[ponyakr]

i thought maybe i'd give you guys a rest today from my saga, 'cause this moring i had no inspiration or ideas or any more flashbacks from the past. that was until T.J. & i went on our moring walk down our driveway into the deep dark woods along our yellow brick road. as we came back & approached our little cornfield county estate, we noticed that there was a layer of fog a few feet off the ground, blocking the view of the top part of our house. well, this was not the 1st time i had seen a fog layer like this. so thats what triggered this tale. now hang in there, its a pontiac street story. back about 1976 i saw an ad, either on t.v. or in a newspaper about an upcoming event happening only about 25 miles from home. it was called the outlaw music festival. back in the day, some wild country music singers got together & traveled around the country drinkin, smokin dope, & singin when they were able. they called themselves outlaws. the only names i remember for sure are wiily nelson, waylon jennings & his wife jessie colter. there were several others. now this was back when country music was still country. some crowds back then would have run these modern day so called "country" groups off the stage. country music has fiddles & cryin steel guitars, & stars named hank, charlie, johnny, buck, george, conway, porter, dolly, loretta, tammy, june, barbara, crystal, & patsy. i'm sorry, but these new age groups with nothing but heavy metal look & sound just ain't country. you may like it, but don't call it country--it ain't! just my opinion, does not require any flack. anyway, back to the story, i must have been the only 1 in town to hear about the upcoming gig. the nite before, i talked it up & tried to find somebody to go with me. i finally got 1 boy to agree to go. his parents were out of town, so i stayed at his house, so we could get an early start sat moring. we decided to go in his old chevy pick-up, so we hit the brew store as soon as they opened. we had 2 big ice chests, so we went prepared with many cases. now, being a sheltered country boy all my life, i was not prepared for what i would see. i can see this is going to be a tri-power story, so i'll break it down--center carb, front carb, & rear carb.

[ponyakr]

how many of you guys went to woodstock? at least you've heard about it & seen pics & film clips. well, this was a country music woodstock. just the line of traffic waiting to get in gave a hint of what to expect. there was every kind of vehicle you could think of, from hippie vans to hells angles type choppers. most folks were drinkin or smokin "funny cigarettes" & already havin a good time. they didn't wait for the show to start, & the law just stood by & watched, i suppose just hoping they could somehow keep everybody from getting killed. there were police 2-wheelers patrolling every where & even choppers circling overhead. but we finally made it inside & found a parking spot. as it turned out there was plenty of parking for everybody. the promoters of the gig had learned from the mistakes made at woodstock, & had rented a farm of several hundred acres for the show. so here's the scene. in 1 area all the choppers were parked. now i'm talkin hard core bikers with long beards, tattoos, & chains(& probably switchblades & guns) & most were "tokin on a joint" the whole time. cattle were raised on the farm, so there were several small ponds on the property, all of which were considered by the hippies to be swimming pools just made for skinny dippin. there were hippie vans parked all around these little ponds. for those of you who may not know, most hippie vans were vw's with all sorts of graffittie(sp?) spray painted on the sides. these were long-haired flower children left over from the late 60's. the girls all wore these big, ankle length dresses, we called tent dresses. & you could tell that most of them were way out there somewhere on a cloud of their own. anyway, we survived the day & the music started. the sound system was loud enuff so that the music could be heard anywhere on the proporty. but there were lots of hills & valleys, so to actually see the performers, you had to get closer. we began to walk thru the crowd toward the sound of the music. finally we topped a small hill & there it was, that low hanging fog like i saw this moring. but this was no fog. it was a cloud of "funny" smoke. there were thousands of people in the small valley in front of the large stage & banstand. it seemed that most were partaking of whatever was being passed around. thus the smoke would rise & form a virtual cloud, just above their heads. lets call it "atmosphere". the music was great, but most of these folks didn't seem to care if there was any music or not. they were "doin their thang". well, we'd seen all we needed to from the front lines, so we went back over the hill to where there was more elbow room. the music was still plenty loud, so we just settled in to enjoy the show.

[ponyakr]

about this time another drinkin buddy of mine(remember, this was B.C.) appeared on the scene. when he'd gone to town that nite & i was nowhere to be seen, he asked around & found out about the gig, so he came on up. don't know how he found us in that crowd, but somehow he did. i'll call him br. after br got there, the boy i had come with decided he'd enjoyed all of it he could stand. remember, we had started at 8am that moring. by then, it was about 10pm. 14 hours is probably enuff(or too much) for anybody. since br was there to give me a ride home, the other guy got in his pick-up & made it back home. but for me, i had some new blood on hand, who did'nt no the whole story. so between songs, i blabbed everything i could remember of the days happenings, to catch br up to speed. so for several more hours me & br sipped on a cool one, listened to good live country music, & discussed the days events. finally i guess i left br to enjoy the rest of the show by himself. the last thing i remember is leaning up against a fence post & listening to the beautiful sound of jessie colter, as she sang her big hit "i'm not lisa". some time later(probably 2-3am) i was awakened by my own coughing. the dust was so thick, you could hardly see or breathe. the fence post i was leaning against was rite beside 1 of the dirt farm roads crisscrossing the farm. it was summertime & very dry, so as the stream of traffic roared by, they stirred up all the dust. finally me & br made it back to his car & were able to breathe a little better. i don't know why, but i seemed to always seemed to have been the designated driver on all our drinkin cruises. i reckon i did o.k. never got a dwi or hurt anybody. so br put me behind the wheel & we headed for home. but after we got a couple of miles down the lonely country road, i realized i could'nt make it. i seemed to be on a cloud of my own, probably from takin in too much of the atmosphere that had been floatin around the farm. or it may have been the 16+ hours of sippin tasty beverages. anyway, br was ok. he hadn't started til after dark. so he took the wheel & headed for home as i eased on out. now i told ya'll this was a pontiac story. br's car was a '75 or '76 luxury lemans, white in color, loaded to the gills, & probably had a 350 2bl. it was a nice ride, but definately not a musclecar. we could ride around all nite "under the radar". all the gto muscle was gone. the best thing on the street was a 4sp TA. but by then they were all low compression & wimpy by musclecar standards. & if you bought 1 off the dealer lot, they all seemed to have 2.41 or 2.56 gears, not exactly the stuff of young mens dreams. never heard of another music festival in our area. i guess they went the way of the musclecar & faded into history. i suppose this sorta helped mark the end of a special time in this country--the '60's & early '70's. even the music began to change. still glad i got to experience it & lived to tell it!

[ponyakr]

how many of you gto owners have used your goat for a tow vehicle? i have. after i started construction work as an ironworker, i had a little more money to spend. that brings up another ? how many of you have walked across a narrow I-beam, hi off the ground, where if you fell off it meant certain injury or death? it can be a frightful experience til you get the hang of it. if it was on the ground, you could walk it easily without fear. but put that same beam 50'+ in the air & its a different situation. sometimes its safer to just get down & "coon it", even tho you know you'll catch flack from fellow workers. i remember once i was up about 100' carrying an arm load of angle iron braces. the shortest route to my destination was a 30' beam with about a 6" flange. by then, i was confident i could walk a beam that wide, so i started across. but as i approached the center, the beam began to shake, side to side. i stopped & looked down to see if i could throw the angles down without hitting someone. but then it quit shaking & i eased on across very slowly. i found out that the bolt-up crew had not gotten to that beam yet to put the extra bolts in it & tighten them up. so it only had a couple of bolts in each end, with the nuts hand tight. thats why it started shaking when i went across. thats been 40+ years ago & i still recall it vividly. on that same job an ironworker had fallen off a beam to his death, so we didn't take it lightly. it was just part of the job. meanwhile, back to the goat tale. with all my new found extra income, i decided i needed a ski boat. no, i didn't have a clue how to ski. but i'd played b-ball & i knew people who could ski who were not athletic at all. so i had a trailer hitch installed on the ole goat(thats rite) & went to pick out a new ski boat. then i had to pick out a motor. well, i'd seen boats about the size of mine using 40hp motors, so thats what i bought. hey, what did i know? so i was all rigged up & we planned a big ski trip for the weekend to a popular, nearby lake. i've mentioned it breifly on an earlier post. so there we were. me & T.J., my former girlfriend & my old b-ball teamate from hi-school. & the girls were lookin good in their new string bikinis. this was the perfect setting for embarassing myself(which i did). the girls & the other guy popped rite up & skied all over the lake. then it was my turn. who remembers your 1st time on skies? if i could'a used the ole goat to pull me up--no problem. but instead, all i had was a 40hp outboard. i was over 200lbs & the little 40hp just did'nt have enuff grunt to get me up. how embarassing. another guy from our hometown saw my delimma & came over to help(or to get a closer look at the girls). he said his 65hp would pull me up. he was rite. after a couple of broken ropes, it jerked me rite up & over the handlebars. it was a very embarassing day, but i finally got the hang of it & went back the next week & traded the 40hp in for a 75hp--no more grunt problems. i finally learned to ski on 1 ski & bought a huge rudder for it, with which i could spray some awesome rooster tails. & the ole goat made a nice tow car. with posi unit & radial tires, there was never a slip pulling the rig up the boat ramp. & if there had been any ski rig races, i figure i'da won those easily.

[ponyakr]

here's T.J.'s plow horse that wasn't, tied to the trailer hitch of the ole goat.

[ponyakr]

here's the teepee i lived in when i 1st bought the goat. its behind the car.

[ponyakr]

i may have mentioned this briefly, but i have no index & would'nt no where to find it amongest all the posts. anyway, it bears repeating & analizing a little closer. we were going to a race at green valley, in the dallas area. it was our 1st time to go there, so we were not familiar with the area. in fact it was my 1st time ever in dallas. once again, the country bumkin goes to the big city & doesn't have a clue. as we got closer to town, we noticed that the pace & volume of traffic began to pick up quite a bit. & the road went from 2-lane to 4, then 6. i think the speed limit was 70mph, but the flow of traffic was going between 75&80mph. it seemed much safer, especially with our long rig to go with the flow, so we did. now we always heard that the slower traffic should keep to the outside lane, so i did. now i want you to get this picture in your mind. we're in this 2-car rig(i'll post another pic) flying down this 5 or 6 lane road at nearly 80mph to keep up with the flow of traffic, & my trailer does not have a sign of a brake on it. now all of a sudden we see this sign that says--lane ends, & it was not kidding. there was no exit ramp or wide shoulder to slow down on, & the flow of traffic in the next lane would not allow me to merge & to make matters even worse, the car in front of us was caught in the same situation as us & was stopped dead still, watching for a break in the traffic so they could pull out into the next lane. we were in a pickle ya'll ! to be continued.