Of Knees And Things

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By Paul Dugan, Groovy Reflections Team Member

Ever think about your knees? They are pretty fantastic mechanisms, and they've played a very big part in my life.

Sometimes you hurt them and that’s not good. I remember as a little boy scraping my knee and Mom was there with the cure, iodine. The purpose of this wonder drug was apparently to cause such severe burning pain; you forgot about whatever else was wrong! Then along came mercurochrome, looked like iodine and didn’t hurt as much; but also didn’t help as much.

Perhaps the best cure of all was the classic “Let Mommy kiss it and make it better”. Pretty sure this had no medicinal value whatsoever but amazingly it seemed to work; much like a placebo today.

Kissing and making it better apparently only works for mothers and not wives. In fact my wife even refuses to try the remedy on me. I cite the "Agonizing Zipper Event of 1984" as a prime example of this.

Knees are invaluable for praying. Standing prayers lack sincerity and supreme beings are all big on sincerity.

Ever try sitting without using your knees? Good luck and if you manage that feat, try standing back up again without knees!

Knees are really necessary for begging forgiveness. Like when she’s really made at you for something terrible that you did that you STILL can’t remember! Try telling her you’re begging her forgiveness while you are standing. “You can’t really mean it; you aren’t even on your knees.” “But I don’t have knees; they haven’t been invented yet.” “No excuse; if you loved me, you’d find a way!” Ya need knees!

There's one past incident involving knees I remember very clearly. High school, 1964, freshman geography class; the door opened and in walked the principal with a new student. She’d just moved here from another country, California, I think. Hey, I said I was in the class.  Didn’t say I’d passed it!

The principal introduced Holly to the class, or was it Molly, or whatever. What I do know was that she was wearing the shortest skirt ever seen by mankind! It was erotic; some might say obscene. Why, both her knees were exposed! Right there they were hanging out for all the world to see. That garment came right to the top of her knee, not well below like all the other girls. I’d have to check this California place out someday.

Every red blooded male remembers where he was when he saw his first knee and this was mine. I tell you it was more exciting than the lingerie section in the Sears catalog! On that day I felt like I had passed into manhood, I was no longer a kid, I had seen female knee.
   
The really amazing thing is the next day, okay maybe it was more gradual, but it sure seemed like the next day all the girls in my class were showing knee. It certainly made high school a lot more fun, I know that.

Another amazing fact is once a skirt is above the knee, it somehow continued to shrink until it became a mini skirt!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get down on my wonderful knees and thank the Lord for Molly…or Holly… or whatever the heck her name was!

The Stick Shift

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By Paul Dugan, Groovy Reflections Team Member

In high school in the 60's where I grew up you had to have a car. My first car was a 1961 Ford Galaxy rag top, six cylinder, automatic, complete with big ‘ol fins. If it had a keel it could have rivaled the Titanic for size and in all likelihood would've won against that iceberg! The back seat was big enough to stretch out and not touch either side, now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but, well that's another story entirely!

That Galaxy wasn't very fast but it was a convertible which made it more attractive to the girls. Of course, that was the reason a car was so important; couldn't very well keep necking in the back yard with a nosy little sister around. That car set me back $300 and I financed it, at $30 a month for a year, $60 interest!

A year after graduation decided that as a working man I needed a car that better fit my stature. Did a lot of searching but hadn't found anything when Dad said his friend at the Ford garage had a car there he thought I'd like. So, off we went, and it turned out to be the most beautiful piece of machinery I'd ever seen! Forest green with a white rag top, four on the floor, posi-traction and 390 cubic inches under the hood! Sold!

One little snag; I'd never driven a stick shift before but hey, how hard could it be? It was the weekend so Dad drove it home using the dealer plates until we could get it registered. So with it sitting in the driveway I could practice shifting! Yeah, right! First things first, I had had to install my new state of the art eight track player. Can’t expect a guy to go without tunes, right? Hard to look cool in a convertible without tunes!

Finally, Monday came, the car was now registered, and it was time to drive! I got in and fired it up, VROOOOM! VROOOOM! Cars just don't make THAT sound anymore. But that was back when gas was 23 cents a gallon. 

Where to go on the first drive? No question there; where the “cool car guys” hung out. The guys that lived and breathed cars; knew all about how many horsepower any given engine would put out, how to add MORE horsepower, and could strip an engine down before breakfast. Me, I knew where to put oil and gas, what a battery looked like, and was pretty sure where washer fluid was stored and what a radiator was for! But those guys knew what torque was, however as far as I was concerned he was a member of the Monkees!

So, I knew where to go; I HAD to drive by the service station where those guys hung out. It was just a little ways out of town and as I left downtown, I started to wind it up. They had to be able to hear the throaty roar of that big V-8 as I hit second gear when the roar was almost deafening. I was perfectly positioned to see their reaction without them knowing I was watching; I was the coolest of cool!

As I drew even with the service station every eye was on me, even the mechanic on the crawler, the guy that you normally only the legs of. He came out from under the car he was working on, to see the machine that was making that beautiful sound. It was time to hit third and fly on by! But perhaps I really should've practiced that one first. Missed third, shifted back into first and with screeching tires nearly stood the car on its’ front end! Then, I promptly slid as far down in the seat as I could; in fact, pretty sure I was looking under the steering wheel. Put the car back into second and if it's possible for a car to slink, I slunk away.

For years after, went out of my way to NOT drive down that road.

Finally did learn how to drive that car correctly and as much as it's possible to love an inanimate object, I loved that car. About a year later I met a woman and had to face hard reality. I could only afford one, a wife, or the 1966 Ford Fairlane GT Ragtop! That was forty years ago and while I don't regret it and wouldn't change a thing, there are days when I long for the wind in my hair and to hear that deep throat-ed VROOOOM again! Okay, truth be told, there's also days I long for hair again too! Sigh. I miss that old stick shift!



By Paul Dugan, Groovy Reflections Team Member www.groovyreflections.com