Two days now until they line 'em up in rows of three and come screaming down that long ribbon of asphalt to the green, and a medium-sized city rises to its feet with its heart in its throat.
The Greatest Spectacle In Racing, y'all. Also, 50 years since the Greatest Spectacle In Inappropriate Behavior At An Historic Landmark, wherein hangs a tale.
It's a tale worth telling now because 1) my dear Moms has passed, and can't dispute my version of events; and 2) it's also the 50th anniversary of Mario Andretti's only 500 victory, which has been celebrated all month at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This has been Mario's month to be feted as one of the greatest race drivers who ever turned a wheel, and no one deserves it more -- unless, that is, you can name someone else who won the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of LeMans and the Formula One World Driving Championship in four peerless decades.
It is probably not as notable to point out that he also played a pivotal role in the aformentioned Greatest Spectacle In Inappropriate Behavior, etc., etc.
In 1969 I was a 14-year-old boy already hopelessly in love with all things Indy, and when Memorial Day arrived that year the air was sweet with honeysuckle. But it wasn't Indiana air I was breathing. It was Virginia air.
Virginia: Where I was standing in line with the fam waiting to tour Mount Vernon, ancestral home of the Father of Our Country, George Washington.
I couldn't have cared less. It was Race Day, after all.
Back in Indiana, the Purdue band was playing "On The Banks of the Wabash." "Taps" was filling the morning air. The National Anthem was being sung and the drivers were strapping in and Tony Hulman was telling 'em to start their engines, gearhead invocation rolling out over the flags and the multitudes and those 33 rocket ships sitting in rows of three on a strip of asphalt that looked entirely too narrow for its purpose.
Meanwhile, there I was.
Standing in line to get into Mount Vernon.
Clutching a portable radio the size of a Stephen King novel.
Turning it up juuuust a tad, because you didn't want to miss the radio boys running down the starting lineup.
And on the outside of Row 2, from Tucson, Arizona, Roger McCluskey ...
I turned up the radio a bit more. And that's when Mom got involved.
"Turn that off," she hissed.
And now she was glaring at me, and I knew that meant Dad was about to get called in on a consult. And so, to the bemusement of a couple of nuns standing behind us in line, I reluctantly turned off the radio.
It was just a ruse, of course. No sooner were we inside than I slipped away to the gardens (which are, yes, as spectacular as you've heard) and turned on the radio again.
Mario was leading, on his way to the win that would be so celebrated 50 years later. McCluskey was hanging around. Jim McElreath was already gone, the back of his car suddenly bursting into flame as he thundered down the front stretch in Lap 24.
I wandered on. Hey, look, here's a hedge animal. Here's some more honeysuckle. Here are George and Martha Washington's grav--
Distressing news now from the radio.
A tinny voice was saying Lloyd Ruby -- a huge fan favorite in those days -- had pulled away too fast on a pit stop. His fuel hose, still attached, ripped out the side of his car like a cork being popped from a wine bottle. The hardest of Indy's hard luck guys was done again.
"(Bleep)!" I blurted out.
Heads cranked around. Eyebrows were hoisted. And suddenly I realized I was still standing in front of George and Martha's graves.
Oops.
For the rest of the day I slinked around, radio pressed to my ear as Mario sailed toward the finish of his big day. And trying not to hear what I was sure people around me were whispering.
Look, Floyd. There's that weird little kid with the radio who cussed at George Washington's grave. I wonder who his parents are.
I bet they're drug fiends, Lurlene.
Or bank robbers, Floyd. You can always tell a bank robber.
Well. Floyd ... Lurlene ... it's 50 years later now, and time to set the record straight. At least for my mom's sake.
My parents were not drug fiends. They weren't bank robber, either.
They did, however, raise a sportswriter who grew up to cover the Indy 500, and who hasn't cursed at the grave of a founding father in quite some time. And who actually wound up interviewing Mario Andretti a couple of times.
Though not at Mount Vernon.
See, Mom. Everything you told me didn't go in one ear and out the other.
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