Growing up as a kid on 25th street in Sioux Falls holds a lot of memories for me. When my brother and I were really little, like five and three, I remember that every time I would get mad at Brian he would run into the kitchen and hide under the table, pulling in the chairs so I couldn't get to him. It was pretty effective defense as he's still around today.

Although not all of the following stories happened on 25th street, many of them did. I hope you find these accounts of me growing up as interesting to read as they were to live.

As a small child, I was a finicky eater. If I even thought that there was something in my food that I didn't like, such as a speck of onion, I would do my best to weed it out or get rid of it all together. One of my methods was to take a mouthful of whatever I was trying to avoid eating, tuck the food under my tongue, and then excuse myself to the bathroom. Once there, I could spit out the unpopular meal item, flush it, and no one was the wiser.

My other tactic was much more clever, and to this day has never been discovered. As kids, most of our meals were held in the living room, in front of the TV. Brian and I would sit on the couch while Dad would pull up a chair. On those occasions when I was feeling gastronomically rebellious, I would wait until Dad left the room, and then stuff my food down a hole in the back of the couch. That food must have sat there for at least ten years, until Dad got a new couch.

Now you are probably wondering how come it never got bugs or started to smell. I'm not totally sure, but I think that it's both because I didn't use it too often and because the stuff I put there probably dried well. Heck, by the time Dad got rid of the couch, it was probably full of beef jerky and trail mix.

During the bicentennial, our city held a parade in which representatives from the different elementary schools would make a float and walk in the parade. Only five children from our 1st grade class could be picked, so our teacher decided to hold a contest in order to choose them. The five kids who came up with the best costumes would get to be in the parade and the rest could work on the float and watch from the sidelines.

My Mom and I worked pretty hard on it. I ended up being Davey Crocket, with a tasseled leather vest, fur boots, deerskin {looking} pants, and a real coonskin cap which Mom had rented from the local costume shop. For my part, I made a gun out of cardboard and wood to carry with me. With that costume, I couldn't lose. Nor did I.

The day of the parade, I walked next to our float, staggering back and forth from the cold and fever I had caught several days earlier. Dad walked along the route near the edge in case I needed any assistance. I didn't, and I remember Dad saying that I was a real pioneer for making it all the way.

As kids, my brother and I had some unusual pastimes. When we were still in elementary school and junior high, our Mom purchased some used darkroom equipment from a friend of hers. For the next few years Brian and I would take over her basement bathroom and turn it into our darkroom. We would put a sign outside the door indicating that we were busy developing, while inside, under a red Christmas tree lights, we mixed the required chemicals and developed our photos.

Most of the time we just developed our pictures from existing negatives, but every once in a while Brian would get bold and attempt to develop the negatives himself. I seem to remember that he got it right better than half the time. Making the photos was always fun, and I even remember that one year we used our skills to produce all the Christmas pictures that went out with our cards.

Film in general seemed to be a hobby of ours. In addition to Brian and I developing photos, we also shot and directed our own movies. I think I got the idea from a story I heard on TV about actor/director Ron Howard. Apparently Ron had started his career as a child, by making a home movie western with his parents camera. Although we may have been playing around with movies by this time, I think this story gave me something to focus on, as I later tried to do a similar western.

Our first production was "Meat-E-Oar" which was supposed to be a parody of the movie "Meteor", a movie that was in theaters at that time. Our set comprised of a big paper box made up to look like the inside of a space ship. We had poked holes in the back to make stars and painted the inside black to give it that space look. For costumes we used old motorcycle helmets that we painted gray with gold trim. Once our set was complete and the camera was rolling we began acting... which pretty much amounted to just being silly in front of the camera.

Although most of our movies were made on the spur of the moment we did make several "General Nuisance" films. These films involved Brian, myself, and some of the neighborhood kids putting on my Dad's old Army uniforms and driving around in our back yard on BigWheels, bikes, and in peddle cars. As kids, we had also been forbidden to play with toy guns of any kind. So we made up for it by using my Dad's real guns as props.

Even though we always checked to make certain they weren't loaded, I'm pretty sure most of the parents of my friends wouldn't have approved of us arming their ten year old with a double barrel shotgun for the sake of our movie. Fortunately, no one thought enough of it to tell their folks, and none of the adults who watched the movies ever noticed that we had real guns.

In addition to live action we also did stop motion animation. The camera we used had a feature that allowed us to take the pictures a frame at a time This feature coupled with our extensive collection of Star Wars figures allowed us to continue the science fiction saga in several classic shorts such as "Luke Barfs in the Land Speeder", "Han Walks Around", "X-Wings On Strings", and the ever popular and underbudget, "Dad Drags Hoth Into the Hallway". On that last one, I had asked Dad to trigger the collapse of one of my sets by tugging on a string. He didn't know when to quit.

As kids, my brother and I were always building forts of one kind or another. I remember that some of our early ones were pretty ingenious . Several times, in the summer, we would get out our big window fan and set it in the living room. We would then take a bunch of bedsheets, pin them together, anchor the edges with stacks of hard covers books that my Dad kept, and then attach one end to the fan itself. When we turned on the fan, the sheets would expand, and we would have our own air tent.

When it came to forts, we worked in mediums other than cloth. Several times we attempted to build a fort similar to the kind they had in those old "Little Rascals" movies. Since we only had junk wood to work with and our earlier results could have been called "Splinter World" or "Protruding Nail Tetanus Land", our Dad decided that perhaps the safest and quickest way was to have his brother build us one. We came home one day and found this eight-foot high, one-room building in our backyard, complete with electricity. It was great!

We spent a lot of days playing in it with our neighborhood friends and had several overnights there. One of the first thing we discovered though, was how to climb on the roof and jump off. Dad was always telling us to get off the roof, and couldn't understand why we always wanted to get up there. So much for Dad's expectations regarding safety. It was a cool place. It's still in our backyard today, although Dad now uses it as a shed.

I think that just having the fort wasn't the total enjoyment. I think a lot of the fun came from building it and decorating it with stuff. After pretty much ruling out the basement as a potential fort area, on account of spider webs in the laundry room, {where there are spiderwebs...}, we decided to build our next and coolest fort in the crawl spaces behind the walls on our second floor.

We started by taking scraps of wood and laying them down across the beams near the... umm... a hatch I guess is what you would call it. It didn't have any hinges, just a handle with a catch to keep it in place. From there we moved in mattresses, put posters on the walls and ceiling, brought in an elementary school desk, and ran about eight lights off of one measly extension cord.

You could only stand up in one place, but even then you had to be careful. Since the ceiling wasn't covered, the tips of the nails used on the roofing tile poked through, and you risked skewering your head if you weren't careful. We kept a lot of our toys in there, and would sometimes bring our 8mm movie projector in, close the hatch, and watch home movies with our friends.

Our last fort was rather anti-climactic, probably because we were getting bigger, and we were running out of places that we could fit into. We build our last fort in the rafters in our garage. There wasn't much to it. Just a carpeted place to sit and a light. It was a good place to go read when you just wanted a place to be by yourself.

When Brian and I were kids we both wanted to grow up to be pilots. This is no doubt due to the influence of our uncle who would make occasional stops in Sioux Falls. Since our house was under one of the landing routes, Mom would gather us up, take us outside, and give us red jackets to wave at the plane as it went by. Our uncle would then responded either by flashing the lights or by waving the wings as he flew over. His co-pilots must have thought him a little strange.

One summer, Brian and I decided we were going to build a glider. It was probably his idea since he was the more inventive of the two of us. So we started by getting a bunch of junk wood, our wagon {a good undercarriage}, nails, and paint.

I can't remember how long we worked on it but when it was finished... well... we were proud of it. Of course if it had been thrown off a cliff I don't think it would have even crashed with any grace, but we did end up taking it for one trial "flight" when it was finished. As you would expect, we remained rather ground bound. It was still fun though. Even though I knew it {probably} wasn't going to fly it was a lot of fun pretending.

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. As a kid I would always try to have the best decorated house on the block. When I was in cub scouts I talked our troop into coming over and building a giant ghost to be displayed outside the house. When it was finished it stood seven feet tall and five feet wide. It was pretty cool.

I think the first year we had it up, it blew down though. I remember standing at the door and seeing how the wind was catching it. I told Dad that I thought it might snap, but he didn't think so. It did so we rebuilt the frame and put it in a slightly different spot. Years later we eventually built a life-sized scarecrow and a hangman. The hangman was suspended from a ladder over our porch from a ladder with the ghost at the top of the ladder. We also hooked up speakers and piped scary sounds through the head of the ghost. Brian ended up livening up the head of the hangman by hooking up red Christmas lights where the eyes were to be. We did this every year until I left for college at age 17.

The best vacation I ever took occurred was when I went to Europe the summer after I graduated from high school. The trip was sponsored by the band and choir departments of several schools in the Midwest and on the West Coast. We traveled to London, Paris, and Munich as well as other small towns in England, France, Germany and Switzerland, and performed in each of the cities we stopped in. Each country offered something different.

London was probably the most fun of all the places we visited. Probably because it was the first place we stopped on our journey, and it was the only place we went where English was the primary language. When we got there we were also free to do whatever we wanted. We traveled all over the city using the tubes {subways} and were able to visit whatever we wanted in our free time. It was the first time that most of us had experienced that kind of freedom, and it was very pleasant.

We spent much more time touring the area then we did singing or playing. We went to Windsor castle and got to see the Queen or Princess Di drive by in a carriage {we couldn't tell which because of the distance}. We went to a musical, toured several museums and just had a wonderful time.

After London, we went to Dover to take a ship across the English Channel to France. France was pretty good too, but not as fun as England. This was partially due to the language barrier, but also because Paris, where we stayed, turned out to be a fairly dirty city. While in France we had the privilege of singing in Chartres Cathedral, a great gothic Cathedral. If we sounded good in other places we sounded fantastic there. Nothing beats the acoustics of a Cathedral. Don't go singing without one...

After France and Paris we traveled to Switzerland where we visited the Matterhorn and thoroughly enjoyed the Swiss countryside.

During our tours of Europe we traveled the countryside on buses that we had chartered in France. One of the nice features were the skylights located at both ends of the bus. They were about 3x3 and were great for letting in breezes during the long trip. More importantly though, they were great for me to hang out of as I took pictures of the passing countryside. It was probably a little dangerous straddling the isle while standing on the backs of the seats, traveling at 80 or 90 miles per hour with the upper half of my body sticking out the roof of the bus. But no one ever told me to get down. Heck, they probably thought I made a good picture for tourists going the other direction...

After Switzerland was Germany. Here I had a bit more of an advantage when it came to the language, since I had had a year of it in high school. I managed to ask simple questions like "Vie veil ist das?" {how much is that?} and... err ...well that seems to be all I can remember today, although I knew a bit more then. On one occasion I was trying to ask a shop keeper how much film was, but I couldn't understand her dialect. So I kept asking to repeat herself until she finally yelled "I am speaking English!". I had been so intent on trying to figure out her German that I hadn't realized that she had changed languages on me. It was a little embarrassing, but kind of funny too.

One of the more adventurous things I did on the trip was to get tickets to the musical "Cats". This occurred while I was in London. For some reason, I remember our tour guide mentioning that Cats had been sold out for the next two months, and that it was unlikely any of us would be able to get tickets. This challenge alone was probably what spurred me to try and get in.

Back at my hotel room I called around and, as our guide had said, everyone appeared to be sold out. I did discover, however, that after the curtain went up on a show, any remaining reserved tickets that hadn't been picked up would be sold on a first-come first-serve basis at the theater box office. This being my only chance to see the show, I decided to give it a shot and try my luck.

The first hurdle I had to overcome was just getting there. At about the time I wanted to be getting in line, I was supposed to be performing with our choir in a village about 40 miles outside of town. I couldn't skip the performance, but if I left just after we finished up I would probably have three or four hours to get there.

That afternoon, after our performance had ended, I asked our conductor if there was any way he knew that I could get back to London in a hurry. Since the rest of the troupe was supposed to do some touring and wouldn't be back until later, he managed to find someone to take me to the local train station where I boarded a train to London. Once there, I used the tubes to travel to the theater where I arrived three hours before the show was supposed to start.

I promptly took my place at the back of the line that had already formed.

Even though I was three hours early, I was still seventh in line. And since there would be only a few tickets, if any, my chances weren't great. To pass the time I started talking to the girl next to me. She was visiting from Germany so we both sat and talked about our different countries for a while.

Finally, after waiting for a half an hour or so, one of the ladies in line asked someone to hold her place while she ran across the street to check a ticket outlet there. When she came back and was asked if they had any, she replied "Yes, but they want thirty pounds for them." She took her place back in line, and I looked around waiting for everyone to make a break for the store. But no one moved... So after only a little hesitation I dashed over and bought their only remaining ticket.

After buying the ticket I still had a couple of hours to kill, so I took the tubes back to my hotel room, showered, and got ready for the show. When I got back to the theater, there must have been a hundred people in the line I had left, and not one of them got in. The show was excellent of course, but I enjoyed it all the more for the running around I had done to get the tickets. I had traveled England on my own, got tickets to a sold-out show, and met some interesting people on the way.

My second year in college I was forced to move out of the dorms and find an apartment. Given that all the people I knew were fortunate enough to get dorm rooms, I was forced to use the campus housing services to find a roommate. That roommate was James.

At first James was a nice guy. He was easy to get along with and fairly sociable. Unfortunately, as the year progressed I learned of his more unpleasant traits. First off, James was a total slob. His bed was literally buried in clothes and junk, so he was forced to spend many of his nights sleeping on the couch.

This was rather annoying since he still kept his alarm clock in our bedroom, thus relying on me to wake him when it went off.

Another REALLY gross habit was that he chewed tobacco. Now by itself tobacco spit is pretty disgusting. However, combined with his sloppiness, the cans and cups of tobacco spit he left around the apartment were beyond gross. Especially when I would go to do dishes and put a cup in only to see this brown sludge emerge from it, covering the rest of the dishes. Now both of those together are admittedly, unpleasant, but livable. Except for the fact that he was nuts too...

James was a military fanatic. He was heavily into ROTC where he did very well, but he would say things from time to time that were a little unsettling. Once he claimed that he was Herbert Hoover's god child. Another time he confided seriously to me, "I have this plan to take over the Kremlin, and it will work too!". Other times he talked about himself and some of his buddies setting off small explosives on campus {fortunately this was only wishful thinking on his part}. Every time I came back from being away for a weekend, he and his buddies had covered the walls with those big world maps that you get from National Geographic, and tacked pins where all the current wars were being fought.

Finally everything came to a head the day he bought a realistic looking air pistol and began to set up targets around the apartment. He asked me if I wanted to shoot it, but I said no and recommended that he take it outside so he wouldn't make holes in the wall. That evening I went with one of my neighbors to the local bar to shoot some pool and have a drink.

When we got back, I immediately noticed several police cars parked next to our building with their lights flashing. As I approached, James came running up to me and asked how our night had been. I said it was OK, but wanted to know what was up with all the cops. He said that he didn't know as he had been out all night also. I should have known better.

When we got to the door to our apartment there were two officers and a detective {or so I assumed} just standing there. James took one look at them and followed my neighbor into his apartment. I still hadn't made any connections, so I said "Hi", and started to enter my own apartment.

Before I could get the key in the lock, one of the officers slapped his hand on the door and said "Is this your apartment? We've had a report of someone shooting at cars and people with an air pistol and they said it was from this apartment?" {Surprise, surprise, surprise}. While I was explaining to them that I had been out all evening, James came back. When they asked HIM where he had been, he claimed that he had been with me. {Oh, if they had only asked if that was true!}

Fortunately, when they asked to see inside the apartment, he broke down and confessed that it was all his doing. When we entered the apartment it was clear why he talked. There were BB's and targets everywhere, and the screen on the window had even been taken out. As he brought out the air pistol to surrender it the police almost drew their guns, uncertain as to if he might have a real gun. Surprisingly, he wasn't arrested for the incident, but did have to make a court appearance of some kind, possibly to pay for any damage he may have caused.

After the police left and I gave James a royal chewing out for his stupidity, I walked to one of my friends places to spend the night. On the way there I noticed that the police were still in our parking lot, examining several of the cars. Apparently "someone" had been shooting out car windows and headlights in the parking lot that night as well.

Anything else at this point is anti-climactic, but there are a few other details that should be mentioned, that didn't fit well into the narration.

James wasn't drunk or on drugs when he went on his "spree". The person who ultimately called the cops on him almost lost an eye from being shot. James was ejected from the complex the next day, although I got to stay since I didn't have any part in the incident. James not only had to go to court for those offenses, but they discovered that he had been vandalizing stuff a day or two earlier and had stolen one of those construction sawhorse blinkers.

Thus ends the saga of James, roommate from hell...

Like many boys my age, I was actively involved in Boy Scouts. I was actually a member of two different troops, Troop 46, and Troop 153. I joined Troop 46 right out of Webelos, but soon discovered that it was made up of a bunch of high school bullies who loved nothing more than to torment the younger kids. This went on for a couple of months until my Dad discovered what was going on and transferred me to 153. Soon after that, troop 46 was closed down due to a lack of new membership. Troop 153 was great though. Unlike 46, everyone there was my age.

We did all kinds of cool stuff. In the summer we ran a food shack at the Sioux Empire Fair. Weeks prior to the fair opening, my Dad, brother, and I would head out to the shack to give it a new coat of paint and to clean it up. Somewhere along the way we got the idea to paint the word FOOD in large letters on our vaulted roof. Although you wouldn't think this would have any noticeable impact on our business, many people told us that they came to our stand just because of it.

The stand made a tidy profit each year selling sloppy-joes, hot-dogs, and chili-dogs to the hungry fair patrons. When the troop failed to operate it one year, the shack was appropriated by the fairgrounds management. Prior to this takeover, my Dad, and our former scoutmaster cleaned out the place, taking all of the equipment we stored there. When I heard that they were going to do this I remembered that the place had an antique Pepsi cooler that we used to keep pop and other stuff cool in. Since the place was going to be leveled anyway I asked them if I could have it. They said OK, and it now rests in my old room in Sioux Falls as a memento of those times.

Now as scouts, we went camping quite a bit. I have a whole box of shoulder patches from all the events we attended. There were two places we normally stayed, the Medicine Mountain Boy Scout Ranch in the Black Hills, and the Scout Campgrounds at the Newton Hills State Park near Sioux Falls. I remember several incidents from camping but a couple stick out in my mind.

One time, when we were camped in Newton Hills I was making my way from our campsite back to the cars. Now our site was surrounded on one side by a creek and so we had to cross a bridge to get back to where we had parked. Near the bridge, but closer to where we had actually parked, a large log had fallen across the ravine. It must have been about four feet in diameter, a very respectable tree at one time.

Now we had been going across that log for days with no sign of problems... this was to change though. Deciding to take that route rather than the real bridge I made my way across the log to the other side. As I reached the midpoint, about five feet above the muddy creek flowing below, I heard a resounding crack.

I knew where the noise had come from {no question about that}, but the log hadn't broken yet. So I gingerly started to make my way across. I might as well have thrown myself into the mud for all the good it did. With my first step, the tree trunk broke in two and threw me into the water.

As I pulled my soaking carcass out of the ravine I heard two of the younger scouts on the other side, rolling in laughter. Apparently they had been on the log minutes earlier, jumping up and down as hard has they could, trying to break it, but without any luck. Apparently my luck was all that was needed...

The second story also involves a log as one of the key players. On this occasion we were camping up at the Medicine Mountain Boy Scout Ranch in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Two other scouts (one of whom was responsible for the previous story) and I were taking a hike near our campsite. Now the terrain we were on was very steep with a lot of rocky outcroppings and ledges. We had stopped at one of the ledges to rest and look around when I noticed a large log laying on it's side very near a ledge. As I examined it I saw that it was only kept from falling by a few rotten branches and a couple of smaller bushes that had grown up around it. This gave me a rather wicked idea.

I looked around to see if anyone was watching, but fortunately the others had hiked on a bit and were out of sight. Satisfied that I was momentarily alone, I gave a hearty "YAAAAAHHHHH!!!", and sent the log flying off the ledge to the rocks below. The sound it made as it crashed down the embankment echoed throughout the surrounding hills.

I quickly stepped back into the shadows as the other two scouts came running up calling my name. As they peered over the ledge and looked around, I snuck up behind them, grabbed their shoulders, and gave that hearty "YAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" again. They were not amused...

From high school until I finished college, I worked as a stock clerk for Sunshine Food Markets in Sioux Falls. I worked everything from sacking groceries to the produce department. I met a lot of nice people over the years and had a lot of interesting experiences.

One time two of the newer guys were stacking a load of chocolate milk to fill the shelves with. As they tilted their cart back to leave the cooler, the whole load shifted to one side and crashed to the floor. Cartons of milk were flowing everywhere and they were just standing in it. At that same moment, the boss came on over the intercom to call them to come to the front of the store to help sack groceries.

Being the kind guy that I am I told them to take off and that I would clean up the mess.

I and one of my good friends grabbed a mop and started cleaning... and drinking the chocolate milk from all of the damaged cartons. (Since the cartons had to be emptied and rinsed out so the store could get credit for them, we figured we were doing them a favor.) Fifteen cartons later we were feeling a little green. We spent the rest of the evening trying to avoid doing too much work, and I have stayed away from chocolate milk since.

I also socialized with several of my work buddies on the weekends. One friend of mine, Kyle, always managed to have a keg on Wednesdays. We would drive out to the country with several others from work and just sit around in the dark, drinking and talking.

On one interesting occasion, I was riding in the backseat of a co-workers truck at night when we heard a grinding noise coming from underneath the car. Thinking we had picked up a branch or something, we didn't give it much thought... until I looked out our window and noticed our rear tire passing us in the next lane! I yelled "Oh my god! Our tire fell off, pull over!"

We safely made it to the side of the road, but when we got out we saw that the whole axle had pulled out from the chaise. The noise we had been hearing was the wheel bearings grinding away. We knew this because we could see them glowing white hot in the night. We hiked to town and he eventually got his car fixed, but it was quite a thrilling ride.

During my college years I felt obligated to host parties whenever I could. The best time was in the summer when Dad would take his Boy Scout troop camping in the Black Hills. Dad would take off and within a couple of days we would have the house rearranged, a keg, videos, and music. We were always very responsible as far as getting people around and making sure that no problems occurred.

I remember that we hired this huge friend of my brother's to act as a bouncer. His job was to make sure that no trouble was started and that if anyone needed rides anywhere, they had one.

We were also very responsible in cleaning up afterwards and repairing any damage. Because of those parties I learned the arts of steam cleaning carpets and broken window replacement.

In fact we usually did such a good job of cleaning up that we would have to go and mess it up a bit just before Dad got back, just so he wouldn't be suspicious. Only once did we miss something major. At the time of our first party, the lock for the bathroom door was broken. It would lock, but not unlock. So Dad wrapped tape around it to prevent anyone from pushing the locking mechanism in. Unfortunately one girl managed to get it pushed in. Hearing a loud crash from the bathroom I ran upstairs. Two guys built like linebackers were throwing themselves against the door in attempt to break it in. I shouted at them to stop and quickly opened the door using a butter knife to slip the latch and get the girl out. To prevent another mishap from occurring I put a sign on the door and warned the crowd not to lock it. The party then went on with no further incidents.

Now it's three days after the party, we've cleaned and straightened the house from top to bottom, and Dad is just getting home. Brian and I are both looking around for anything we might have missed, when Dad hollers from the bathroom, "Dick come here!" Uncertain as to what to expect, I ran to Dad and found him examining a large crack in the wall next to the bathroom door and a huge split in the door's wooden frame. The linebackers had apparently done some damage that I had missed.

Before my mind could come up with a plausible explanation or excuse, Dad said "Run outside and check the roof. See if the house got hit by lightening!" Lightening??? Not wishing to derail Dad's train of thought, I ran outside and checked the roof. I stood there for a bit just grinning and then went back in the house to report that the roof looked fine. I think that Dad eventually assumed that the house had settled and chalked the damage up to that.

A few weeks later I taught myself how to replace a lock.

Now of all the interesting parties I attended, the most exciting (fortunately) wasn't one of my own. One New Years Eve, Brian and I went to Tea S.D. to attend a party thrown by one of Brian's friends. We arrived a little early and so I end up talking with one of our hosts for a bit. He's a nice guy, but he can't seem to stop bragging about this new car of his.

"Man, that Nova of mine is so hot. Did you see it coming in? The red one? It's my red hot Nova man! It is sooo hot!!!"

... blah blah blah! Anyway, he was doing this to everyone, talking about the hot paint job, the how fast it was, and in general how great his "Red Hot Nova" was. As all of this was going on, his roommate walks up and tells him that the tap for the keg is broken and that he needs to borrow the Nova to run to Sioux Falls to get another one. Realizing that he has another opportunity to brag to someone, he hands over the keys and says "Be careful, it's a pretty hot car!"

Well he didn't know how right he was, because minutes after the guy left, he came running back in and yelled "Call the fire department! Your car's caught fire!!!"

We all ran outside and expected to see a small fire under the hood. This was not the case. The whole car was quickly going up in flames. I don't know what caused it, but probably had something to do with the owner saying "Red Hot Nova" all evening.

Now, by coincidence, the fire department was right across the street from this guy's house. So after he places the call we all run back outside and wait for the firemen to come over. Minutes pass and there still doesn't appear to be any movement from the fire house.

Suddenly, the door to the bar next to it flies open and guys pour out and run to the door of the firehouse. But they don't do anything, they just stand there by the door, shuffle their feet, and watch the car burn. They had to wait for the chief who had the keys to the building.

The car ended up being a total loss, but no one ever doubted the owners word again. All who attended agreed that his car was without a doubt a "Red Hot Nova".