Friday, April 23, 2010

Abandoned: Plymouth and Baby.

The Abandoned Plymouth:
When I last spoke I had just embarrassed a future King of Reptiles after a trip to the ‘glades. On that same trip two very interesting events occurred. One really spooky and one amazing. Amazing first. About a half mile down one of the ditch roads we found an abandoned early 50’s Plymouth sedan. Rusted body, dented fenders, some broken glass and flat tires. The road was impassable to cars when we walked it so who knows when the sedan got dumped there. Now you need to understand something about Fred. He was a major intellect and could logically and with quiet assertiveness talk about almost everything. He was, however, despite owning a VW van, not very mechanically inclined.
I raised the hood of the car and noticed that the battery was still there. We talked for a minute about movies where some abandoned car or plane or boat gets going and gets the good guys out of trouble. I told them I would take a crack at starting the thing. Fred and the others laughed and said un-printable (here) things about my ancestry. I pulled off a few incidental wires, bared the ends, jumped the coil and the solenoid (on that car it is on the firewall) and choked it. It cranked and started with a gush of blue-black smoke and a loud noise, reminiscent of a rusted out or missing muffler. After a few manly “rum rum rum’s” I pulled off the coil wire and took a bow. Applause.

The Abandoned Baby:
That’s when we heard the baby crying. Totally unnerved all of us. A wailing cry of a baby in real trouble. We looked around and tried to find the kid, but although we could hear it perfectly and close by, we couldn’t find it. Then somebody shouted “Here it is. You won’t believe this!!!” We all went to see the baby. No baby in sight. But, a smallish leopard frog caught by a smallish water snake. The frog was caught by one hind leg and swallowed to the crotch. The other leg blocked the snake and it couldn’t be swallowed further. The frog was crying like a baby. Boy were we relieved. I have never heard or heard of another frog making sounds like that since. Just plain spooky. To my shame, I can’t remember if we let the frog go. We should have probably, but I just don’t know. Sign of the times I guess.
Image: : http://www.ctcautoranch.com/Cars/Car%20Sub-Pages/Cars%20Mopar.html

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