Dodging Hubcaps in Harlem – An Ode to Military Humor

While I was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, for the Ordnance Officer Advanced Course, my brother, Craig came out to visit me.  He and his wife wanted to visit the National Mall in Washington, DC, and they wanted to visit the Statue of Liberty in New York City and Niagara Falls.  I told him, “In order to make that work, we’re going to have to go to Washington, DC, the weekend you arrive.  Then, we could take the long weekend to go in the other direction to New York.  If you and I split the driving, we could make this work.  I know the way to all three destinations.  Cuz I’ve been to all those places more than once.”  Craig and his wife were fine with that idea.  We spent two days visiting the National Mall in Washington, DC.  The first place we went was to the US Capitol building to take a tour.  Unfortunately, the tour didn’t really show us everything we were expecting to see.  So, we walked out and then we ducked in a back door like we owned the joint.  And we decided to go on our own little tour.  That worked for a little while until we got caught.  Some security guards came up to us and said, “What are you doing here?”  I replied, “Well, Sir, you see it’s like this.  We were with a tour and we were looking at something, and I think we got lost.  Cuz, suddenly, we looked around and we couldn’t find our tour.”  Then, my brother Craig added, “Yeah.  Like my brother was saying, it’s like everybody disappeared.”  “You know what, that sounds like a lot of bullshit to me.  I think you deliberately snuck back here to see what you could see.  Isn’t that right?”  “Oh no Sir.  We wouldn’t do something like that.  Would we, Craig?”  I replied.  My brother picked right up on that and replied, “Oh, heavens no officer.  It’s like we were saying.  We must have gotten lost.”  “Well, just to be safe, we’re going to escort you back to your tour.  Come with us.”  So, we took the hint and followed the security guards.  Then, we left the capital building.  From there, we went over to the Smithsonian Institute and we stayed there for pretty much the rest of that day.  We visited several of the Smithsonian museums.  The next day, we visited the Washington Monument and stood in line so that we could climb all those damn stairs all the way to the top of the obelisk.  There were a mere 896 steps to climb to get up to the top.  It seemed like it took forever to get to the top of that damn square needle.  Well, an hour for sure.  To be honest with you, I’m not sure how long it took.  I just know that it took one helluva long time.  When we finally got to the top, I really wanted that climb to be over.  I told my brother, “Next time, let’s just take the elevator.”  After we looked around, we came back down and took a break for a few minutes, then we went over to the Lincoln Memorial.  After visiting the Lincoln Memorial, we went over to the White House.  Then we went out to the Jefferson Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.  In the late afternoon, we visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  Finally, we headed back to Aberdeen, Maryland.  My brother and his wife had thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  The following weekend was a holiday weekend, and Friday had been declared a training holiday.  So, Thursday evening after I got out of school, we loaded my van and headed north toward New York.  We stayed the evening in New Brunswick, New Jersey, because we were really close to the Statue of Liberty.  We were going to follow Interstate 95 North to U.S. Highway 9 North to Interstate 78 East.  Interstate 78 became New York Highway 440.  The next morning when we got up to the Statue of Liberty, we took the ferry to get over to the Statue of Liberty National Monument.  Once again, we stood in line to climb the stairs so that we could look out of the crown of Lady Liberty.  Once again, we climbed all of those damn stairs.  This time, there were only 354 stairs.  It was still one helluva lot of stairs.  When we got back down to the ground, we took a break and rested a bit before taking some final pictures.  We finally left the Statue of Liberty at about four in the afternoon.  When we got back to my van, I spent a little time getting my handguns loaded and placed underneath the front seats of the van.  I also loaded my shotgun with buckshot and placed it underneath a rug in between the two seats.  My brother was watching me the whole time I was doing this.  Finally, he asked, “Are we expecting trouble?”  I looked at him and replied, “I certainly hope not.  But it never hurts to be prepared.  See, we’re taking a shortcut through the city.  That shortcut happens to cut through Harlem.  Now I could skirt around Harlem, but that would add one helluva lot of time and mileage to our trip.  I don’t want to do that.  I just don’t know what to expect.  So, were going to drive through there loaded for bear, armed to the teeth, and ready to do combat.  Here’s the plan.  We will slow down if we are coming up to a red light so that the light can cycle to green.  If we’re coming up to a light that is cycling from green to yellow, we will floor it to make it through that light.  If we see any sign of danger, we get out the guns and we have them ready to shoot.  At that point, we don’t slow down for anything.  Your wife stays out of site in the back and reloads.  Any questions?  No?  Great.  Let’s go.”  Now, I need to pause and explain a few things. Back when we made this trip, Harlem was not a very safe place. It was a New York neighborhood that was filled with violent crime and gangs. It was not a place for unfamiliar folk to idly visit unlike it is today, so driving through a (once) dangerous place, it was natural that I was cautious. While we were driving through Harlem, the first thing we saw was a chop shop.  Next to that was a junkyard with a big sign with hand-painted letters that said Ernie’s Hubcaps.  Now, I don’t know who in the hell this guy Ernie was.  But you can bet your biffy, that he wasn’t Ernie from Sesame Street.  And tell me, how in the hell can anybody make a living selling hubcaps?  Unless, of course, he didn’t pay anything to get the hubcaps.  You know.  The old five finger discount.  A.k.a., he stole them.  Now I’m not saying that Ernie stole all of those damn hubcaps.  But there were thousands of hubcaps and nothing else in that junkyard.  A little way past Ernie’s hubcaps, we saw a whole crew of really shady looking people just hanging out.  But we had our trusty handguns at the ready.  We weren’t taking any chances.  Those boys were all standing there looking at us like we were lost.  So, we looked back at them like we were ready to throw down.  And we had the cold, hard steel to do it.  We just kept right on moving.  A few blocks further up, we came to another chop shop and another junkyard selling hubcaps.  This junkyard had a hulk of a car sitting out in front of it with no tires.  That car was sitting up on blocks with its doors missing.  A helluva lot of other shit was missing off that Car as well.  As we drove through Harlem, that wasn’t the only car we saw sitting up on blocks that had been stripped.  Finally, my brother’s wife commented, “You can’t stop and park your car here, can you?  Cuz when you come back, your car will be stripped bare.”  My brother replied, “No shit.”  After we got through Harlem, we relaxed a little.  But I told my brother that we wouldn’t stop until we cleared the city of New York completely.  I didn’t want to be on a hunting expedition after dark.  Once we were safely out of the city, we stopped for dinner, then we found a place to stay for the evening.  We were fortunate in that we didn’t have to use our firepower in what would have surely been an exercise in futility.

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