Henry C.’s Downhome Dispatch: The Malibu Miracle

Jun. 12—CATLETTSBURG — My father taught me how to drive, but it was his brother — who experienced so many DUIs he wound up fleeing the commonwealth of Virginia for a spell again in the late 1970s — who taught him how to travel.

Via my pops, I discovered a pair of Keith’s golden policies — horns are for warning, not scorning, and the still left lane is for passing only.

Like any good rule, I have bent them to the position exactly where they have snapped in fifty percent, but for the most component, I try to abide by them, considerably to my wife’s chagrin yes, I am just one of those people guys who will wait right until about a 1,000 yards to get about to make a still left hand convert.

So on times like Tuesday, it was no speculate I received trapped in the correct lane of U.S. 23 for a minute. Persons wherever whipping around and jamming it in the quickly lane in advance of I could get around — a little something was keeping things up.

Regardless of what it was, it was not a truck hauling a large load, mainly because I could not see it further than the people forward of me.

I discovered my hole and took it, kicking it up the street — and that is when I saw it.

No, it wasn’t more mature folk puttering together the highway in a ’98 Crown Vic, nor was it an ’89 Escort gasping on three cylinders.

It was mid-2000s Chevy Malibu with a refrigerator strapped to the again of it.

Not a mini-fridge, head you, I’m speaking a whole-sized ice e-book, laid up on the back windshield, tied down with ratchet straps so tattered and worn you could see places wherever just a handful of threads stretched to preserve the entire kit and kaboodle together.

His emergency flashers ended up on, but only one particular tail gentle was blinking. I couldn’t see a tag, but that will not indicate he did not have it taped on the again window. The rear bumper was so close to the floor, you couldn’t roll a golf ball underneath the muffler.

As I handed him, I saw he was using on a spare tire in the again, and the entrance tire looked to be on about its very last leg.

In the rear watch mirror, I observed the front bumper was long gone.

Look, I ain’t talking crap on this guy’s set up — you have to make due with what you received.

Back again in the Excellent Scrap Hurry of 2008-to-2010, when China was purchasing up each and every piece of iron that wasn’t tied down and blended metallic was going for double digits on the hundred, I could not constantly enlist a buddy with a decide up truck to haul a load up to the property. Heck, occasionally I did not want to — that meant splitting the cash, and occasionally I just preferred to make a fast $20.

So, I would get my Inexperienced Equipment (a Ford Taurus) and drive close to the creek bottoms, in the vicinity of the railroad tracks and down back streets hunting for regardless of what any metallic I could locate. I might things aged lawn mowers, sheet metallic, outdated railroad spikes and weed eaters in that sucker.

Heck, one time I located an oven any individual dumped and with a bit of elbow grease and a bungee cord, I rolled it into the trunk.

You got to do what you bought to do.

Now, I you should not know this guy’s intention — given that I couldn’t see the again of the fridge, I could not tell if he’d rammed a choose ax into the freon traces to flip it in. Maybe he was going it, maybe he’d just acquired it off Industry Location.

Just after passing him, I stopped by the courtroom home in Catlettsburg on a minor little bit of business enterprise, then I hopped on the street and made my way more than to the Kenova bridge.

As I went by the work zone, I could see him up forward of me, the refrigerator even now in area. As he came down the hill to the tracks by Dreamland Pool, he virtually came to a dead-quit as he crossed the tracks — for all those who might question the miracles of God, I swear this feller did not bottom out on the tracks.

As he rounded the bend and the road opened to a four lane, folks whipped around him — but at this stage, I decided, what the heck, let’s see how this performs out.

I stayed behind a bit prior to passing.

We have been sitting side-by-facet at a crimson mild when I observed a Kenova Law enforcement Officer sitting down in the parking great deal of a mechanic shop.

The cop had his window down and he was staring in our course. If his jaw hung any more, it would’ve been in his lap.

From 70 yards away and powering mirrored sun shades, his eye brows betrayed the shock.

I ain’t a psychic, and I never pretend to be 1, but I could sense what the cop was wondering.

“What (expletive) is likely on right here?”

The light turned inexperienced and I drove on, leaving the Malibu behind — I retained an eye in the rear check out mirror.

I noticed the officer whip out, I noticed him strike the lights. The Malibu kept driving. For a moment, I assumed I was about to be a social gathering to the greatest minimal-velocity chase considering the fact that O.J. ran in that white Bronco. But alas, the Malibu pulled into a gasoline station and all I’m left with is my imagination as to how to that discussion went.

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