Scoop Biggers: "Drag Racing in Nankipooh"

Drag Racing in Nankipooh
  

A lot of time was spent around Nankipooh in the old days pulling Cokes and swapping yarns.  For those of you who don't know what pulling Cokes is, it is a little gambling game involving coke machines and the old green glass Coke bottles.  Two guys pull a couple of Cokes out of the machine and whoever has a bottle from the farthest away Coke bottling plant wins, and the other guy has to pay for his Coke.  We spent a lot of hot summer days doing this and telling stories, some of which were true.

Now one story my cousin Norman Biggers used to tell, was about the big drag race between Kenney and Mickey up on the old Smith Road off of the Fortson Road, a couple of miles north of the Nankipooh school.  Mickey was driving his '55 Chevy and Kenney was driving his dad's '64 Impala.  Carney was riding with Kenney and Norman was in the '55 with Mickey.  They all went up on the old Smith Road and had a couple of races with the Impala coming out on top.  There was something a little strange about the '55 though.  The gas pedal didn't work because there was a problem with the linkage to the carburetor, so Mickey had drilled a hole through the dashboard and run a steel cable into the inside of the car and wrapped it around a pair of pliers which accelerated the car when he pulled back on the pliers.

As they were headed back toward Nankipooh they were driving pretty fast with the Impala in front of the '55 and Mickey was driving right on their bumper.  Just as they crested a small hill, a flat bed truck was pulling out onto the road from the right side and Kenney locked down the brakes on the '64 and Mickey couldn't stop in time, so it looked like he and Norman were going to crash into the back of the Impala.  Then just at the last second Mickey swung the '55 hard to the left and into a two foot deep ditch on the other side of the road, and when he got past the '64 he went to pull back on the road and there was a car coming right at them.  It was an old black 1950 Chevrolet, and the driver was Norman's Great Aunt Helen Rogers, who looked like she was having a heart attack when she saw the green and white '55 coming right at her.  Mickey just stayed in the ditch with his left hand on the steering wheel and his right hand pulling back hard on that pair of pliers, right on past Aunt Helen and back on the road.

Now Norman swears that this is a true story, and that he was so scared, that he saw God that day, and thought he was a goner for sure.  Of course you can't believe all the yarns told around the Coke box down at the Biggers Grocery.  Just like the one that Grandpa Biggers told about him and his fishing buddy Boudreaux...well that had better be saved for another day.

Scoop Biggers