Chapter 3
Driving ’Em Wild
Okay, I had graduated. Now what?
I decided to turn to something I knew well—fast cars.
The summer of ’66 found me spending most of my time at Waukegan Speedway, driving stock cars and working for Village Ambulance Service. Our company had the ambulance contract for the speedway. Every weekend I worked in the infield as part of the safety crew. I felt at home there. I knew all the owners and drivers from working the same contract the year before. They were all “good ol’ boys” hailing from places like Waukegan, Kenosha, Grayslake, Libertyville, and other Westside villages. Not at all like the snobs from home in Lake Forest.
Don’t get me wrong, Lake Forest is a beautiful, very affluent village. Its palatial estates are home to many notables with seats on the Board of Trade. Names like Schweppes, Armour, Swift, and Marshal Field adorned the ornate mailboxes that lined the better streets of Lake Forest. Since I did not aspire to attend Brown, Yale, Columbia or Harvard, I really wasn’t made to feel comfortable in their presence. So I took my fun—and their daughters—to Waukegan Speedway on the weekends.
At the speedway, many of the drivers let me do hot laps with their cars. But it wasn’t the same as having one of my own. I honed my skills on their cars and saved up my pennies until I had enough to buy a car. I bought a beat up ’55 Ford wreck for $75 at a police auction. The old Ford was barely worthy of being called a car, much less a race contender. Determined to make it race worthy, I spent everything I had on it. I installed a roll bar, put in a safety harness, knocked out all the glass and installed a steel mesh windshield. Two hundred dollars and a lot of sweat later, it still looked like a junker, but I saw only my own beautiful racecar. I was ready to set the track on fire.
Three weeks later, well into the racing season, the Ford was a wreck in fact as well as name, and I hadn’t won a penny. Desperate to regain my losses, I decided to enter it in the $250 winner-take-all figure eight demolition derby. Now, demolition derbies are not as much about racing as they are about smashing things—both cars and the people who drive them. I had always known I was a little off, but once the word got out that I had entered the derby, most of my friends insisted that I was certifiably crazy.
The day of the race I joined the other drivers in the pit area. As I scanned the other drivers I realized that my friends may have been right. These nuts I was preparing to drive against all looked like extras out of Deliverance. Most of them had more tattoos than teeth. All of them were liberally covered with scars—no doubt received both on and off the track—which they bore proudly. I had no wish to look like them. As I readied my car I began to question my own sanity.
Fortunately, they all knew me, and must have guessed that I was in over my head. Each one stopped by to promise that they would not hurt my pretty young face. I noticed that they made no such promises about my car.
I was prepared for a serious hard-fought battle of steel against steel. When the signal came, I dove into the race with all the bravado youth could supply, determined to stay for the long haul. About 30 seconds later, an old Packard, backing up at about 35 miles per hour, hit me head on. With a shriek of rending metal, the whole front of my car collapsed under the impact of the Packard’s reinforced back bumper. My car was totaled. My short racing career was over.
The following week, lacking a racecar, I returned to my post in the speedway infield. It was just myself and a new young corpsman, a serious young man only two days out of training. We sat in the ambulance while the race went on around us. It was his first day of ambulance work, and he was enjoying the view our VIP infield seats provided.
About 9:00 P.M. the track announcer broke into the race “Will the medical team please report to the grandstand. Ambulance to the grandstand.” I did not hide my surprise. Usually our emergencies were all on the track. Clueless, I drove the ambulance off the infield, across the track, and behind the grandstand. A crowd of people had gathered in a cluster around someone on the ground.
As I collected my gear someone shouted, “Some lady is having a baby!”
No problem, I thought, I’ve seen this one done before. I can do it. I ran over to check her out. She was a young, blonde woman, probably mid-twenties, with four youngsters still in tow. She remained very calm, despite her obvious pain, determinedly chewing her gum while holding on to the oldest child’s hand.
“Everything’s going to be fine, Ma’am.” I reassured her as I took her vital signs.
“I thought I could hold off until the end of the race. My husband’s driving. Car 53.” She flashed a proud smile before the next contraction wiped it from her face. Then she bit down hard on her wad of gum, chewing fiercely until the contraction passed. “Johnny would have taken me to the hospital after the race. I really thought I could hold, but this baby’s comin’. I can’t hold him back. This baby ain’t going to wait for Daddy.”
“No sweat,” I reassured her as we loaded her into the ambulance, “We will take you now, and your husband can follow us with the kids.”
The corpsman got into the back with the woman and I backed the ambulance up and headed out of the track with sirens blaring and tires screeching. St. Theresa’s Hospital was only a mile away. I knew we could make it easily before the baby came.
As I was exiting the highway to St. Theresa’s the woman, instead of being relieved, became distressed. “Not here,” She yelled, “I’m military, we have to go to Great Lakes!”
Great Lakes military hospital was another 15 miles away. I didn’t think she would make it that far.
“Okay, you’re the boss! But it is going to take another 15 to 20 minutes even under lights and sirens.”
“I can make it!” This gum-chewing trailer park momma was tough.
I floored the gas pedal, determined to do my part to get her there on time. About five minutes out I yelled back to the corpsman “Has her water broken?”
“I’ll check.” The serious young man turned to our patient. “Are you thirsty, ma’am? Would you like a glass of water?”
I had forgotten that this kid was just out of Corps school, where they taught battle dressings, not babies. I turned off the siren, pulled the ambulance over onto the shoulder of the road, and jumped in back while throwing the corpsman out.
“You! Drive. I’ll handle the patient.”
He looked bewildered, but relieved. As he pulled back onto the road I turned my attention to our young momma. Oh her water had broken, all right!
“I’m sorry.” She started apologizing as I placed sterile sheets under her midsection. “I just couldn’t hold out no more.”
As I put on my gloves, the baby was crowning. By the time we reached the gate, I was holding a crying baby girl in my arms. As the corpsman pulled the ambulance into emergency, I had the umbilical clamped, the nose and mouth cleared and the baby breathing just fine. The Great Lakes duty nurses, doctors and corpsman all ran out to the ambulance and took over. As I handed the baby to one of them, I felt almost like a proud papa myself.
The father met me as I returned from cleaning up in the head. He was a bear of a man still wearing dust and grease stains from the track. He grabbed me in a big hug while mumbling his appreciation in incoherent sobs like a child.
“Thanks.” I said, pulling away, “But I still have to charge you an additional $25 for the extra mileage.”
This doctor stuff isn’t too hard, I thought, driving back to the track. I have a talent for it. Maybe I should get my act together and get in school.
Unfortunately it was too late. The choice to attend school or not was no longer mine to make.