Soto's New Car

Back in my heyday there was a car dealership in Manchester, Ga. called Meadows Motors where a lot of the boys would buy their cars. The dealership was a General Motors outlet and carried all makes of GM cars. 

Most of the guys in my early career drove big cars if they could afford them. Some drove them that could not afford them. We flew very little back then, so we drove almost everywhere we went. All of the shots in Georgia were within driving range so we lived in our cars, or it seemed like we did. 

The big cars were a status symbol. Cadillacs and Lincolns were the two biggest autos of the time and all the stars wanted to have one or the other. Bobo Brazil had a Cadilliac El Dorado, Tom Renesto drove a Lincoln Towncar, Ray Gunkel had a baby blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville, and the list goes on and on.

The car of choice for most of the guys was the Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight. It was a large luxury car with all the bells and whistles of the Cadillac but was somewhat cheaper to buy because it was an Oldsmobile. What most people did not realize was the same engine and parts that were in the Cadillacs was also in the Olds Ninety-Eight.

Remember I said the stars. My first car was a 1962, yes this is not a typo, a 1962 Mercury Meteor. I made trips in that car with no air conditioning for about six months. It died an untimely death on I-16 in the middle of the night returning from a shot in Stateboro, Ga.. My next ride was a 1972 Dodge Demon. The Demon was the Dodge version of the Plymoth Duster. It had a slant-six engine and got almost 27 miles to the gallon. It even had air conditioning. I rolled up over two hundred thousand miles on that car and I still miss it.

But on to my story...

It was my turn to drive and I was sitting at our meeting spot when Roberto Soto drives up in a brand new Oldsmobile. The night before in Columbus he had been in his old ride and nothing was mentioned about getting a new set of wheels. He rolls down the window and says "I'll drive so we can try out the new car on the road."

As the word deer came out of my mouth I watched the deer's head hit the side of Roberto's one day old Oldsmobile right under my window. It made a horrible crunching sound. I am not sure to this day if it was the deer or metal crunching, but it was an ugly sound.

We were travelling at somewhere around 70 miles per hour and Soto never slowed down. He started cussing and spitting out words in Spanish so fast that even if I had understood Spanish I don't think I could have kept up. I was trying with all my might not to laugh. I knew he was mad and I was afraid if I started laughing it would have ended in me walking or worse yet me and him fighting.

After a short time I was able to compose myself enough that I screamed at him, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself". He slowed the car and looked at me in a stunned stare of amazement. I said "You're worried about this car and one of God's creatures is lying in the road back there hurt and suffering. Aren't you ashamed ?"