Post by sloopjohnc on Apr 11, 2024 16:14:41 GMT
End of a star-crossed life. A San Francisco boy, starred in football at USC and was part of world record 4 x 100 relay track team. Went on to play for the Buffalo Bills, broke rushing records and continued running in Hertz rental car TV commercials. Children of a certain generation will remember, "Go OJ, go," as part of their TV cultural lexicon.
And then it got shot to hell.
I remember OJ for a different reason. In high school, one of my friends convinced his dad to take the new family van to Clear Lake, a vacation resort in No. California. Four of us went. The first night, we camped on the Russian River, smoked pot and drank beer. One of my friends, Kevin, managed to get a lot of beer from Thrifty pharmacy where he worked.
The next day we drove into Clear Lake and went to see Capricorn One, a movie about a fake moon landing. OJ played one of the fated astronauts. I think James Brolin was in it too.
After the movie, we got in the car to go get some food. My friend Frank, who was driving and whose dad owned the van, flashed his high beams at a car in front of us who wanted go forward at a stop sign. They took umbrage at us. It was three local bo-hunks and they chased us all around the streets of Clear Lake until we made it to the highway where they continued to chase us. We tried escaping, but they managed to chase us down a farm road. We turned off our lights when they thought we lost them and tried turning around on a narrow farm road where we proceeded to get stuck in a drainage ditch.
The crackers saw us and drove up to the van and got out, challenging us to fight. In high school, I was 6' and around 180 lbs and was a pretty good fighter. I was pretty angry back then and did not back down from a fight. My compatriots were not fighters. My friend, Frank, was in drama, Jeff was a guitar player and my friend, Kevin, always got "funniest in class" every year for yearbook. Not the ideal tag team I needed that night.
I learned an interesting lesson in human behavior that night. As the locals circled our van, challenging us, the four of us reacted in different ways. Jeff made faces at them and flipped them off behind the locked car doors and rolled up windows, Frank pleaded for them to leave us alone and take our beer and Kevin was petrified, not saying anything. I was saying, "There's four of us and three of them, let's go." I knew that wasn't going to happen.
One of us shouted, "Get their license plates," as they proceeded to beat the van with their belt buckles. They left when they heard us say that.
That night we slept in the orchard near the van and the next morning we went to the police to report the crime, the police chief responded by saying, "If there were three of them and four of you boys, why didn't you fight them?"
It kind of put a damper on the weekend, so we headed home. We camped out at the same place we had a couple nights before. The pot was so bad, it gave me a huge headache and we headed home the next day.
That is one of my lasting OJ Simpson related memories.
And then it got shot to hell.
I remember OJ for a different reason. In high school, one of my friends convinced his dad to take the new family van to Clear Lake, a vacation resort in No. California. Four of us went. The first night, we camped on the Russian River, smoked pot and drank beer. One of my friends, Kevin, managed to get a lot of beer from Thrifty pharmacy where he worked.
The next day we drove into Clear Lake and went to see Capricorn One, a movie about a fake moon landing. OJ played one of the fated astronauts. I think James Brolin was in it too.
After the movie, we got in the car to go get some food. My friend Frank, who was driving and whose dad owned the van, flashed his high beams at a car in front of us who wanted go forward at a stop sign. They took umbrage at us. It was three local bo-hunks and they chased us all around the streets of Clear Lake until we made it to the highway where they continued to chase us. We tried escaping, but they managed to chase us down a farm road. We turned off our lights when they thought we lost them and tried turning around on a narrow farm road where we proceeded to get stuck in a drainage ditch.
The crackers saw us and drove up to the van and got out, challenging us to fight. In high school, I was 6' and around 180 lbs and was a pretty good fighter. I was pretty angry back then and did not back down from a fight. My compatriots were not fighters. My friend, Frank, was in drama, Jeff was a guitar player and my friend, Kevin, always got "funniest in class" every year for yearbook. Not the ideal tag team I needed that night.
I learned an interesting lesson in human behavior that night. As the locals circled our van, challenging us, the four of us reacted in different ways. Jeff made faces at them and flipped them off behind the locked car doors and rolled up windows, Frank pleaded for them to leave us alone and take our beer and Kevin was petrified, not saying anything. I was saying, "There's four of us and three of them, let's go." I knew that wasn't going to happen.
One of us shouted, "Get their license plates," as they proceeded to beat the van with their belt buckles. They left when they heard us say that.
That night we slept in the orchard near the van and the next morning we went to the police to report the crime, the police chief responded by saying, "If there were three of them and four of you boys, why didn't you fight them?"
It kind of put a damper on the weekend, so we headed home. We camped out at the same place we had a couple nights before. The pot was so bad, it gave me a huge headache and we headed home the next day.
That is one of my lasting OJ Simpson related memories.