A Perfect Day at Rutherford Beach 1966 Best Laid Plans I was 16 yrs. old and, my best bud was Tommy Thornton. It was pretty early on a Saturday morning; I had managed to get my dad’s old work truck, a ‘59 dodge with rust holes the size of the Grand Canyon in the floor board. Tommy and I spent an hour or so cutting pieces of plywood to cover the holes up just so we would not die from carbon monoxide poisoning from all the exhaust leaks. ‘Ole Red’ was not much to look at, but she had a 318 V8 engine and a huge set of mud grips on the back that could sling sand 40 or 50 feet when we were doing doughnuts out on the beach. We each had $ 25.00 and a 1/2 tank of gas and a ride... We were living large!! We got to the beach about 9 a.m., we managed to get Tiny Rutherford to sell us a case of beer and a couple bags of ice. Now all we had to do was cruise the beach and show off for the girls that would be coming in from all over. It was a little early, so we headed down the beach toward Cameron and were just about to turn around when we saw something flashing in the sunlight way down the beach. We had seen Barkley cruising downtown Cameron in his dad’s brand new AMC Ambassador the night before. Man, was that a pretty car; it was pearl white with enough chrome to blind helicopters when they flew over it in the sunlight. The closer we got we could see two people on top of a car, and we started to turn around, but then they started waving at us. Well shoot, it was Barkley and his favorite girl, Shirley, in their underwear and on top of Ashburn’s new car… The only trouble was that the car was about 50 feet in the Gulf of Mexico. Seems they had been playing dominos the night before and got tired and fell asleep….and the tide had come in. They managed to wake up before they set sail. We slid to a halt with Ole Red and did what we could which was mainly retrieve their clothes. Apparently it was pretty hot the night before, so they took their clothes off while playing dominos. Now we didn’t want to call them liars, but I told Barkley he needed to improve the story before Ashburn got there. He was kinda upset when I broke the back window out to get inside the car, but being the car was in about 3 feet of water, I didn’t figure it would add much more damage to it. We got them dressed and tried to get them to come with us, but Barkley was adamant that he stay there until we went for a wrecker. Well shoot!, that was another reason to let Ole Red out for a run. We were headed down the beach at 65 or 70 mph, and every now and then we were plum airborne. We headed over to Raymond LeBlanc’s, and he agreed not to call Ashburn and to go get Barkley and the car right away. Having that good deed done, we headed over to Tartar’s Grocery for more gas where we each put in 2.50 and almost filled the tank….man this was going to be a day to remember. We popped a top on two iced cold Budweiser’s and headed back to Rutherford beach trying to see how fast we could take the two curves in the shell road on the way there. Life was good, wind blowing in our hair (mainly because we had to stick our heads out the window to keep from choking to death) When we got to the beach, we made a cruise down the main part of the beach just in case some of those foreign girls had sneaked in while we were on our mission of mercy. You know who I mean, those girls from way over there in Lake Arthur or Kaplan maybe even Abbeville. We had to stake our claim before all them creole cowboys finished working cows and were there in their brand new pickup trucks. No action yet, so we turned around and met Raymond LeBlanc headed to pick up Barkley. We gave him directions , and about that time, we noticed Scott Henry and Earl Guthrie had their boat out at Rutherford beach, water skiing. We wheeled Ole Red around, put the back of the truck facing Hackberry Beach, and managed to entice them to shore by showing them the ice chest full of Budweiser. They picked us up; we all popped a top and started skiing. Well shoot, we had no more than gotten started good when a caravan of vehicles pulled up not far from Ole Red and parked. Out of those trucks and cars poured a bevy of beauties , all of them wearing tiny bikinis! Well shoot! , that is what a 16 year old lives for! I told Scott to bring us back to shore, but instead, he was cruising back and forth in front of where a few old men were starting to put up some tents….and all the girls were helpers along with some of the older ladies. All of a sudden I get this brainstorm, and I lean over and whisper in Tommie’s ear. He nodded in agreement, and the plan was set so we jumped on our skis. By this time, the tents were going up pretty quickly, so I figured what we would do is to ski by them turn our ropes loose and head straight for shore on our skis at 40 MPH plus. We would ski right up on the sand, jump off and look cool. Then offer to help them finish the tents. I kept yelling Scott to go faster and faster. When we hit about 45 mph, I started my swing from the far side and must have been doing a good 60 mph when I let go of the ski rope and was flying like the wind headed straight towards “paradise”. Now I knew I was looking good flying along with a big grin on my face, and all the girls had gathered-up to greet me when I gently slid upon the shore and hopped out of my skis. Well about this time, things went horribly wrong. When I hit the beach at 40+ mph, the skis came to a grinding halt, and I started tumbling towards the tents! I could see a look of horror on every girls face as they scratched and screamed to get out of my way. I was like a 195 lb. bowling ball with arms and legs , and there were some horrible screams coming from somewhere deep inside me. Well shoot, I must have rolled at least 30 yards and managed to take out all three tent poles, the tents, and the stove, BBQ Pit and whatever else that was in my path…Luckily I hit something solid which stopped my forward motion or I would have ended up in Creole. But as luck would have it. I had managed to put a dent in the driver’s door of brand new truck the size of my head. I must have lost consciousness for a couple of minutes, but when I came to, it looked like a tornado had leveled their entire campsite! On top of that, there were a couple of old women beating me with brooms. Tommy had not fared any better ‘cause one old lady was trying to hit him with her cane. Finally, one old man came to check on me to see if I was all right. He asked how I felt …I said, “Not too bad. Except for dis big ass knot on my head and I am seeing double “ He said, “Look behind you.” I looked, and sure enough, there was stuff scatted to hell and back where we rolled through their tents and campsite. He grinned and said, “Man you sure looked good coming up on those skis …My granddaughters were oohing and aching.” I kinda grinned and he said, “But I didn’t start enjoying it until your skis came to a screeching halt and you started tumbling head over heels through the tents. He said ”man you waz like a bowling ball on steroids. “Now“, he said, “That was some funny stuff !” The man started laughing which put everyone to laughing. He then showed me the dent on his truck, and everybody laughed some more. I asked what we could do to help straighten out the mess we had caused, and he put us to work putting the tents back into place and cleaning up the mess. So all’s well that ends well and except for an occasional snicker and a few guffaws, we passed a great day with our new friends from the big city of Abbeville ,Louisiana. Ronnie D
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 12:08:47 +0000
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