SCRATCH ONE DODGE!

A tale worth telling, and so I shall. . .

Some of you have experienced a total loss of data from a hard drive failure, but have you ever intentionally "reinitialized" a car? A very long time ago when I was a happy 10 or 11-year-old Air Force brat living in occupied Germany, a group of mostly innocent Boy Scouts managed to do just that (with some help, of course). You're going to need some background to understand all this, so here goes:

I 've always been one to seek out the farthest corner of whatever place I'm in, which must explain what we're doing in northern New Mexico at the moment. (For that matter, the Eastern Shore of Maryland my wife and I inhabited for twenty-five+ years is another such "removed" part of the world -- I used to call it "the Mexico of Maryland.") When I was a boy, Air Force life frequently meant living on-base in densely packed housing areas or apartment buildings, from which I always yearned to escape. At one such place, the sprawling Rhein-Main Air Force Base outside of Frankfurt, we lived in apartments originally constructed for Luftwaffe pilots and their families. It occurs to me now that it was odd for such buildings to have escaped the war unscathed., but perhaps WWII Allied bomber crews intentionally gave their German peers' families a break -- stranger things have happened, in and out of wartime.

The base enclosed a vast area of land (a territory unto itself), a portion of which consisted of woods and mostly-wild open fields. It was here that our local scout troop had its "campground," if that is the proper term to describe an installation of permanently-erected wooden-floored 24-man tents where we "camped" using surplus U.S. Army sleeping bags, knapsacks, and mess kits. Someday I will have to describe in detail what scouting under the aegis of the U.S. military in Germany in the 1950's was like, but for now all you need to know is that such a place existed, tucked in amongst tall pine trees in an isolated corner of the base.

Not too far from this spot was an area I used to call the "salvage yard," though it was actually more or less what today we'd call a toxic waste dump. In a big open field was a deep pit where maintenance crews regularly disposed of used oil, contaminated fuel, and God knows what. Surrounding this pit were several acres of trash, surplus equipment, junked military vehicles, and even the carcasses of several crashed aircraft. In the 1950's, no one gave a thought to proper disposal of or cordoning off this wealth of fascinating, dangerous garbage. Just imagine if you will how attractive such a place could be for an average ten-year-old in a day with no distractions like TV, dope, or shopping malls!

I used to visit this place on many occasions, either alone or with a friend or two (how was I ever allowed to go there?). Our principal amusement consisted of finding interesting things to break: huge vacuum tubes from radar equipment, light bulbs, bottles, and all manner of discarded flotsam. The vacuum tubes made especially fine targets for rock-throwing when launched on the "pond," as we called the oily lake in the pit: they always imploded with a satisfying "bang" before sinking beneath the blackish goo. . .

The wrecked airplanes were the biggest attraction, of course. Stripped of everything militarily useful like instruments and engines, they still provided hours of outlandishly delightful fantasy play for me and my friends. What's more, we soon discovered they offered even more opportunities for recreational destruction. By selecting a section of aluminum skin on the wing or fuselage (between the riveting) and bashing it with whatever implement was handy, we could make a wonderfully loud noise and create a gloriously jagged hole (think of it as a larger and more dangerous version of popping bubble wrap)! Grabbing a hunk of wiring harness and seeing how much we could strip from the cockpit was almost as much fun, mainly because it gave us nifty souvenirs to take home.

One fine spring weekend was the occasion for a memorable nearby Boy Scout campout. Thinking back on it, it seems quite unbelievable that we were so loosely organized, but I remember that the only provisions we had were Sugar Frosted Flakes and Orange Crush (soda pop)! Being boys, we minded little, and after 36 hours of eating this concoction in the total absence of adult supervison, we were transformed into a sugar-crazed pack of a dozen mischief-seeking monsters! "Hey, let's go to the salvage yard!" I or someone else suggested, so off we went. The spot was no more than a short hike away, and we soon emerged from the woods to find the usual olive-drab detritus, a few older boys we knew from school, and wonder of wonders, an apparently newly-abandoned car!

To hear what happened next will chill the hearts of parents, car owners, counselors, and priests. Even now, the memory of the spontaneous orgy of destruction that followed our discovery of the unmarred '51 Dodge is a delicious mixture of guilt and exhilaration. Whether the older boys among us initiated the event is hard to say, but the ingenuity and resourcefulness shown by my fellow Boy Scouts and me quickly overwhelmed whatever guidance and suggestions may have been delivered. The car had been left at the salvage yard, hadn't it? And we were the first to discover it -- what joy! (Are you ready?)

We started with the glass, of course. Using rocks and pipes, we smashed the windsheld and rear window. The side windows were rolled down -- you'd think this would have told us something --and we had to roll them back up to get a good crack at them. Next came the headlights and taillights, then the dashboard instruments. Oh, we were thorough. Someone found a sharp piece of metal and began ripping the headliner and the upholstery. A couple of larger fellows clambered up on top and jumped up and down repeatedly until it caved in and nearly touched the seats. Someone thought to open the hood , and it was then I made my own proud contribution by seizing a large rock and happily smashing the sparkplugs protruding from the top of the flathead six! Oh, delirium and wonder! (No one had thought of that, you see.) Meanwhile our older teenage companions found a heavy metal bar and proceeded to demolish the fenders. There was not a bendable or breakable component of that automobile that was not thoroughly and utterly obliterated, torn, crumpled, or smashed. Cheering and whooping, we turned from the lifeless hulk and looked for something else to break. Finding little, the scouts of Troop whatever-it-was marched back to camp for yet another evening meal of Frosted Flakes and orange soda. Our triumph was complete!

Before dark, however, one of our so-called scoutmasters finally showed up in camp, took one look at our supplies, and rushed off to the commissary to buy us some hot dogs and milk. He returned with the groceries but not alone: two APs (Air Policemen) with a very distraught-looking young airman in tow strode into our tent and sternly demanded: "Did any of you boys see any local kids [Germans] sneaking over the fence?" (I can still see the helmeted cops standing in the doorway, the light of the setting sun behind them.) Well no, we hadn't, of course. "Do any of you know what happened to this man's car?" A dozen mouths ceased sucking up soda-soaked cereal as everyone silently shook their heads. "Are you SURE??" A dozen heads nodded vigorously. American Boy Scouts being nothing if not trustworthy, the APs and the victim turned, climbed into their Jeep, and roared off in a cloud of dust and pine needles. . .

Whoa! We quickly put aside our cold bowls of soggy Frosted Flakes and set about building fires to cook the welcome hot dogs. Afterwards our scoutmaster set up his cot in the rear of the tent, everyone went to bed early, and none of us ever spoke of the day's events again -- not even in school, at the movies, or anywhere. For one thing, as Air Force dependents we had all been strongly schooled in the notion that any sins we committed might reflect badly on our fathers' careers. Whether this was actually true or not I never had occasion to find out, but as a disciplinary threat, it was marvelously effective!

The young airman, as it turned out, had driven to the isolated corner of the base to do some birdwatching, if you can believe that. His unfortunate choice of a parking place might have been all right had it not coincided with the psychoactive effects of our limited cuisine and a dozen or so boys used to making their own fun. In our hearts, at least, we were and are forever innocent, although the retelling has left me nervous and perspiring. Oh, but you should have seen the way those spark plugs crumbled!

To this day, I can never look at a flathead engine without thinking how vulnerable it seems.

John H. Farr edits the news for Applelinks.com and invites your comments. The Farr Site Archives will take you to the past two years' worth of columns. John also writes a monthly op-ed page column called "El Emigrante" for Horse Fly in Taos, NM and has some JPEG-laden weirdness going on at an fun project called Zoozone News (if you're lucky you'll find a different photo of New Mexico there every day).

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