Old illegal traveling memories
Jul 1st, 2006, 05:01 PM
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Old illegal traveling memories
I can't read the paper or watch tv or even look at the computer headlines lately. I want to forget what's going on for a day or two.
Maybe we could remember something from college days which makes you still laugh.
I borrowed a buddies car to go over the state line once where the drinking age was lower then. I took the car and made it back the next morning, no problem, so I thought.
He couldn't locate his car and we realized that I had taken the wrong car and the owner reported it to the local police. Oh man. Never got caught but I still can't forget hitting the freeway and being Mario Andretti behind some strangers wheel. Brian
Maybe we could remember something from college days which makes you still laugh.
I borrowed a buddies car to go over the state line once where the drinking age was lower then. I took the car and made it back the next morning, no problem, so I thought.
He couldn't locate his car and we realized that I had taken the wrong car and the owner reported it to the local police. Oh man. Never got caught but I still can't forget hitting the freeway and being Mario Andretti behind some strangers wheel. Brian
Jul 1st, 2006, 05:33 PM
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Well I once forged a visa application to the USSR for a friend. Does that count?
The invite she needed from Russia to apply for the visa didn't come in time - so I took my visa application, my little xerox machine and my little wite-out, broke the visa code (not very challenging, my cat could have broken it) and voila. They took the application and she got her visa no trouble.
And to think we were worrid about the KGB for all those years!
The invite she needed from Russia to apply for the visa didn't come in time - so I took my visa application, my little xerox machine and my little wite-out, broke the visa code (not very challenging, my cat could have broken it) and voila. They took the application and she got her visa no trouble.
And to think we were worrid about the KGB for all those years!
Jul 1st, 2006, 05:42 PM
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LOL Brian, you brought back a great (but stupid) memory. We were in our late teens. We were at ClearLake, CA. Not yet 21 years of age so to young to legally drink. But ClearLake was shall we say "relaxed" about the laws.
A group of about six of us had gone up for the weekend. We went to a bar and had waaaay to much to drink. Then we decided to go somewhere else for a drink. One of the group stopped and bought some beer. We were drinking it in the car (soooo stupid I know). One of my friends threw the empty beer can out of the car as we went around a windy mountain road. Right at that moment a police car lights came on! I almost had a heart attack, lol. But noooo, the law enforcement were not interested in our car, they went around us and went up the road after someone else. That sure slowed us down for the evening. And looking back on it I cringe..kids are so irresponsible.
Just one story!.
A group of about six of us had gone up for the weekend. We went to a bar and had waaaay to much to drink. Then we decided to go somewhere else for a drink. One of the group stopped and bought some beer. We were drinking it in the car (soooo stupid I know). One of my friends threw the empty beer can out of the car as we went around a windy mountain road. Right at that moment a police car lights came on! I almost had a heart attack, lol. But noooo, the law enforcement were not interested in our car, they went around us and went up the road after someone else. That sure slowed us down for the evening. And looking back on it I cringe..kids are so irresponsible.
Just one story!.
Jul 1st, 2006, 05:44 PM
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One of my illegal ones sounds pretty bad when I think about it now. A friend of mine loaded up his pick up with young cedar trees, that he had drug up from national forest. Over 30 years later they grew up nicely in a neighborhood maybe 150 miles from the forest, although my former friend no longer lives there.
Jul 1st, 2006, 05:49 PM
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I had a c.b. in my car in h.s. How lame is that?? And one of my girlfriends would talk to truckers with a phony twang. She and her friends could giggle for hours after a few beers, promising the guys at the truck stop many things I can't mention here.
How about the eight track tapes? I guess I'm getting old.. Brian
How about the eight track tapes? I guess I'm getting old.. Brian
Jul 1st, 2006, 07:52 PM
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But BrianMD, remember when eight track tapes were the "big in thing" lol. Guess we are showing our age!! Fun thread. Just hope none of my grandsons read this as I am always cautioning them about "safety and being responable"!
Jul 1st, 2006, 09:14 PM
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Speaking of right track tapes...
On a trip to a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert at Atlantic City Raceway our caravan of motley cronies sat bumper to bumper with a gazillion other temporarily perception impaired CSN&Y fans on the Schuykill (aka Sure Kill) Expressway en route to AC. I had worked all night prior to our AM departure and likely swilled too much Genny cream ale from the cooler as we sat in this massive snarl of cars, so my inhibition was down a quart or two but my bladder overflowing. So was one of the bottles of Genny - all over my beloved elephant bell jeans, which were hanging out the back window to dry. Starling's law prevailed and I had no other option but to open the car door and stand at the side of the road (not a bush in sight) to answer nature's call. Must have been that leadership summer camp I attended in high school - in short order there was a line of about a dozen guys from nearby cars who joined in the community effort to keep the grass along the highway green. I, of course, was the only one in BVD's. When I turned to get back in the car, who was directly across the median but a state police cruiser. Terror stricken, I tried to jump through the car window but only made it half way. My fellow travelers inside pulled, a couple of my partners in crime pushed and I finally made it into the back seat. When I poked my head up to look the officer made stern eye contact, shook his head and burst out laughing. Thank heavens traffic started to move.
On a trip to a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert at Atlantic City Raceway our caravan of motley cronies sat bumper to bumper with a gazillion other temporarily perception impaired CSN&Y fans on the Schuykill (aka Sure Kill) Expressway en route to AC. I had worked all night prior to our AM departure and likely swilled too much Genny cream ale from the cooler as we sat in this massive snarl of cars, so my inhibition was down a quart or two but my bladder overflowing. So was one of the bottles of Genny - all over my beloved elephant bell jeans, which were hanging out the back window to dry. Starling's law prevailed and I had no other option but to open the car door and stand at the side of the road (not a bush in sight) to answer nature's call. Must have been that leadership summer camp I attended in high school - in short order there was a line of about a dozen guys from nearby cars who joined in the community effort to keep the grass along the highway green. I, of course, was the only one in BVD's. When I turned to get back in the car, who was directly across the median but a state police cruiser. Terror stricken, I tried to jump through the car window but only made it half way. My fellow travelers inside pulled, a couple of my partners in crime pushed and I finally made it into the back seat. When I poked my head up to look the officer made stern eye contact, shook his head and burst out laughing. Thank heavens traffic started to move.
Jul 2nd, 2006, 12:46 AM
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A bunch of us were maybe 20 or 21 years old and we went 'up the river' - translation, going to the Russian River from San Francisco for a weekend. I rarely drank, and so I was always the designated driver.
On the way home from the bar, I was driving my friend's cherry 1956 Chevy convertible with Hollywood Glass packs (LOUD pipes). I loved the sound of the pipes and I gunned the engine. Within seconds, I got pulled over by a local cop.
He asked to see my license ... luckily I was 20 years old,
sober, and had big brown eyes and was able to 'change the subject'. He had pulled me over only because of the pipes. We chatted and he let me go when I explained that it wasn't my car.
Thank Gawd, because I didn't have a driver's license and didn't get one until about two years later!
Nina
On the way home from the bar, I was driving my friend's cherry 1956 Chevy convertible with Hollywood Glass packs (LOUD pipes). I loved the sound of the pipes and I gunned the engine. Within seconds, I got pulled over by a local cop.
He asked to see my license ... luckily I was 20 years old,
sober, and had big brown eyes and was able to 'change the subject'. He had pulled me over only because of the pipes. We chatted and he let me go when I explained that it wasn't my car.
Thank Gawd, because I didn't have a driver's license and didn't get one until about two years later!
Nina
Jul 2nd, 2006, 09:02 AM
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I was invited to a bachelor party once. One of the guys had invited some girls from a college dorm, and they thought it was just another party. I had to feel sorry for them once they realized they were the only girls in a room of about twenty guys. They sat huddled and nervous on a sofa most of the night, trying to plan how to escape.
Jul 2nd, 2006, 09:08 AM
#11
In 1967 we had a "50th Anniversary of the Great October Revolution" party at our student flat in Oregon. In November, of course, since the Soviets changed the calendar along with everything else. Pictures of Lenin on the wall (about half the attendees were Republicans, actually, but hey, it was the 60s.)
Several bottles of vodka and other flammable liquids later, I recall phoning the Soviet embassy in Washington to wish them a happy anniversary, and got some extremely drunk Russian on the line. "Tank YOUUUU" was the alpha and omega of his vocabulary.
About the same time I remember standing in a corner in our kitchen, remembering that a tripod is the most stable form of support (random physics neurons are the last to go evidently.)
Later I came to staring directly into the eyes of a somewhat bemused-looking cow in a field, illuminated by the headlights of my '59 VW which sat some yards away, running, driver door open. I have absolutely no - zero - recollection of how I got there. I did not know where I was, either, until I drove for a time and spotted a landmark I knew.
When I got back to the apartment the sun was coming up and my innards were more than ready for their own little revolution.
Idiots of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your lunch, and a headache to gain!
Several bottles of vodka and other flammable liquids later, I recall phoning the Soviet embassy in Washington to wish them a happy anniversary, and got some extremely drunk Russian on the line. "Tank YOUUUU" was the alpha and omega of his vocabulary.
About the same time I remember standing in a corner in our kitchen, remembering that a tripod is the most stable form of support (random physics neurons are the last to go evidently.)
Later I came to staring directly into the eyes of a somewhat bemused-looking cow in a field, illuminated by the headlights of my '59 VW which sat some yards away, running, driver door open. I have absolutely no - zero - recollection of how I got there. I did not know where I was, either, until I drove for a time and spotted a landmark I knew.
When I got back to the apartment the sun was coming up and my innards were more than ready for their own little revolution.
Idiots of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your lunch, and a headache to gain!
Jul 2nd, 2006, 09:11 AM
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A business friend and I were in Harrisburg PA having a few beers after work with a mutual client on a winter afternoon. All of the sudden my friend exclaimed lodly that he had forgotten an appointment. He had to get back to Philsdelphia immediately.
We got out onto the PA Turnpike and headed east flying low. Not long after that, a State Trooper pulled us over. As my friend lowered the window, he realized he reeked of beer.
"Do you realize how fast you were going?" the officer said.
Realizing he had no excuse, my friend explained he had to get back to Philadelphia and "that was all he could get out of this sucker."
The trooper broke up laughing, wrote my friend up for a lesser speed, and said in parting...
"I can't wait to see what you have to say in court."
We got out onto the PA Turnpike and headed east flying low. Not long after that, a State Trooper pulled us over. As my friend lowered the window, he realized he reeked of beer.
"Do you realize how fast you were going?" the officer said.
Realizing he had no excuse, my friend explained he had to get back to Philadelphia and "that was all he could get out of this sucker."
The trooper broke up laughing, wrote my friend up for a lesser speed, and said in parting...
"I can't wait to see what you have to say in court."
Jul 2nd, 2006, 10:26 AM
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I played on a softball team once. Most of the players were big partyers, and before practice or games, a van that was like Shaggy's would roll up, and the smoke cloud would roll out of the door when a few of our key players would arrive.
One of the other guys was a beer drinker and I didn't know how he could swing that bat and make it around the bases under the influence. Petrified liver maybe. chelseaM
One of the other guys was a beer drinker and I didn't know how he could swing that bat and make it around the bases under the influence. Petrified liver maybe. chelseaM
Jul 2nd, 2006, 10:36 AM
#14
Funny how alcohol plays an important role in all of these episodes!!! LOL
Anyway, I have many episodes of my own that I hope my kids will be much smarter and show more restraint than I did.
Oh and some of my best music was on 8 tracks.
We also had a jeep with a CB radio that we would go on and pretend to be someone else
The Smokey and the Bandit movie sort of glamorized the CB.
Gosh, just thinking about how young and carefree I once was. I am sure my own kids would be shocked at some of the things I did. I wasn't bad, but well.....I had some fun!!! I am just glad I got away with some stuff.
Anyway, I have many episodes of my own that I hope my kids will be much smarter and show more restraint than I did.
Oh and some of my best music was on 8 tracks.
We also had a jeep with a CB radio that we would go on and pretend to be someone else
The Smokey and the Bandit movie sort of glamorized the CB. Gosh, just thinking about how young and carefree I once was. I am sure my own kids would be shocked at some of the things I did. I wasn't bad, but well.....I had some fun!!!
I am just glad I got away with some stuff.
Jul 2nd, 2006, 10:57 AM
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You reach a time in your kids' lives when you confess/admit to, or just plain brag about some of youthful adventures/indescretions
Their responses can run the gamit from - oh how cool mom - YOU, no way, or the heartbreaking - So?
Our kids think that they invented partying, and maybe a little more ;-)
Nina
Their responses can run the gamit from - oh how cool mom - YOU, no way, or the heartbreaking - So?
Our kids think that they invented partying, and maybe a little more ;-)
Nina
Jul 2nd, 2006, 01:39 PM
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The illegal travel I remember best was my illegal emigration from the then communist Poland. The full story is a bit lengthy, but I'll try to summarize.
I was in my late 20s, and have just finished my doctoral dissertation for a joint PHD/JD in international relations and international law, when... the dissertation got censured. No publication according to the then there laws meant no title. Censored dissertation meant also other harassment, of which loosing my job would be realatively mild. Yet, a born rebel I was too "nonpragmatic" to yeld to political pressure. The institute did not want to lose me (they apparantly considered me a prime propagandist to be) and offered a compromise: one year in East Germany in an infamous propaganda school. AND, of course, I was told in no uncertain terms, that it was an offer I could not refuse. I was close to panic, but decided to agree and asked for a permission to take a two week vacation to Finland (we could not travel freely - our passports, if we had any, were at the internal police's -Polish KGBs- office and you had to jump through lots of hoops to be let out to the West). I got the passport after m,uch jumping, booked a ticked on the ferry from Gdansk to Helsinki and... as soon as I got an info my ticket was ready, a KGB officer (young, handsome, smiling so warmly, lol) came and took my passport away. It happened twice. So, the third time around, almost in total desperation, I booked the ferry ticket, but, did not wit for it to clear, only with my passport in hand and a small overnight bag, jumped a plane to St.Petersburg (Leningrad at that time), since it was easy to go to the Soviet Union. In St Petersburg I wanted to board a train to Finland, but, I learned to my hgorror that I arrived at the wrong day - Saturday - when Intourist office was already closed and I could not buy a train ticket to Finland at the train station. The crew of LOT, Polish arlines helped me. They took me to a hotel for people who lacked visas to the Soviet Union, even though I did not need that visa, where I could sleep for 1 rubel. Sunday morning they took me back to the airport, let me out on the town and in the evening took me back to the "no-visa" hotel. They were endangereing their jobs, and not only jobs, but they seemed adamant to help me. On monday morning I went to Intourist (instructed carefully by Lot personnel ro whom should I go and what I should say) and I got my ticket, but only to the first Finnish station, since I - legally - could not have had enough hard currency to buy a ticket to my planned destination. Boy, were those last hours under communist regime loooooooooooong and terrifying. But finally I was in Finland, around 1 aM. I told the Finnish conductor, who took over the train on the border, that I only had a ticket to the first station, but needed to go further, where I would be expected by a friend. Don't worry, said the conductor, you look like you have been through enough. Are you hungry? Want a glass of Finnish vodka? And so, I escaped... It took me another three desparate years to get my little daughter... but that's another story.
I was in my late 20s, and have just finished my doctoral dissertation for a joint PHD/JD in international relations and international law, when... the dissertation got censured. No publication according to the then there laws meant no title. Censored dissertation meant also other harassment, of which loosing my job would be realatively mild. Yet, a born rebel I was too "nonpragmatic" to yeld to political pressure. The institute did not want to lose me (they apparantly considered me a prime propagandist to be) and offered a compromise: one year in East Germany in an infamous propaganda school. AND, of course, I was told in no uncertain terms, that it was an offer I could not refuse. I was close to panic, but decided to agree and asked for a permission to take a two week vacation to Finland (we could not travel freely - our passports, if we had any, were at the internal police's -Polish KGBs- office and you had to jump through lots of hoops to be let out to the West). I got the passport after m,uch jumping, booked a ticked on the ferry from Gdansk to Helsinki and... as soon as I got an info my ticket was ready, a KGB officer (young, handsome, smiling so warmly, lol) came and took my passport away. It happened twice. So, the third time around, almost in total desperation, I booked the ferry ticket, but, did not wit for it to clear, only with my passport in hand and a small overnight bag, jumped a plane to St.Petersburg (Leningrad at that time), since it was easy to go to the Soviet Union. In St Petersburg I wanted to board a train to Finland, but, I learned to my hgorror that I arrived at the wrong day - Saturday - when Intourist office was already closed and I could not buy a train ticket to Finland at the train station. The crew of LOT, Polish arlines helped me. They took me to a hotel for people who lacked visas to the Soviet Union, even though I did not need that visa, where I could sleep for 1 rubel. Sunday morning they took me back to the airport, let me out on the town and in the evening took me back to the "no-visa" hotel. They were endangereing their jobs, and not only jobs, but they seemed adamant to help me. On monday morning I went to Intourist (instructed carefully by Lot personnel ro whom should I go and what I should say) and I got my ticket, but only to the first Finnish station, since I - legally - could not have had enough hard currency to buy a ticket to my planned destination. Boy, were those last hours under communist regime loooooooooooong and terrifying. But finally I was in Finland, around 1 aM. I told the Finnish conductor, who took over the train on the border, that I only had a ticket to the first station, but needed to go further, where I would be expected by a friend. Don't worry, said the conductor, you look like you have been through enough. Are you hungry? Want a glass of Finnish vodka? And so, I escaped... It took me another three desparate years to get my little daughter... but that's another story.
Jul 2nd, 2006, 03:05 PM
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I have almost too many to list. The worst one was when I really WAS old enough to know better. I was at a convention in Pheonix. At that time most everything had moved out of the city center so we decided to go to dinner at Bobby McGees one night. It turned out to be about a 36.00 cab ride, which at that time was a fair amount of change. We had dinner and had a blast...that place was a kick. All the waiters and waitresses dressed up like story book characters..Jack Sprat, Humpty Dumpty and the like. There was a club attached to the restaurant so we went there after dinner and drank (of course) and danced. So there were these kind of creepy guys there. One of them had those shaded glasses..you couldn't really see his eyes. So my girl friend says that the guys had offered to take up back to our hotel. I didn't like it, everything in my being said "do NOT do this", but being a little "loaded" and stupid, I said OK. So, it didn't take us long to figure out they were NOT taking us back to the hotel, and then there was the coke the driver was snorting like crazy from a vial he had on a chain around his neck, but what REALLY got my attention was the gun on the front seat of the car between the two "gentlemen". Scared doesn't quite cover it. Well, I'm here 30 years later, so we got ourselves out of that situation. Even today I think how COULD I have been so stupid?
Jul 2nd, 2006, 03:08 PM
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Oh, I forgot, it was supposed to be FUNNY!!!! LOL I had a LOT of those. Lets see, watering the grass on the 15th hole of the golf course..well, we were too far away from a bathroom and I had to go..the beer was wanting out..
Jul 2nd, 2006, 03:26 PM
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Oh my....
After a college kegger to celebrate
sorority initiation, I piled myself and 4
"sisters" in to my VW Beetle and proceeded to drive over to my roommates boyfriends frat house.
The frat house had a central courtyard
with a lawn. I drove into the courtyard
and did circles while my girlfriends
yelled and screamed at the guys.
Somehow I managed to drive us home.
The next day I was informed that
the fraternity had just re-seeded the lawn the afternoon before.
I was quite lucky to be forgiven for my prank.
Oh, my ....
R5
After a college kegger to celebrate
sorority initiation, I piled myself and 4
"sisters" in to my VW Beetle and proceeded to drive over to my roommates boyfriends frat house.
The frat house had a central courtyard
with a lawn. I drove into the courtyard
and did circles while my girlfriends
yelled and screamed at the guys.
Somehow I managed to drive us home.
The next day I was informed that
the fraternity had just re-seeded the lawn the afternoon before.
I was quite lucky to be forgiven for my prank.
Oh, my ....
R5
Jul 2nd, 2006, 03:43 PM
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LOL Razzle ;; )
We are all baaaaaad! Lets hope none of our children or grandchildren read this thread!
Now, there was the time that one of the Insurance Company's I represented had an absolutely fabulous party at the Sheraton Palace in SF. After tooooo much champagne a very tall, dark and handsome fellow came up to me and said "I am French, Italian and Spanish". Oh my!!! He took me by the arm walked me outside onto New Montgomery. Seemed good to me!!
Drat, right at that moment a big rain storm started and everyone who was outside went running inside including us. Guest were like a herd of stampeding cattle! So much for that exciting evening, lol.
We are all baaaaaad! Lets hope none of our children or grandchildren read this thread!
Now, there was the time that one of the Insurance Company's I represented had an absolutely fabulous party at the Sheraton Palace in SF. After tooooo much champagne a very tall, dark and handsome fellow came up to me and said "I am French, Italian and Spanish". Oh my!!! He took me by the arm walked me outside onto New Montgomery. Seemed good to me!!
Drat, right at that moment a big rain storm started and everyone who was outside went running inside including us. Guest were like a herd of stampeding cattle! So much for that exciting evening, lol.
