In the fall of 1965 I was living at home in Fairfax City and commuting to the Corcoran School of Art at The Corcoran Gallery of Art on 17th and New York Avenue in Washington D.C. and studying advertising design. I had also just started work the day after Thanksgiving at Woodward and Lothrop in 7-Corners in the women's sportswear department. On Thanksgiving break (-----) came home from college and asked me out and this is the story of that date.
(-----) and I and Pete and Pete's friend from the school he went to before he came to Fairfax High senior year drove into Arlington to meet up with (-----)'s college roommate and his girl who (-----) and I were to double date with. Pete and friend took (-----)'s car and we all agreed to meet up at the end of the night. We had the best time that evening dancing and having a few beers in a club I can't recall the name of forty five years later and we stayed till closing. The clubs in DC closed at midnight on Saturdays back then so people could get up for church on Sunday mornings.
Driving back to Arlington to meet back up with Pete and friend, (-----) started acting up and opened his car window and started yelling and screaming and generally acting like a crazy person. Up to this point I felt fine but when I started pulling him back into the car I became very jostled and all I had drank came rushing up. Now I was leaning out the other backseat window spitting chunks as we drove across the Memorial Bridge. I remember thinking this is so embarrassing and then I was out like a light! Somehow the car exchange was made in Arlington and (-----) drove us back to Fairfax Circle where we dropped off Pete and friend with me still passed out.
Back in 1965 (-----) could have gone around the Circle to take me home as we both lived in the same subdivision in Fairfax City, or, since we were on Pickett Road already he could take it out to Rt. 236 The Little River Turnpike and back to Fairfax that way. I don't know if he had any ulterior motives in mind when he chose Pickett Road which was a gravel road with hardly anything on it back then and virtually deserted at this time of the night. I came out of my stupor as (-----) was parking across from the Little League baseball fields on Pickett. Giving him the benefit of the doubt he did have to wake me up before he took me home.
Now here is where everything takes a surreal turn. I'm totally awake now and we're travelling up Pickett to 236 when suddenly I start screaming to (-----) "There's a body in the road! I saw a body in the road!" and it took a few seconds to convince him to stop and back up a few yards. Guess what! There was a body leaning up against the bank with it's feet sticking out in the road. (-----) stopped the car and got out to investigate. The body turned out to be alive and awake. He said he'd been at the Green Dolphin Bar in the Hilltop Shopping Center on 29-211 at Kamp Washington and he didn't remember how he got dumped there in the bushes on Pickett Road. (-----) helped him up and put him in the back seat and asked him where we could take him. The man said to drop him off at the Red Raven which was a bar in the little strip mall on 50-29-211 across from Jim Mc Kay Chevrolet....and this is what we did.
EPILOGUE: (-----) and I saw each other several times that next year but we never spoke of our little adventure and we finally lost track of each other.
EPILOGUE II: Just short of fifty years later I got in touch with (-----) and had him read the story and we both laughed and I know he's showed it to a couple of our old friends from high school. I've reworked it a little since then...mainly changing the names from Bill and Susan to (-----) and me and dropping the "Only The Names Are Changed To Protect The Innocent". I can own the truth.
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