Jim's quiet musings . . .

When I was in my mid to late teens, I began getting in trouble with the law.

In my junior and senior year of high school I took a shop class called Automotive Electronics, which taught engine analyzing. Within the first couple of months I lost interest in learning about engine analyzing, so my teacher, a Mr. Tony Diaz, took me aside and told me if I wanted to stay in his class and not fail, I would have to do something. So, I brought in this old clunker I’d bought at a used car dealership and began working on it.

I ended up building a powerful street machine out of a 1965 Chevy Malibu SS. I took the 327 short block out and replaced it with a 396 big block bored .30 over to a 402.

Four-bolt main, dome pistons, roller cam, tunnel ram with dual Holley elephant quads, Muncie rock crusher transmission, a new set of radical rear end gears, Mallory 50,000 volt coil, Zoom clutch and pressure plate, Mickey Thompson black ribbed valve covers and Hooker headers...fully uncapped and very loud. I bankrolled the whole project through my job working at Big 8 supermarket.

Besides the street drags, I’d occasionally sneak out around my neighborhood, and leave long, black tire marks in the road, burning rubber and showing off for the girls.

People began complaining and the cops were called, landing me in lockup a couple times for street racing. Eventually I got good at evading the cops. They knew where I lived, so I'd just park my car at somebody's house and throw a tarp over it.

Can't bust me if there's no evidence!

There was such an adrenaline rush in pulling the wool over the cop's eyes.

Well, yesterday morning I got a taste of the old times. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I don't have a driver's license or registration for my motorcycle. Not a biggy really, as nobody else around here does either. Well, maybe they’ve got a driver’s license, but they sure as hell don’t have their motorcycles registered. Most just can’t afford it.

Yesterday morning I had to go meet a friend in Ban Phrue and before taking off, I realized I was running low on petrol. I check my gas often now, since my gas gauge doesn’t work. So, I took the back way from my cottage in Klong Tong Nûea and circled back around to the petrol station in Thung Lung on route 4. They’ve got a little hotty working there now, aged somewhere in her late twenties who likes me, and whenever I show up for gas, I enjoy flirting with her a bit.

I pulled up to one of the pumps and saw she was busy with a customer, but she was looking over my way and smiling, so like a showoff I paid for the gas and buzzed out of there in a roar, crossing two lanes and into the far lane headed for the turn-around. Looking back over my shoulder at Miss Hotty as I did so…and drove right straight into a police barricade.

The cop looks at me as I'm passing him and I act like I don't see him...

“You!” He says…the typical Thai who doesn’t speak English greeting.

I swerve into the slow lane and by then he’s blowing his whistle. Then I can hear the cops across the street blowing their whistles…so, I made a lazy, wide left turn down a side street, then once out of their sight, made a quick right onto another side street, down an alley way, and back up by a little kids park, where I cross through the park and off onto a dead-end road...and well, you get the idea.

I backtracked all the way down as far as I could go past the center of town, then turned onto the main road and took off south, heading for Ban Phrue.

Eventually I had to come back, so once in town I dipped into yet another side street I knew, and snaked around the back of Patong School by the park, crossed the railroad tracks and headed for the big rubber tree plantation and back to my cottage the back way.

I haven’t seen any cops since. No doubt they forgot about it, or probably more accurately didn’t really know what to do about it.

Just like the old day’s man! Awesome.

I know damn well the cops know where I live, but I'm guessing they just blew it off...at least I hope they did. Oh sure...I've got a good story/excuse, but what I don't have is a driver's license or a valid registration....oh, and did I mention no helmet?

Gotta love it.

Something neat about eluding the cops, but eluding the cops in a foreign country?

Even better!

-Jeeem-