Later Days
“The Rocket”
The
other week I headed up to Auburn, CA. This
little city nestled in the Sierra Foothills, about 30 miles northeast of
Sacramento, is both pleasant and picturesque.
Several weeks earlier I had stumbled across an old friend from my teenage
years on the Internet and after several lengthy messages we sent back and forth,
he’d invited me to drop by his place. My
friend “Al” had been a hero of sorts in the southeast portion of L.A. County
where I grew up. In fact I’d
almost forgotten his last name, as back in the day he was mainly known by the
corny and unique handle of “Al the Rocket.”
Before you chuckle at that one, let me tell you a little about him.
He’d
gained the nickname due to his penchant for street racing, a cultural phenomenon
that reached its peak between the 1950’s and 1970’s.
During the sixties, Al was one of the kings of the streets.
Like the character “John Milner” depicted in the movie “American
Graffiti,” he was a dedicated street racer, insatiable tinkerer with
high-performance engines and a relentless cruiser of the night—always looking
for the next race.
In
those days, life for the average teenage boy focused on girls, fast cars with
chrome wheels and how much rubber you could burn while pulling out of the
driveway of your favorite local fast-food hangout.
The whole youth culture of the era was centered on automobiles and unlike
today’s young drivers who abhor manual transmissions, “four-on-the-floor”
was the way to go.
During
those times, Al became somewhat of a legend.
With his incredibly fast ’56 Chevy, bored out to the max, he was
usually the leader of the pack. Whether
he was parked at “Harvey’s Broiler” in Downey, cruising Whittier or
Bellflower Boulevards, or racing on Bandini Blvd. everyone knew him and there
was always a newcomer that wanted to challenge his fast car.
Al would always accommodate them. He
usually won the impromptu encounters, but sometimes it came at a price.
More than once he had his car stored by the police after they nailed him
for reckless driving. He also
wrecked his prized Chevy several times while losing control during a race and
don’t even ask how many tickets he received.
These setbacks never seemed to deter him and somehow his run continued.
Eventually, as corny as it might sound nowadays, the nickname of
‘Rocket’ was attached to him. (You
had to have been there)
As
one of the younger guys in Al’s large circle of friends, we looked forward to
simply hanging out with him and gleaning tips on how to make our personal cars
faster. When I purchased a used and
thrashed yellow ’57 Chevy for $150.00, as my first car, its beaten-down 283cc
engine had seen better days. I drove
it through the local Foster’s Freeze, another of the Rocket’s hangouts and
it caught his eye. Always the
curious mechanic, he looked it over and started laughing.
“You want to make this faster?” I
nodded excitedly and Al told me to follow him home.
His garage was as well stocked as any auto repair shop and during the
course of several nights he and several of his motor-head buddies transformed
the worn-out Chevy into a sleek and quick street machine.
My status in the community would soon take an immediate jump as I began
cruising in the upgraded car, primarily due to the fact that Al the Rocket had
worked on it.
The
years quickly passed and most of us moved onto other things--mostly adulthood.
I moved out of the area and jumped into the fast track of life.
As the years rolled by I often wondered what happened to the Rocket and
through the grapevine I heard he’d moved to Long Beach in an effort to get
into professional racing.
A
half of a lifetime passed by and then I saw his picture on a friend’s Internet
site. It was an old and grainy color
photo, but I immediately recognized Al, standing next to his ’56 cherry-red
Chevrolet, parked at the traffic circle in Long Beach.
After a series of instant messages, he insisted I stop by his place in
Auburn, to “catch up” on old times.
Driving
toward his home sent a surge of excitement through my system.
I would be seeing a legend from my youth again and I silently wondered
what kind of vehicle he was customizing now.
I was sure Al was still turning wrenches and increasing the performance
on some type of muscle car or an earlier 1950’s era classic. Whatever it might
be, it would undoubtedly be a Chevy—the Rocket had always been a Chevy man.
The
neighborhood appeared middle-class, or perhaps even upper-middle class, as I
parked in front of Al’s two-story “Tudor-style” home.
The neatly manicured front lawn was bisected by a wide driveway that lead
to an attached garage at the rear of the property.
The first thing I noticed was the white Volvo sedan parked adjacent to
the house and I also noted there wasn’t a speck of oil or grease anywhere on
the concrete. A somewhat paunchy
elderly man walked towards me. His
head was partially covered by a rumpled fishing hat and he squinted his eyes as
he approached.
To
my surprise I soon learned this was Al the Rocket.
It would be another of life’s shocks.
Many of the people we admired in our youth stay forever young in our
memories and I had still pictured the Rocket as an impetuous 18-year old teen in
levi’s, white T-shirt and a pompadour. This
aged relic now standing before me was anything but that and it brought my skewed
perceptions back to reality. Three
quarters of a lifetime had passed and none of us had remained the same—not
even teenage legends.
The
rest of the afternoon turned out to be more of the same.
Al the Rocket had never achieved his dream of becoming a racer.
He’d gotten a summer job with Bank of America and eventually stayed
with them. Al had spent his working
career as a banker. My head was
spinning—who would have thought? The
coup de grace came when Al gave me a tour of the property and we approached the
garage. I knew there had to be some
sort of old restored beauty parked inside. I
mean, this was the garage of one of the most infamous street racers of Southern
California and even the passage of so many years could not have thwarted his
legendary talents with engines. Incredibly,
the interior turned out to be spotless. There
weren’t even any tools hanging on the walls, no engine hoists or piles of
parts strewn about. Nothing!
You could have eaten off the floor. All
that my disappointed eyes beheld was a tan colored 2001 Buick Le Sabre. A
Buick! It couldn’t have gotten more vanilla.
Instead of a Chevrolet Superstock, I was beholding the Queen Mary in dry
dock. “I don’t drive it much,”
Al quipped. “My wife usually takes
me in her car these days and I haven’t worked on one since my early
twenties.”
Not
too much else registered with me for the remainder of my stay with Al.
The legend had slipped from his larger-than-life status to a grandpa in a
rocking chair. As I was leaving I
knew I wouldn’t be back. The visit
had jolted the reality of my own mortality and how we often wish we could have
attained and held on to all the dreams of our youth.
Somehow the mental picture of Al, going through the gears, had stayed
with me and I now realized the fallacy of my reminiscences.
My visit with the legend had been another of life’s wake-up calls for
me. Eventually we all have to yield
to passage of time, even though we may have colorful nicknames like Al the
Rocket.