A road trip in a Corvette to Jackson Hole with Mary Kay -- what could be finer? The problem was that at the time I didn't have a Corvette. My ride was the burned-out 1978 Buick Estate Wagon that I brought to Idaho from St. Louis. Somehow Mary Kay and Kris Richards arranged for me to borrow Jim Richard's new Corvette, thinking the trip might strengthen our distracted marriage. As I recall, I would never think of asking to borrow Jim's Corvette, but was not about to turn down a generous offer. On the way to Jackson, we were never actually speeding, but when you sit low to the ground in a car with a tuned exhaust, it just feels like you're going much faster than you really are. I knew that I was no Mario Andretti -- I just fancied myself to be an excellent driver in an excellent car. Humility caught up with me in Jackson when two beautiful girls passed in front of us in a crosswalk as we were stopped for a red light. With oohs and aahs, they were clearly admiring the Corvette -- until they saw me behind the wheel, looked at each other, wrinkled their noses, and seemed to say "huh?" Driving a Corvette is far superior to being admired in a Corvette.
Stafford Smith brought a new red Corvette convertible off the lot for me to test drive one 4th of July weekend. My daughter, Jamie, was learning to drive and I told her we should drive the car out into the country. She followed my driving instructions perfectly and stopped at the side of the road about one mile south of the parade route about 10 a.m. I told her to turn off the engine, be patient and they would come. All we could hear were bees buzzing and birds chirping as we sat by the side of the road. She must have thought the cheese had slipped off my cracker. After a few minutes, she asked how long we were going to be there. I just sat there with the look of great wisdom on my face in silence. I spotted the low-level jet flyover approaching on the horizon. Jamie was distracted looking south as the jets bore down on us from the north, making no sounds until just before they screamed over us. Her teenage impatience turned into amazement as the jets roared low overhead -- one of my favorite memories. Then she said, "That was great! You knew they would be here!" Teaching your youngest daughter to drive a red Corvette convertible, a surprise low-pass jet flyover on the 4th of July -- perfect.
The Rigby cheerleaders had been in the parade. When the parade finished, my niece, Brittany, called and asked for a ride from the end of the parade route back to where she had parked her car. I told her that I could bring a pickup or a red Corvette convertible. She chose wisely, however, failed to mention that there were three Rigby cheerleaders with her. That was not really a problem. There are worse things than driving around town wearing a white baseball cap and sunglasses on the 4th of July, crowded into a red Corvette convertible full of cheerleaders. We saw a few people that I knew and no one recognized me. Later, I realized that was a good thing. I filled the car with gas and returned it to Stafford, thanked him, and told him that the car was exactly what I needed -- more excitement in my life.
Previous Corvette ownership lessons should have taught me all that I needed to know about the problems with Corvettes and women. Two years into driving a C4 Corvette I found a perfect day for driving -- not a cloud in the sky. The air was filled with the aroma of flowering trees. I was driving my just-washed C4 Corvette from Riverview Hospital to Parkview Hospital in Idaho Falls. The car just purred. I turned the radio volume down as I stopped at the light before turning onto Boulevard leading to the hospital. I was in a good place. A BMW in the next lane slowed to a stop. The passenger’s power window quickly went down and I clearly heard a sultry, female voice calling out to me, “Lookin' good.” For a moment I just sat there looking straight ahead with my hands on the wheel, wondering what to do. Ignore the sultry voice? Turn the volume back up and pull away? I decided to just say hello and I realized that I knew the woman -- it was Sherri Weber, an ICU nurse who had taken care of me for ten days a few years earlier following a car wreck. She was with her husband, Don, who was an anesthesiologist. They were both looking at me in my perfectly cool car, knowing that I was thinking highly of myself. Before I could say hello, Sherri said, “Not that good.” The window went up quickly and they drove away. I returned to reality, made a slow right turn, and limped over to Parkview Hospital where it didn’t get any better.
Arriving at the doctor's parking lot, I met Mikki Waite, a nurse anesthetist, going into the hospital. Plainspoken, tall, blonde, and single, Mikki was not shy about her views. She looked at my Corvette, then back at me smiling and said, “You know, Roger, whenever I see a man driving around in a plastic sports car, I always think to myself, ‘I am sorry about what happened to your little person.’” Before I went through the hospital door I mumbled to myself, "Not my little person!" I sold the car and found something exciting and sensible that didn't threaten my masculinity or involve a speed limit -- jet-skiing over waterfalls on the Snake River.
Photograph by Mark Bennion
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