They say you always remember your "first time," I am fairly certain they are talking about something other than hearing a good story, but today that is the "first time" I am talking about. I've heard the following story many times through out my life. Told by different people and set in different places but my first time was in the early '60s. I was a junior or senior at Coosa County High School located in Rockford Alabama. I was sitting in Coach Ashley's American History class. Coach Ashley was a gifted basketball coach. The best way to describe his history teaching is to say that it was adequate for the place and time. Back in the '60s Coosa County had three high schools. The school in Rockford was called Coosa County High, I suppose that was because it was located in the county seat. As I said, Coach Ashley was a gifted basketball coach and in spite of having few talented players to draw from, he accomplished much. During my years as a student in the Coosa County school system I recall at least twice when CCHS made it to the state championship playoff games in Tuscaloosa. I heard this story right after one of those trips to the playoffs.
Coach Ashley came into the classroom and said he wanted to tell us about what happened to him in Tuscaloosa. It was not unusual for Coach Ashley to tell us stories. In fact it was the norm. About the only real American History that we learned was about WWII and that was from his personal experience stories. Anyway, He began to tell us that he was over in Tuscaloosa driving the 51 (he had a 1951 Chevrolet sedan that he always called the 51) down this kind of main street when all of a sudden he heard a terrible bang and the front of the 51 dropped down. He managed to get it stopped and got out an looked and saw that his right front wheel had run off and to make matters worse, the lug nuts were no where to be found. There he was on the side of a busy road in Tuscaloosa, which even then was a city compared to little Rockford, with the right front of his car sitting flat on the shoulder of the road. He didn't know who to call or what to do.
It was about that time that he became aware of someone standing behind him. He looked around and there behind a fence stood a guy grinning like something was very funny. The fence in question surrounded the grounds of the Bryce's mental hospital. The guy looked as if he was just about to break into laughter. Coach Ashley did not see any humor in the situation and asked the guy what was so funny. The guy replied, you don't know what to do, do you? Coach Ashley replied that indeed he was at a loss. This made the guy grin even more. Getting really irritated, Coach said I suppose you know what to do? Of course said the guy.
What you do is go to your trunk, get your bumper jack and jack up the front of your car on the side where the wheel ran off. Then you get your lug wrench, go around to each of the three remaining wheels and take one lug nut off each of them. Put your wheel back on the front of your car and use those three lug nuts to attach it. Then you can drive down to the Western Auto Store and buy you five new lug nuts, replace the three that you took off your other three wheels and put the remaining two on the wheel that has the three. Coach Ashley stood there a minute, thought about it and said to the guy, you are right, that WILL work. Then he asked, If you know something like that, why are you in there? The guy smiled and replied. I am in here for being crazy, not for being stupid.
