When
I was a boy, my first car was a 1923 Ford touring car, with no top. My friend
and I used it for hunting deer, ducks, pheasants, and sometimes girls. I was 15,
he was 16, so the title was in his name. One Sunday afternoon, we were driving
to a friend's father's large barn to shoot pigeons, when I was forced off the
road into a ditch by a pickup load of drunken "older" kids.
Immediately they were trying to let air out of the tires, drawing water out of
radiator, and trying to turn my car over. A passing motorist stopped to see if
she could help and my friend quickly got in the car and rode to a neighbor's
farm and called the sheriff. In the meantime, I was fighting with one of the
older kids and trying to get the valve stem back in a rear tire. Another guy
grabbed my red hat and I chased him to the pickup, pulled him out, and in
process tore his shirt off. He said he "was going to kill me." While
this was going on, two others had found my loaded .22 rifle and 12 gauge guns,
and my friend's .22 rifle (also loaded). I knew this was no time to worry about
the car, guns, or anything; I ran zigzag down the road as two of them emptied
the .22 rifles at me! When they stopped shooting, I stopped, and saw a sheriff's
car approaching and the drunks getting in their pickup and speeding off. They
were caught, jailed and fined. The '23 T wasn't really hurt, we got our guns
back and I sold the car.