My Family: Chapter 45

We had a real live Santa Clause as our next door neighbor. He lived with his mother and brother and was the about same age as Dad and Mom. I call him Santa Claus because if we were hungry, he would feed us something to eat. Plus he bought all four of us girls camera and a roll of film. After we use up all the film he would then give us another roll to use. He would take what pictures he wanted and give the picture taker the rest.   

I would also slip over to his house and “borrow” his car, truck, or whatever vehicle he had at the time. One time, everyone wanted to go swimming up on Blair  Mountain and Santa Claus had a truck. I knew the brakes got stuck sometimes but I would just pull them out with my foot. He had forewarned me about the brakes. Most cars at that time were stick shift. But Santa Claus made sure he got an automatic, because that is all that any of us girls could drive. He said he got the car for us to drive and asked us if we wanted a convertible. When he got tired of making the payments on a car. He’d wreck them by driving the car over the embankment into the creek in front of his house. He had so far bought two used cars and a truck (I could drive a stick shift by the time he had gotten the truck). I still had no license. 

Anyway, we all went to swim up on Blair mountain. I should tell you, Blair has a very narrow road and high cliff with at least 3500 foot drop. We were on our way home, I don’t remember how many kids were in the back of the truck and a friend and I were up front. The brakes suddenly got stuck, we were going around those curves almost on two wheels. The kids in the back were hanging on for dear life and screamed for me to slow down. My friend was on the floor in front, she cried and yelled at me (she always ended up on the floor of whatever I was driving because I would take the mountains too fast - I did it some times just to scare her). I yelled back to her the brakes were stuck and I was too busy keeping the truck under control to get them unstuck. Then I had a plan, I yelled for her to put her hand under the brakes and pick it up. She scooted over, put her hand under the brakes and pulled it up. I pumped the brakes and with a jerk the truck came to a stop.

Everyone in the back jumped out to scream at me for nearly killing them. After I told them what happen, we all got back in the truck and went home. Don’t think to bad of me for “borrowing” the truck. Santa Claus always left the gas tank full and the keys in it for us. I remember we use to fight over who was going to drive before any of us had a license.  You might wonder why then did we feel the need to “borrow” the car, why not just take it? Because Santa Claus’ brother wouldn’t let us take the car and would stop us if he seen us.