Random Stories

      I have three different and very interesting stories that a good friend of mine told me several years ago.  I always said I was going to write these stories down if I ever got to retire from the Manor and had time to work on my blog.  Even though it has been almost two years since I retired, from the full time position of maintenance director,  I am just now getting to resume writing stories in my blog.  Now these are some pretty incredible stories, so hang on.  Now this friend of mine is a great guy and I do not want anyone to think I am questioning the truthfulness of these stories. So, I will let you decide for yourself.  I will start by saying that my friend is a Vietnam Veteran.  This story starts with him being returned to the states because he had been wounded in Vietnam.  He had a bullet lodged in his back next to his spine.  So, he was, I suppose, paralyzed from the waist down.  He was in the hospital, I believe, in Austin, Texas.  One day he was being transferred from a gurney to his bed and the nurses aide did not use the proper procedure to transfer him and she dropped him on the floor.  He said it was a hard fall and he was startled and hurting from the fall.  All of a sudden he realized that he was hurting because he was no longer paralyzed from the waist down.  He got up off the floor by himself and by that time the whole room was full of nurses wanting to know what had happened.  They could not believe he had regained feeling in his legs.  They began to get on to the nurse’s aide that dropped him and told her she was going to be fired for dropping him.  He told them not to fire her because, if she had never dropped him, he might have been paralyzed for the rest of his life.  So, they said they would not fire her since he felt that way.  He said I spent a few more days in the hospital and they decided they would release him from the Army.  But, they said it would take two or three weeks to process him out of the service.  They rented him a hotel room to stay in the meantime.  He said his hotel was close to the police station and he started hanging out at the police station. So, he got to know all the policemen and he quickly became friends with all of them.  The army was giving him some severance money, so he went and bought himself a new 1970 red Plymouth Roadrunner with a 383- V8.  He said it was a beautiful car and all of the policemen really loved his new car.  One day they approached him with a proposal.  They needed a really fast car to catch the drug dealers and they wondered if he would loan them his new car.  He told them he sure would.  So, they took his new car and they pulled the 383 V8 out and put in a 426 Hemi motor.  They then installed a hundred and fifty gallon fuel tank in the trunk.  So he would have something to drive while they used his car, they let him drive a 427 Ford Mustang.  He said he didn’t have anything to do so he drove down to San Marcos to see a friend of his that was going to college there.  He said this friend was a senior and only had one more final test before he graduated.  His friend had a big problem.  His wife was just about to have their first baby and he needed to be there with her.  But, he couldn’t leave until he passed this test or he would not graduate. So, being the great guy he is, he offered to help.  He told his friend that they were both about the same size and they looked a lot alike. Plus these were huge classes. He said for his friend to go home and be with his wife and he would take the test for him.  His friend agreed.  He took the test and passed it with flying colors.  His friend graduated and his friend was there when the baby was born.  So, my friend went back to Austin and by this time they had caught the drug dealers and put them behind bars. They gave him back his Plymouth Roadrunner.  I told him,”I guess that gave you a really fast car.”  He said,” No. They put everything back just like it was.  They took the 426 Hemi out and put my 383 V8 back in.  They removed the hundred and fifty gallon fuel tank and put my car back just like it was before. “  

     The next story that he told me was when he was in Vietnam.  He said they had this killer gorilla terrorizing the country. The gorilla was going into these villages and killing men, women, and children.  So, they came to my friend and said “What do we do?”  I am not sure why they singled him out for this mission. He must have had quite a reputation.  Anyway, he told them to get him a fifty foot rope and a helicopter.  They did.  He got in the helicopter with the fifty foot rope and they set off to find this killer gorilla.  They soon located the gorilla.  He told them to hover as low as they could over the gorilla.  They did as he told them.  When things were just right, he took the rope and he roped the gorilla.  He then gave them the signal to start going up.  He said when they got to about five hundred feet, he took out his pocket knife and cut the rope.  End of the killer gorilla.  I was telling someone about this story and they told me that Vietnam does not have gorillas, unless they are in a zoo.  I googled it and they were right.  Vietnam is in Asia and gorillas are only in Africa.  Not sure what the explanation is.  Oh well.  

     The next story my friend told me involves a freak snowstorm that came late in the early part of the spring.  Now, I believe this happened in the late seventies or early eighties. He said he was driving a bulldozer from Junction to Sonora and he was driving in the bar ditch because he would tear up the road if he was on the pavement.  He said because of the heavy snow they had closed interstate ten for through traffic.  He said they had a barricade set up on the road to keep traffic from going any farther.  But, he noticed a truck ignored the warning and went on around the barricade.  In a little bit, a Volkswagon Beetle ignored the warning,  and went around the barricade also. In a minute, he thought to himself. Where did that Volkswagon go?  Then he looked again and he realized that the Volkswagon was stuck under the back of the truck trailer.  He immediately started to try to get the truck drivers attention.  He kept getting the bulldozer to go a little faster to try to catch up with the truck.  He said he finally got the bulldozer up to sixty five miles an hour and did a donut right in front of the truck and finally got the truck stopped.  The truck driver got out and was mad as an old wet hen.  He said, “What are you doing stopping me?”  He told the truck driver, “You have a Volkswagon stuck under your truck trailer.”  So, they went to the back of the truck and there was a Volkswagon stuck under the trailer.  They called the police. When the police arrived, they proceeded to remove the Volkswagon from under the trailer.  When they finally got it out, it was just a big gob of ice.  They took the car to a D.P.S. warehouse in Sonora and they all set around waiting for the car to thaw out.  He said this was one of the weirdest feelings he had ever had.  When the car finally thawed, the victim was a young lady.  I ask him if she was deceased?  He said, “Of course.” End of story.

  The last story is a short story and it involves my friend and a black racer snake.  He said he was living and working on a ranch and I am not sure where this ranch was.  He was on his way to his house, after a hard day’s work.  He said he had to get out and open several gates on his way home.  So, he was extremely tired.  The last gate he came to, he got out and there was a big black racer snake. He said he decided he would just stomp the snake to death. This made that black racer snake so mad that he started to chase my friend.  He said he couldn’t get away from the snake.  He finally jumped up in the back of the pickup. The snake proceeded to crawl up in the back of the pickup and continued to bite him.  He said he was so tired and almost in shock that he finally jumped out of the back of the pickup bed and got in the cab and drove off leaving the snake there.  When he finally made it home, he realized that the snake had bitten him multiple times.  So, him and his wife counted the bites.  He had been bitten one hundred and twenty seven times.  He said he stripped off all of his clothes and poured a gallon of bleach all over his body to kill all the germs.  He said he would never pick another fight with a black racer.  I can see his point. There are more stories, but I will end there for now.