When I was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground for the Ordnance Officer Basic Course in Aberdeen, Maryland, I started looking around for a car for my wife. The car would replace the Rambler that she had back in Denver, Colorado. I wanted the car to be in a little bit better shape than the Rambler was, but to be about the same size. Then I caught wind of an auction of a fleet of government cars. The auction advertised twenty Ford Maverick automobiles, some Ford vans, and some Dodge power wagons. There was also an inspection period where prospective bidders could look at the vehicles. I went to look at the Ford Mavericks. When I inspected them, I narrowed my focus down to a brown and a blue Ford Maverick. I asked the representative if I could drive each of them. He said I could, so I took each out and test drove them. I noticed that the blue one had more mileage on it than the brown one, and it ran much better and handled much better out on the highway. The fact that it had more mileage meant that the people who used to check that vehicle out from the fleet trusted it more than some of the other vehicles. With that information in mind, I submitted two bids. I submitted a bid for $700 on the blue Maverick, and I submitted a bid for $300 on the brown Maverick. The opening bids for these vehicles was $200 and the asking price was $1000. I didn’t think anybody would pay the asking price, and I didn’t think that the sellers would allow any vehicle to be sold for the opening bid. I was right. My bid for the brown Maverick was rejected, but my bid for the blue Maverick was accepted. I paid cash money for that car, signed all the papers for transfer of title and license, and drove it home. My wife was happy with her new car. She tried driving it around a few times to get used to it, and she liked it. We decided to take a trip with the car. One Saturday, we decided to go up to Fort Ritchie, Maryland, to visit some friends of ours. In order to get there, we had to drive south from Aberdeen, Maryland, to Baltimore. Then, we had to go West from Baltimore to Frederick to get to Highway 15. We had to drive through Frederick in order to go north to get to Fort Ritchie. In order to get to anywhere from anywhere else in Maryland, you had to go to Baltimore. Go figure. That’s just the way they built the goddamn roads. Kind of like an axle and spokes. It was a goddamn joke. You couldn’t get anywhere by drawing a straight line. Oh, hell no. That would’ve been too easy. All of the goddamn road engineers had to be out to lunch when they designed the transportation plan in Maryland. Either that or the state government was trying to save money and asked a bunch of first-graders to do it. Anyway, the trip was going along fine until we got to Frederick. We were cruising through Frederick and I saw a sign that said Highway 15 next exit. Next exit means next exit or next turn. So, I turned at the next red light. Oops. Wrong turn. That right turn led up to a gated community. I didn’t know that until after I made the turn and got up to the gated community. Sonofabitch. They should mark the damn streets better. I turned the car around and went back down to the intersection. Now here’s another communist tidbit about the state of Maryland. In Maryland, you cannot make a right turn on red after a stop. You have to wait until the light changes to green. Why? I don’t know. Because they’re communist in the state of Maryland. They like to make you sit in the hot sun and suffer. So, I was sitting at the light with the windows rolled down waiting for the light to change, and in our direction came this Harley Davidson motorcycle tooling down the boulevard at about 50 or 55 miles per hour. Meanwhile, on the other side of the boulevard, a pale-yellow Cadillac pulled out of a gas station and roared across eight lanes of traffic to pull into the far-right lane right as that Harley-Davidson was coming up on us. I heard the biker yell to the lady, “Hey lady!” Then there was a loud bang. That pale yellow Cadillac slammed into that Harley-Davidson, which promptly slammed into my Ford Maverick and got wedged up underneath it. Then, the engine of that Harley-Davidson started racing 1000 miles an hour. All of that happened as the biker went sailing over the top of my car and onto the hot pavement beyond. I should mention here that the biker was not wearing any leather nor a helmet. He just had on jeans and a T-shirt. He hit that pavement with a smack. Wham! When he hit the pavement, he got torn up really badly with road rash. Then the lady in the pale-yellow Cadillac tried to leave the scene of the accident. I saw what she was trying to do, and I stopped her. I said, “No lady you cannot leave. You hit that man and he’s hurt badly. If you leave, I will report you to the police for fleeing the scene of an accident. I have your license plate number written down. I had made a note of her license plate number. And when I was talking to her, I detected the smell of alcohol on her breath. I also noticed an insurance policy lying on the seat of her car faceup. The expiration date on that policy had been the week previous. I made a note of that as well. After all, the insurance policy was in plain view on her seat, so it was fair game. Another person behind us at the light had come over to see if she could help. And I asked her if she could go up to the gated community and call 911. I also asked if she could inquire about maybe getting a blanket and a pillow for the dude lying on the pavement. Here’s another communist rule about Maryland. Most states have a good Samaritan rule where if you’re acting in good faith to help somebody as a good Samaritan, the somebody can’t come back on you and sue for any injuries you may have caused them. In Maryland you can be held liable for any injuries you cause. So, you can’t help anybody in an accident. You can’t save anybody’s life, even if that person would die if you didn’t. What the hell kinda shit is that? Well, I couldn’t just let that guy lay out there on that hot pavement and bake. One of his legs was so messed up, it was turned around backwards. His foot was literally pointed in the wrong direction. That was messed up. When his bike first got wedged up underneath my car, the engine was still running, and the bike was leaking gas. I was scared as hell. But as scared as I was, that was nothing. My wife was screaming and shouting, and my daughter was crying. The situation was not good. I told my wife to get my daughter out of the car and take her over underneath the one tree that was providing some shade. I crawled out of the car on the passenger side, and then I walked around and shut off the bike and turned off the fuel supply. I did not want that bike blowing up and causing a fire. A lady came down from the gated community with a blanket and a pillow for the guy. We tried to make him as comfortable as we could until the ambulance arrived. Then the lady went back to her house, and she brought cold drinks down for us. Meanwhile, the old lady kept trying to leave the scene of the accident. I had to keep close watch on her. I wasn’t about to let her get away. She had caused all of this shit. Finally, the police arrived and took statements from all the witnesses. An hour and a half after I made a wrong turn, we were finally back on our way to Fort Ritchie. That was one helluva exercise in futility.
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