Spring at St. Anthony's…. Perhaps 1954 or 1955. Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to...well, in our case, turns to Track Day… One of the most important athletic events of the year at the "Sem". Yep. It's the World Series, the All Star Game, the Super Bowl, and the Pro Bowl all rolled into one day for the benefit of the student body, faculty, parents, relatives, friends and guests. It's a big deal.
The preparations start a month or so prior to Track Day which was held on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. Much had to get done. There are floats to be built, posters and banners to get artistically painted, and other decorations to be rounded up. Hectic days prior to the big day. It was a beautiful spring day at St. Anthony's. The blooming flowers were screaming, "Look at me!" The birds were singing, "Listen to me!" The few clouds gliding overhead were whispering, "Don't forget about me!"
Nature was in its splendor, and the din of the seminarians playing handball, basketball, tossing a hardball around and playing catch interrupted the beauty of the day.
But my classmate, Dennis (Denny) Rainey was on a mission. He was going to get ready to build a float for our team - the Titans. Denny and a few others started by locating a rusted hulk of a car chassis from somewhere on the campus. It had four old tires, a steering wheel, a drive shaft that was still connected to the rear wheels but was disconnected behind the rusted frame of the front seats. The front seats were a skeleton of their previous life - now rusted steel and twisted springs. The remnants of what once was probably a beautiful 1940s pick up truck will work as a platform for a float. I need to mention that although there was a clutch pedal, as well as a gas and a brake pedal, none of them were connected to anything. Literally "pedal to the metal" did nothing but exercise one's foot.
So Denny, who is seated in the seat frame of the chassis, is being pushed by these team mates in front of the administration building. It is quite a sight. A teenager tooling around in a rusted chassis with his buddies struggling to parade their find in front of most of the student body; as most of them were busy playing around, they hardly gave notice to this comical spectacle and potential float.
I was curious, so walked up to Denny and engaged him in conversation. The gist of the encounter was to ask him if we could take the chassis for a ride to the seminary gate. The gate was at the base of a nearby hill and we could free roll it down there. It was doable. Let's roll! I hopped into the rusted frame seat and immediately the exposed drive shaft caught my attention. Got to be careful that the spinning shaft did not catch a shoe lace or my pants as that could be disastrous. No worry, I'll be careful to avoid the spinning shaft. So the guys wheeled us to the top of the hill as Denny prepared to guide us down the slope. So far so good.
As we started to roll and pick up speed, that's when we realized "what were we thinking"? NO BRAKES!, At the bottom of the run, the open gate leads to a driveway and then onto Garden Street!. There will be cross traffic when we approach the gate coming from our left as well as from our right! And NO BRAKES! Holy cow! Too late for regrets. Hope Denny is a good driver. By the time we started into the street is when the miracle occurred. Our Guardian Angels worked overtime to clear Garden St. of any cross traffic. Denny made it to the middle of the quiet street, whipped a hard left and rolled down Garden Street. No traffic behind us that we could see, and as he drove towards the other campus gate, which leads back unto the school grounds, the on-coming traffic was far enough away that Denny could make the left turn without us getting T-boned! Man those Guardian Angels were awesome.
Denny glided us into the entrance gate. That gate was at the bottom of a hill similar to the exit gate we flew out of. Quickly and quietly, our clunker began to slow down as it lumbered up the drive. About a quarter of the way up the grade, the speed died and it slowed down enough to jump off. We hustled off and immediately picked up some large rocks and placed them behind the wheels. Talk about a Disneyland harrowing ride, ours surpassed that easily.
After we calmed down, we just looked at each other and shook our heads wondering how we had just pulled that off. Truly miraculous!
As I look back I shake my head and think of how we lived through these youthful antics. And it also brings to mind another story that happened at Hendry's Beach. But that’s a whole ‘nother story. My well worn old brain needs a break.
Fred Aquilina '57 Here's a link to the '55 Track Day program: www.sasarchive.org/1955-track-day-program