THE CAR GOD DROVE

Not Minot ND, but you get the idea

Decades ago we bought a white Plymouth Fury that used to be a Minot, North Dakota police car. It looked very usual, very family car, but under that hood was a 4-barrel, V8 engine. If you drove it at 25 mph, then slammed on the accelerator, you were all over the street scaring the hell out of everybody. This is the car that even God drove. As it says, God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden in His Fury.

Well, one night I was driving north on Evergreen Way in south Everett, Washington. While stopped at a light, a muscle car pulled up next to me on my left side. Its engine was so big that part of it stuck through the hood, and the car glistened with some metallic color that reflected the streetlights. Its driver was revving the engine, hoping for a drag race even from a staid, white sedan. Although I looked straight ahead and ignored him, I didn't want to disappoint him.

When the light turned green, he peeled out. And while his tires spun in place, sending out black smoke, I casually moved forward through the intersection. In the side mirror I could see him roaring up onto my left side to impress me with his smoke, but I inched down on the throttle to remain slightly ahead of him without appearing like I was racing or even noticing. He was so busy burning rubber that he wasn't getting the traction needed, and although we were side by side, I stayed a few feet ahead.

I never noticed our speed, but any traffic cop would have. The next stoplight didn't appear until I proved to him that my ordinary car could beat his muscle car. When we stopped at the light he was revving and yelling, and when it turned green I sped up to a legal 35 mph while he quickly disappeared ahead into angry oblivion. That Plymouth Fury had lousy gas mileage, but I liked that car.

Not our actual car, but it looked like this

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