Well late is an understatement about this story, as her birthday, 50th might I add was over a week ago. And MORE than a week before that we were all asked to come up with a good "Sharon Story". So I definitely dropped the ball, but I really wanted to put some thought into how I was going to tell this tale of teenage affection meets concerned parent meets near death experience.
Interested yet???? Read on............
Let me set the tone for you. The year is 1999, I'm a 17 year old boy/man coming off of a fresh break up. But not with a person, but persons. Not I'm not from Utah, my band, Clevon Little (no "A" on Cleavon intentionally BTW) had decided to split, and I was realizing that a career as a rock star might not work out after all. But what I did know was that I was getting VERY serious with a certain young lovely that had just recently moved a few miles away. 130 miles to be exact. So what else was a young boy/man to do but go visit???
Interested yet???? Read on............
Let me set the tone for you. The year is 1999, I'm a 17 year old boy/man coming off of a fresh break up. But not with a person, but persons. Not I'm not from Utah, my band, Clevon Little (no "A" on Cleavon intentionally BTW) had decided to split, and I was realizing that a career as a rock star might not work out after all. But what I did know was that I was getting VERY serious with a certain young lovely that had just recently moved a few miles away. 130 miles to be exact. So what else was a young boy/man to do but go visit???
Now keep in mind that I can drive to Norman in my sleep now (literally, I did last Wednesday :-), but at the time I didn't know Norman from any other town that was outside of my comfort zone of the Tulsa/Broken Arrow area. But as luck would have it, I could make my way to I-44 and my young lovely's mom had agreed to meet me halfway, and I could follow them the rest of the way to Soonersville.
So we meet at the "Mid McDonalds" and my sweetheart jumps in with me to ride back to her parents house. Being as we're SOOO in love and missed each other SOOO much, she decides to cozy up next to me in the middle seat. Don't forget that important detail.
So we cruise down I-44 and as soon as we get off, we notice Sharon gets off on the first available exit and pulls over. And I'm thinking "hmmmmm maybe she's having car problems. I just started a new job at a mechanic shop, and maybe I can save the day and win boyfriend of the year!!"
Not so. No sooner than we get out of the car, we notice a very interesting look on her face. She's not happy, and why would she be, she has been stewing for about 45 minutes watching her daughter and some young punk cuddling next to each other driving down the highway. I didn't realize she was upset by this, but I figured it out pretty damn quick when the "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU"RE DOING??!?!?!" and a few other comments started being hurled at me. And I'm thinking, "wow, this lady's crazy, she might just kick my ass right here off of I-35".
And just as soon as it started, Melissa was now riding with her now and I was flying solo trying to follow her ticked off Mom back to their house. Good fun huh?
So I'm trying to follow them, but I'm just not having a lot of luck, maybe because I'm not familiar with OKC, or maybe I'm still a little flustered from the ass chewing I just took, maybe both.
And all of the sudden, I see her jerk over into another lane. And why wouldn't she? After all the lane ended in about 50 feet, and there's a semi in the way. So after having a mild heart attack, I SLAM on the brakes, and jerk over two lanes of traffic just in time to not get killed by to different vehicles.
So I'm sitting there, getting the bird from 50 different drivers, who are justified in doing so, and I'm thinking to myself, "did she just try to kill me?" I mean I know I was cuddling up with her daughter and everything, but she did take Melissa out of the car, and she knows I'm not familiar with Norman. Man I think she just tried to kill me.
So here I am thinking "oh great, I'm going to Norman all by myself and my chances of getting back to BA in one piece are now slim, but oh well, it'll make for a good story .............................................
Happy B Day Sharon, Love You!!!!!!
P.S. Might I also add that to this day, that's BY FAR the most pissed I've ever seen Sharon, and after trying to follower her a few times since then, I think she may not have been trying to kill me. I think.............................