She was a petite blonde, nearing sixteen, rather pretty, and she lived across the street from one of my very best friends. Her daddy was rich...like all-the-KFC-franchises-in-Oklahoma rich. She came out to California so she could go to high school in a cooler place than Oklahoma. So that is how she came to be living on Galena Dr, across the street from my buddy, in the summer of 1967. As the magic birthday approached (in SoCal in the good old days, 16 was the magic number...drivers' license day - even though most of us were driving for a year or more prior to that day), she called her daddy and informed him that she needed a new car to celebrate.

Daddy showed up on the big day and they went shopping. She had her mind made up, based on input from dozens of horny mid-teen boy followers. Try as he might to direct her to something more sedate, Daddy finally gave in and plunked down cash (well, a big check) on a brand new 1968 Plymouth GTX, complete with 440 Six-pack, four-speed stick, and posi-traction. It was an olive shade of green with a darker vinyl roof. It was a beauty. And it was a lot more car than a tiny sixteen-year-old of any gender ought be allowed to handle. Daddy went back to OK and she went back to being a little teen-age queen.

For the next few weeks, you could hear her coming from blocks away...she would burn the tires and roar around in first gear. She wasn't too good at shifting gears yet. But with the help of many of the same boys who had guided her decision about which car to buy, she began to gain confidence if not proficiency. In any case, she managed to shift a few gears...but those street tires didn't stand a chance on take-off; she burned 'em up every time.

Now I have to fill in a few bits of this tale. I was fresh out of the Army, fresh out of Vietnam, 20 years old, ten feet tall and bullet-proof. I was driving my '65 GTO and thought I was just about as cool as anyone ever could be. I was working at Walker-Scott Department store, driving merchandise from warehouse to stores and from store to store. One morning as I was going up the Second Street ramp to get on the freeway, two of the newest Mopar muscle cars got on the ramp behind me. A new Charger and a GTX were trying each other on; it was a two-lane ramp and they were smoking it up. I thought I might get into this a little bit: I dropped down a gear, kicked my little Goat in the tail, and started roaring up the ramp. About the time I got to the top, both Mopars blew past me like I wasn't even a participant... which I obviously wasn't. So from that experience, I knew that my Goat, as sweet as it was, was no longer at the top of the food chain.

So on the day that Little Queenie challenged me to a race, I was aware that she had a lot more car than I did. There was a Jack-in-the-Box on the corner of 2nd and Madison that is about halfway between two of the high schools in the area. Kids from both schools would hang out there and trash-talk while they fished for dates. I pulled in for tacos and a milk shake to hold me over 'til dinner. Queenie started goading me to race with her. She had her regular entourage of drooling teenies and I don't think she expected me to take her up on it. She was used to people backing down. Some part of me probably just wanted to show off; I know that part of me wanted to knock her off her pedestal. She only knew me as her neighbor's buddy. In the few conversations we had had, it had been clear that she considered herself in a different social circle than me and her neighbor. I did, too. I had a fiance, MamaCharlie (at this point the fiance-ness was pretty much a tacit agreement, but it was there and I was missing her a lot...she was in Tucson). I had real world experience in a number of areas, including my recent adventures in Vietnam, and I had four years on her (I know, 20 still seems like a kid to me, too...but then it was a big deal). She had a GTX and a daddy. Looking back, I had a better deal than she did,

I accepted her challenge. I told her to pull out onto Second; we would line up at Madison and when the light changed we would go to the freeway underpass. It was less than a quarter-mile but enough...and she agreed...and no re-match...bragging rights belonged forever to the winner. We got into position and stopped. When it went to green, we took off. Or actually, I took off; she sat there smoking those street tires, torquing a little off-line, putting on a heck of display of power but not moving very far. By the time she started getting a little traction, I was a good four links ahead. She got panicky, forgot to shift for a second or two, and just didn't have enough room to catch me. It was closer at the overpass, but I was clearly ahead...another couple hundred feet and she would have blown by me.

It is a fond memory of one of the few times I actually didn't screw something up...unless you consider the fact that I thought it was a good idea to drag race on a city street in mid-day against a sixteen-year-old who I knew wasn't very smart about controlling the monster machine she was sitting in.

I don't think I know any of the dozen or so witnesses to the event, and I don't even remember Queenie's real name. I married MamaCharlie shortly after this and we went back into the Army and off to Germany. I suppose Queenie grew up to do whatever rich girls do and lived richly ever after. She has provided a giggle or two over the years as I recall her storming around the neighborhood in first gear, that marvelous monster roaring in protest...and she did give me the chance to be David to her Goliath, even if Goliath would have kicked my butt if a real driver had been behind the wheel.