Written: October 25th, 2011
Many people have desires for adventure. It's an integral part of the human psyche, and exists as an element of universal interest that is common to a lot of people. Some of us fulfill that desire by writing narrative stories and reports full of action, suspense, and intrigue, while others are content with reading the accounts of others. Alternatively, a select group of individuals actually take hold of those anecdotes of adventure, and make them their own by living them out in their daily lives. They live every day like it is a new adventure, sometimes even risking their own lives while on their journey to experience a part of many of life's interesting endeavors. My grandfather was one such man. Throughout his different jobs and numerous outdoor activities, he never stopped enjoying life for the adventure that he believed it to be.
My grandfather's first step into adventurous endeavors occurred in his late teenage years when he got a job delivering telegrams in the southern Indiana area. His job was to deliver messages to various individuals, and he had the pleasure of meeting new people every day. As part of it, he was often sent to deliver messages to known mobsters. He at least once had to deliver telegrams to the notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone. It doesn't matter if he was a teenager or young adult, it must have been quite exciting, yet terrifying, to deliver messages to a notorious mobster. If that's not an adventure, I don't know what is.
Throughout his years of life, he valued time spent listening to other people. Sharing intriguing stories about their adventures and endeavors, as well as sharing opinions about the happenings of society, were to him an important part of the human experience. Many people described him as "a man who never met a stranger". As a young adult he held jobs as a bartender, a salesman for Firestone tires, and worked in the real estate business. He was always interacting with people, and enjoyed every minute of it. It was exciting for him to meet new people, and to listen to their stories of life adventures.
He continued his endeavors in the year 1949 when he started racing stock cars around short dirt tracks. For the six years between then and 1955, he drove in many races and traveled to areas in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky. He raced in both the AAA and US Auto Clubs, which were organizations that helped initiate the start and early development of the NASCAR auto races. During his early adult years, my grandfather had build many hot-rod cars, and he owned three different cars that he drove in the stock car races: a Hutson Teraplane, a 30's Chevy powered by a GMC truck engine, and a 1936 Ford. Two other drivers, Johnny Tobias and Bud Greyhouse, would pay him to use his cars to drive in the races as well. Even though he never advanced into the “big leagues” of auto racing, he did personally know many of the more famous drivers. He often hung around the INDY 500 track, and shared many stories about races with the other drivers.
My grandfather always continued seeking excitement even when he was off the track. Not only was he a race car driver, he was also a hot-rod mechanic. He was always looking for ways to improve the performance of his cars. He personally worked on all of his cars, spending hours upon hours fine tuning them until they performed just perfectly. He also had a friend named “Rabbit” Barns who owned a blacksmith and metal-working shop. My grandfather often commissioned him to design and fabricate metal pieces for the cars. My grandfather craved adventure, and that led him to experiment with different modifications that would increase the performance of his stock cars. He attempted to increase the horsepower of the car by using aviation gas to fuel the engine because it had a higher octane value than regular gasoline. However, the attempt failed catastrophically, and pieces of the engine blew apart. He also tried injecting sodium chloride into the two tires of the car that would be on the “inside” side of the racetrack, in an attempt to give them more traction control for maneuvering around corners. This didn't work out either, as it caused a failure in the tires. My grandfather did succeed in increasing the car's traction during cornering by experimenting with the car's weight distribution. Simple modifications such as removing a portion of the fender on one side, were enough to make significant change to the weight distribution, leading to a favorable increase in performance. However, experimenting with changes to a race car also brought along with it an increased chance in something going terribly wrong. This risk didn't stop my grandfather from experimenting with his cars. For him, an important part of the adventure of being a race car driver were the dangers that are associated with striving to be the best.
My grandfather faced many dangers as a hot-rod mechanic, but the majority of risk that was associated with stock car racing was due to the nature of the race itself. There is a major rick of collision and injury whenever you have cars moving at high rates of speed, let alone on slippery dirt tracks. Sadly, my grandfather knew that all too well, as one of the drivers who raced his cars died during a race due to a collision with another car. My grandfather was determined to live his life in the best way he could. Even the tremendous dangers weren't able to stop my grandfather from enjoying the adrenaline surge during the race, and the prospect of becoming a famous stock car driver.
My grandfather was always right in the action when he was working as a dispatcher for a power company in Phoenix, Arizona. He spent many stressful days and nights coordinating the emergency repairs of downed power lines and transformers during the strong summer storms. It was his responsibility to ensure the safety of the lineman and transfer electricity across the city . It was a well-orchestrated event often done on very little sleep during very long work shifts.
He also took every chance that he had to go fishing and camping at the various lakes and rivers all throughout Arizona. Fishing might seem boring compared to delivering telegrams to known mobsters and racing stock cars, but to my grandfather, there was nothing more exciting than relaxing with a cold beer while waiting for the fish to bite. For when they started biting, and believe me they always eventually did, he would be quickly out of his chair while working to reel in the fish. I learned from my grandfather that adventure can take many different forms and mean very different things to different people. The adventure and excitement of fishing lies not in the waiting, but rather in the thrill of the catch.
My grandfather loved to hunt, and would take my father and my uncles out on long hunting trips in the ridge mountains in northern Arizona. He enjoyed everything about the trips: camping in the nature and sometimes even sleeping under the stars, spotting and stalking of the prey, and finally taking the animal down with a well-placed shot. Whether he was hunting for javelina (which are a type of wild pig that have razor sharp teeth) or deer, the sense of adventure was always there. No two hunting, camping, or fishing trips were ever the same, and each offered a unique form of excitement.
While many people may be quite satisfied at writing and reading exciting stories filled with action, suspense, and intrigue, my grandfather was different. He preferred to live out his inner desire for adventure through his jobs and his hobbies. He once said that out of all his professions, the one he was most proud of was raising some wonderful children and grandchildren. When he got older, he was very fond of telling his family the action packed stories from his racing days, as well as suspenseful and intriguing fish-stories and hunting tales. I believe that telling us stories from his life allowed him to relive the adventure and excitement that he had lived through the many years prior. My grandfather taught me many things, but the most influential was the idea that nothing should stop me from living my life with excitement and experiencing new things. It's part of human nature to crave adventure, but it's up to us individually to go seek it out.
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