ROAD RAGE 1926 STYLE by BARNEY MOORHOUSE For Reproduction Rights call Access 1-800-893-5777

Some of my fondest memories have arisen from conversation with senior citizens more senior than me. Consider the following.

My name is George Robinson. This June I’ll turn 93. I was 12 years of age at the time of this story and I had my first full time job driving for a flour company. Well, on this particular day in question, I was to make some deliveries and my brothers and some friends asked if they could tag along to go rabbit hunting. I think there were five of them in all and they would hide under the tarp that covered the flour as I wasn’t supposed to take any riders.

The plan was that I would let them off at the edge of the Six Nations Indian Reserve and pick them up on my return trip. They got twenty-five cents a rabbit. Each shot shell cost five cents and so to save a nickel they used ferrets. We used to keep ferrets as pets like people today keep cats. One of the guys would let his ferret go down a hole to chase the rabbit and the other guys would kneel by other rabbit holes and wait. They could hear the rabbits thumping toward their exit. When the rabbit tried to escape the guys would grab it. If they missed then someone had to spend the nickel and shoot it. (They must have been quite accurate shots.)

I was driving an underpowered Reo Truck. They also made the Reo Flying Cloud, a Cadillac-type car. The truck had a 6 cylinder engine that was overwhelmed by the extra weight. When I came to a very steep section in the road it was all the engine could do to go forward. It reminded me of that story about the little engine that could, if you can recall.

Like I said that weight taxed the engine for all of its power and I found myself creeping up the incline at 2-3 mph. (I’ll leave it to the reader to convert that metrically.) In the meantime some guy in a car came roaring up in a hurry like his pants were on fire. But there was no place to pass and he was stuck behind me. Well, he quickly became angry, angrier, frustrated and more frustrated. He honked his horn as if that would speed me up but of course there was nothing I could do. Finally…I got to the crest of the hill and this guy zoomed by at his first opportunity. But no sooner had he passed me when he proceeded to slam on his brakes and to jump out of his car. Then he started to march purposefully in my direction. The look in his eyes and his body language told me that he wasn’t coming to exchange pleasantries. In fact, I was plainly worried that his intentions were to beat me up.

Now, as I said before, the plan was to stop and let my brothers and friends off to go rabbit hunting. When I had to stop for the irate motorist the guys under the tarp thought that this was the drop-off point. And so here was the very angry, road raged motorist advancing towards my truck with murder in his eyes when suddenly five guys armed with shotguns jumped from the back of the truck.

Well sir, you’ve never seen anyone turn so fast and make such a retreat as this fellow. He jumped into his car and took off. I’ve never seen him since.