the demolition derby and how we had finished. I gave the car to someone who was going to build a trailer out of the rear chassis and the rest of the car was hauled off to an inglorious end at the junk yard and all was forgotten.

Forgotten, that is, until that winter. I was on Main Street in Minot, shopping for Christmas gifts when I ran into Joe’s wife and one of their younger children. We stood on the cold sidewalk chatting for a few minutes and all the while, the little boy was tugging at his Mommy’s skirt. When he finally got her attention, she looked down at him and asked him what he wanted. Still holding on to her skirt, he looked up at me and that at her and in a rather plaintive sound, said, “That’s the man that murdered Old Brown.”