This van was one of my favorite vehicles, it could hold three mountain bikes inside and still have room for their riders. It went off-road like it was made for it and never broke down. Sometimes I miss the Van.
In addition to the Opel, another legendary vehicle I owned was The Van. It was a copper 1989 Toyota Mini Van. I had bought it on a credit card from a dealership in Cincinnati during a bad snowstorm and got a great deal on it. It had 120K miles on it, but I just knew it had a lot more in it. It ran for a long time, accumulating over 200K miles on it before the odometer stopped working. It eventually met its demise when fluid from the power steering leaked onto the engine and shorted it out causing a small electrical fire in the garage. My wife at the time no longer felt it was safe to keep the van as the only place we had to park was in the garage. So a couple of nights later while at a restaurant our server was talking about needing a car. I told him as a tip I would sign over the van to him if he agreed to come get it. He did, and took it for repairs. It cost him around $150 to fix it and it was good as new. I saw him driving it around town until the day we moved to Pensacola. It would not surprise me if it is still running today.
One of the most infamous van stories took place when I lived in Lexington, KY. Now as with many of my stories I must preface this with… We were young and stupid, we DO NOT condone any of the acts contained in this story and if confronted with them we will deny it all :)
It was a sunday night and Mark, Sean and Randy (Kevin’s little brother) came down from Cincinnati to go out somewhere different than where they normally go and to visit me in my new town. A detail that Mark reminded me of, became a very ironic detail that I forgot but he will always remember.
Before heading out Sean had noticed he was the only one wearing shorts. Now why that mattered to him I don’t know. But it did and he tried to convince Mark to wear shorts as well. Mark reluctantly decided to wear them and paired them with a tank top as well. Which was to be a big mistake as you will find out.
The night started out as a typical guy’s night out. We hit a few different bars and had a few drinks, and I remained the designated driver with the van. The first place we hit I remember them doing shots of Tequila and then we sat outside. We finished the night at an Irish pub, the name of which eludes me. When we sat down they did as they did at the other two and started with a shot of Patron Anejo tequila. The man seated next to us proceeded to order a round of real shots for them and himself. Shots of Irish whiskey were poured and they drank them down, and almost before they even set the empty shot glasses down on the bar he ordered another round. Mark then said “We appreciate the offer but we do not want to run up your tab.” He answered “That’s okay. I own the place.” So they did that round and eventually one more before the bar closed early that night due to Lexington being in the bible belt, no drinks served past midnight.
We didn’t want to go home yet because my wife at the time was home sleeping and had to work the next day and if we kept her up late she would not be a happy camper, not that she was ever a “happy camper” :) So instead we decided to stop home and grab the remaining beer we had from earlier and just drive around in the van out in the horse farm country for a bit and have fun. I know it is illegal for open container, but i figured as long as I was sober it was no different than cruising around in a limo drinking, right? :)
Sean played the role of DJ and had the portable CD player in the back seat plugged into the main stereo and had all the CDs back there and was enjoying himself cranking out tunes. Mark and Randy were just having fun hanging out, literally. I mean they were both on each side of the van with the windows down, sitting on the doors, half out of the van. It was a warm spring night on a road in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. All was good.
It was a few minutes later when we noticed Mark was not in the van, we looked under and behind the seats to see if he perhaps passed out and we just couldn’t see him. But we could not find him. Randy and Sean then looked on the outside of the van to see if he had climbed out on top to perhaps “surf” on the roof as he has been known in the past to do such things. He was not to be found.
The thought then hit us, he had fallen out of the van! It was a horrible feeling to have to turn around the van and start heading down the road looking for a best friend who could possibly be seriously injured. I was so afraid of what shape we would find him in. It was a few miles back that we finally caught something in the headlights on the side of the road. There was Mark, lifeless on the shoulder of the road, amazingly still holding his Blue Moon beer.
We immediately stopped and ran to him. “Mark!” We called out. “Are you okay?”…” MARK!” It was just as we got to him that he sat straight up and looked at us, dazed and confused, but apparently somewhat coherent as he answered with a question back, “Did I just fall out of the van?” we didn’t answer. But asked him again, “Mark are you alright?” Once more he asked us, “No wait, did I just fall out of the van?” “Yes Mark you did” we told him. “Ow, my back hurts” he said and he then stood up to examine his shoulder which there was no shirt left on. We began to look him over for broken bones or blood, he appeared on the surface to be okay except for the huge scrapes on his back from where he skidded across the pavement. he began pulling gravel from his wounds. ” I think I need something to put on this so it doesnt get infected” he said. I wonder if Mark had not changed clothes and had a shirt with sleeves on, would his shoulder be as bad as it was?Sean for had felt around Mark’s head and he found a huge knot on it, he hit his head pretty good.
We got Mark back into the van and took off for the hospital. He proceeded to tell us what happened. He had decided he would try and climb out the window to get up on the roof to surf like we thought, when his hand slipped and he fell backwards onto the road. I was amazed at how Mark did not seem really hurt after falling out of the van while traveling 45mph!!
Once we got to the hospital Mark argued that he did not need to go in, he was still intoxicated. But we were not listening to him, he needed to be checked out. We started to walk towards the hospital and Mark took off running from us. He was hard to catch. We had to eventually tackle him to get him to stop. Sean then made Mark feel the huge knot on his head, at which point Mark agrred he needed to be checked out. We then each took and arm and led him into the hospital. It was now almost 2 a.m.
They took Mark back to be checked out and after an hour we saw Mark coming back down the hallway to the ER waiting room with a hospital gown on and said he was ready to leave. Just then a nurse yielding a large needle in her hand yelled for him to come back. He stopped in his tracks and just said. “Damn, she found me,” and turned around to go back.
Meanwhile more time passed and we were all tired. Sean found an abandoned gurney and slept for a bit until a nurse kicked him off. ” You can’t sleep there sir” she said with an angry tone. “Oh come on, no one is using it, just let me sleep” he answered her without getting up. That made her mad and he saw it so he got up quietly as she glared at him.
Just about then Mark came back out, he was bandaged up and walking quite stiff now but with no serious head injury. He was ready to go home, he had to travel back to Cincinnati in a few hours where he was to go out of town for a family reunion with his Mom, brothers and girlfriend. He looked in bad shape now, as if he had fallen out of a moving vehicle onto hard pavement :) On top of it he was nursing a nasty hangover. His hangovers were as legendary as his drinking, he would lie in a fetal position and not move for an entire day sometimes no matter how much we tried to wake him. This was not the first time we had sent him home broken after a guy’s night out, but as of today it was the last time. His girlfriend and mother were not happy to say the least. Mark was in for a miserable trip in the car for 10 hours.
I think that was a wake-up call for Mark as it seemed to be the end of the crazy Mark we knew. He became replaced with a responsible Mark, who rarely drank to intoxication and NEVER tried to surf on a moving vehicle ever again. All of which are good things. Still to this day I am thankful we never lost a friend to stupid acts like that. Sort of makes me happy we are having a girl, they NEVER get into trouble right?