By kiki
In 1976, I had a youthful (I was 39, hey, that is still youthful, que, no?) moment I am not very proud of, but it happened. Whenever I look back at that moment, I say to myself, 'dude, you are one lucky sonofabitch' That "youthful moment" happened in Green Bay, Wis., and here is the story behind that moment: In 1976, my son Tony made the Southern California AAU National Junior Olympic boxing team. The national finals were held at St. Norbert College. St. Norbert College is a private Roman Catholic liberal art college in the Green Bay suburb of De Pere. - After having a couple of high-priced airport drinks, my boxing partner, the late John Martinez, and the late coach Lupe Morua (his son Aaron was also on the team) and I boarded with the rest of the team and other coaches/parents, the red-eye at LAX. On the flight, the teenage boxers were behaving like teenagers, and we proud parents were acting, well, like proud parents, and we were drinking to our proudness. Needless to say, with the party atmosphere on the plane, we didn't sleep a wink on the flight to Chicago's O'Hare airport. We arrived, needing to connect to Green Bay, at O'Hare's on Sunday morning. After running from one end of the airport to the other, we made our connecting flight and arrived in Green Bay at about noon, their time (Green Bay is about two hours ahead of Pacific time). As we got in line to deplane in Green Bay, I turned around and faced the guy behind me, and I said to myself, 'damn, I know this dude' it was former Green Bay Packers QB Bart Starr.
Once inside the terminal, I decided to rent a car, I don't remember what rental company it was, but the point is that I rented a 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass with 250 + miles on its odometer. On the rental contract, I paid extra to waive the $250.00 deductible in case of an accident. The first thing we (John, Lupe, and I) did once we left the airport was get lost on our way to St. Norbert College. After going around in circles a few times, we decided to stop at a bar to get directions, but because you can't go into a bar and get something for nothing, we ordered some beers to make the barmaid happy as she wrote the directions. While we were waiting on the barmaid, a young couple told Lupe they would show us how to get there if we gave them a ride to De Pere. We, of course, said "sure" On the way to the college, the young couple asked us where we were from, and we told them we were from Los Angeles. And, in a surprise move, they invited us to a house party that they were going to that night and said they would come, if we wanted to go, to the college for us. They did; it was around dusk when they came for us. After driving for about twenty minutes, we arrived at the house party. We entered the house only to find out that the party was for gays, and since neither John, Lupe, nor I indulged in gay activity, we left the party. By this time, it was dark, and we were running on fumes without having slept since Friday night. And of course, we got lost, again! While trying to find our way back to the college, we came upon a railroad crossing. The crossing only had some blinking lights; it did not have one of those long crossing arms that comes down when a train is passing. I stopped at the blinking lights to wait out the slow-moving train (it was traveling no more than five miles an hour), And while I had my foot on the brake peddle while waiting for the train to go by, in my sleepless stupor, I left the car in D gear, and you know what happened. When I woke up, the new Cutlass was bouncing off the train; with the car still running, I put it in reverse and backed off; once I backed up, John, Lupe, and I got out of the vehicle to assess the damage on the Cutlass. The hood and fenders pointed in one direction, and the rest of the car pointed in another.
And, of course, the cops were called. They asked me if I had been drinking, and I answered, "no, sir, I don't drink" The cop then told me, "well, I have to write you up for something, so I'll write you up for inattentive driving." So he did; he also told me that it would cost me $69.00; he then asked me if I had $69.00; I guess we looked like illegal bums for him to think that maybe we didn't have the $69.00. asked him for the address to send my 69-dollar check, and he said no, you paid it now. I then asked him if I could pay him the money; he wasn't happy that maybe I thought he was on the take. No, you pay at the station, now! he kinda yelled at me. So we were driven to the station in a black and white car. I paid for the ticket, and a cab was called for us - The following day, I called the rental company. I told them that their new Cutlass was in the impound yard and explained the accident to them, and I was told I had to pay the $250.00 deductible. When I explained that I had paid extra to waive the deductible, they said I still had to pay the $250.00. So I hung up on them. I then told the tournament director, a lawyer, what was happening; he asked to see the contract. After reading it and seeing that I indeed had paid to waive the deductible, he called the rental company and talked with the manager; after getting off the phone, he said, to me, "it's all handle." So the following days if we wanted to go somewhere we walked. - Oh, and Tony? He won the national title in his weight class and was named the outstanding fighter of the first four lower weight classes.
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