Chapter 12: What is one of the stupidest things you've ever done?
Originally written March 8, 2021
Stupid things I’ve done? How many pages am I allowed to use for this one?
To quote the song by Frank Sinatra (or was it Sid Vicious?), “Regrets, I have a few, but then again, too few to mention.”
It’s a great sentiment and actually, I’ve tried to live like that. But then again, some things are too obvious to ignore.
So a major regret I have, as well as one of the stupidest things I ever did was drink and drive.
Back in the spring of 1975, I was seriously injured in a head-on car wreck. And yes, I had been drinking. It was a Friday night and my pal and roommate Amarillo Mike, had been drinking, probably since around sundown.
We decided it would be fun to drive up to the Thunderbird bar in Placitas, one of the cooler bars in the Albuquerque area in the ‘70s. Back then, some of the most fun Albuquerque bars — the Thunderbird, Rafael’s Silver Cloud, the Golden Inn and of course Rosa’s Cantina — were outside of Albuquerque.
So we took Mike’s Volkswagen bug and drove there.
Surprisingly when we got to the Thunderbird, the joint was closed.
Bummer.
We then decided to instead go to Rosa’s Cantina, which was located in Algodones, about 13 miles away.
Mike realized by then that he was too drunk to drive. So he made one of the stupidest mistakes of his life.
He asked me to drive.
If I wasn’t just as drunk as he was, I was pretty damned close. But I was too drunk to realize that at the time.
Somewhere northeast of Santa Ana Pueblo on a two-lane highway, I crossed over into the other lane. We ran into an oncoming car. Fortunately the couple in that other car were not seriously injured. Mike suffered a broken wrist.
Music break:
I suffered the most serious injury that night. I had broken my left hip. I had to have pins put in my leg. This surgery was performed by Dr. Barry Maron, (whose son Marc Maron later became a famous comedian and podcasting pioneer.) I was in the hospital for a month and on crutches for another two months.
As Dr. Maron warned, 30-some years later, I developed very painful arthritis and, in 2012 had to have my left hip replaced.
I was cited with DWI. However, back then the legal system was far more lenient.
With the help of a University of New Mexico program that provided legal aid to UNM students, when I went before Sandoval County Magistrate Court, I was able to plea to careless driving and have the DWI dropped.
[Note: his is not the first time I’ve publicly discussed my DWI. I did a column about it in The New Mexican back in 2004. It’s still preserved on my blog, so read it HERE . ]
So that had to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, right?
Wrong.
The stupidest thing I’ve ever done was to not take that accident as a warning from the Gods that I should never again drink and drive.
Through the next few decades, my drinking gradually slowed down so by the time I quit the booze because of diabetes in 2002, I was hardly imbibing at all and my driving while intoxicated also had decreased dramatically through the years.
But not completely.
I remember once in 2000 or 2001 driving back from Albuquerque after partying with friends, eventually singing karaoke at an after-hours party at Burt’s Tiki Lounge.
Had I not unintentionally caused a mass exodus of the bar with my horrendous karaoke version of “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma,” I might have gone on partying — and drinking — until sunrise.
Somehow through those years I avoided any drunken accidents or any more DWIs. But I realize I lucked out in a game of liquid Russian roulette.
And I’m certainly not proud of this extended stupid behavior.
Here’s a last thought on stupidity courtesy of this intelligent song by Mary Lee Kortes of Mary Lee’s Corvette: