Lawnmower Man

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Have you ever had your automobile start sounding like a lawnmower instead?

             I have.

This was the make/model of my first set of wheels. It was
charcoal grey and had royal blue trim. Treated me well.

The first car I ever owned was a charcoal grey 1991 Chevy Cavalier. I paid seven grand for it while I was still in the Navy. Wasn’t too bad of a thing, since I paid off the loan while I was on deployment in 92-93 and usually didn’t have a place to spend money anyway. I had it shipped off the islands and drove it around while I was in college and for my first few years afterward.

            This was the car that got me through college at Texas Tech in the mid-late 90s and it was the car that I drove to O’Banion Field one spring day in 1997 or so. I was there to cover a high school playoff baseball game, I think between Amarillo Tascosa and maybe Midland High School. There used to be a railroad track between the highway and the parking lot and you had to gun the engine a bit to get up the embankment and over it.

O'Banion Field, where Coronado High School plays its
 home baseball games. 

            I managed to give it too much gas and I went up and over too quickly, and the undercarriage of my car slammed down against the railroad track and made it sound like a something you’d push across your front lawn instead of a four-door sedan. My tailpipe made a grating noise as it started dragging along the ground.

            This isn’t something you want to have happen as you get ready to broadcast a game. Concentrating is difficult enough, and here I am about to lay out $800 to get my tailpipe reattached. Swell.

            They later made that area idiot proof and leveled that embankment. There’s a frontage road there nowadays as you come off the Brownfield Highway. Even the railroad tracks are gone. Thanks guys.