Ryan and Debi & Toren

Mark: fire drills

Mark would occasionally let me drive the car home from school when we were both attending Morgan High together.  And that usually meant we had a car full of people (typically no one in the trunk, but at least five or six of us in the car).  One of the things we almost always did was have a fire drill at the Peterson exit.

The idea was basically that the driver would get out, run around the car to the passenger side, and the passenger would switch to the driver’s side.  If the driver didn’t make it to the passenger’s side in time, they could be left behind.  And, if you were feeling adventurous, you could have the people in the back seats run around as well.  An added risk was the possibility of a car pulling to a stop behind you or a sheriff’s deputy dropping by.  We didn’t do the fire drills every day, but we did them regularly, and occasionally someone wouldn’t make it back to their seat by the time the new driver was situated, which meant they got left behind.

I have vague recollections of people also jumping on the hood of the car or even on the roof, though we usually wouldn’t go any further than the gravel turnout  (just north of the exit in the map) if that was the case.  And some people have suggested, though I don’t remember it, that people were run into or even run over during our fire drills.  I don’t recall that ever occurring, but it could have.

Exit mobile version