<VV> Corvair article : Comic, unplanned brush with eventual rock star

[Nick Pasquale]

Article from todays NYJournal News,
(lower hudson valley, NY)
By Phil Reisman (preisman at lohud.com)
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070812/COLUMNIST0
8/708120337/1010





Comic, unplanned brush with eventual rock star
(Original publication: August 12, 2007)

My brother Pete once owned a 1966 Corvair, which he loved, but benignly
neglected as a natural consequence of being young and short on cash.


"It had a bad reputation because it was one of those Ralph Nader
'bad-example cars,'" Pete recalled. "I don't know, maybe it blew up or
something. But it was a great car."


When Pete got out of the Army many summers ago, the two of us drove the
Corvair cross-country in a crazy, practically nonstop dash from Fort Lewis
in Washington to New York. We slept in the car some nights and lived mostly
on peanut butter, Wonder Bread, canteens of Kool-Aid and government-issue C
rations that were vacuum packed in green cans. We traveled thousands of
miles in grueling heat through mountain passes, prairie and cornfields but
darned if the car didn't make it all the way.


After that, Pete moved to Staten Island with the Corvair, which at that
point was a barely operable piece of junk. "Things happened to it," Pete
said. All these years later, he can still describe the car's deterioration
in epic detail.


"There was a broken passenger-side window so rain and leaves and stuff got
in," he said. "A stray cat also got in it and slept in the back seat. The
exhaust system had a leak and the exhaust fed right into the air vent. So
when you opened the air vent and turned the fan on, this gray exhaust filled
the car.


"It leaked oil so bad that when I parked the car I had to put a bowl under
it, collect the oil and then pour it back into the oil receiver."


Pete decided to sell the car. He put a sign on it - $200.


One day in the fall of 1972, Pete drove the Corvair into a Hess service
station on Victory Boulevard. This guy in a greasy jumpsuit who was pumping
gas saw the "for sale" sign and said he wanted to buy the car, but he didn't
look like he had a nickel to his name.


"I can get the money," the attendant told my brother, who was dubious.


The attendant was visibly undernourished, as skinny as a scarecrow. He had
buck teeth, long lanky blond hair and blue eyes that seemed to pop out of
their sockets. He wanted to test drive the Corvair and insisted again that
he could pay for it - and finally my brother said OK. They agreed to meet on
a night after work.


When they met for the test drive, it was getting dark and the roads were
slick from a heavy rain.


"He takes off in the car and he goes down one of those streets on Staten
Island, going a little too fast," Pete remembered. "I'm getting a little
nervous, but I'm trying to be cool about it. I'm not saying, 'Slow down,'
you know. I thought, OK, well, let him do what's he's going to do."


Taking a sudden turn on a narrow street, the skinny guy lost control of the
steering, slammed on the brakes and skidded into a parked car, denting its
fender. The Corvair was undamaged.


My brother found the car's owner, who said he'd settle for $100 to fix the
fender. The gas station attendant admitted the accident was his fault but,
just as Pete had suspected, he didn't have any money to pay for the damage.


"So I had to front the money," Pete said.


The skinny guy promised he would pay him back and, as collateral, gave my
brother his Social Security card. The name on the card was "Thomas Petty."


Pete hounded Thomas Petty for weeks. But every time he asked for the money,
all he would say is, "Uh, I don't have it."


Finally, Pete went to his house, a rented place, and the guy's girlfriend
came to the door. She seemed to be no older than 17 or 18 and was beautiful,
which startled my brother because, by all appearances, this Petty character
was a witless loser. That time, Petty gave him 10 bucks and said he would
pay him the rest later.


"One day I went over there and he got a little huffy," my brother
remembered. "And he tried to physically intimidate me, which was a joke. So
I just shoved him in the chest like, 'Get outta here.'"


Pete never saw him again after that. "He disappeared," Pete said.


Some years later, Pete was watching TV when a familiar face popped up on the
screen. Lo and behold, it was none other than the deadbeat gas station
attendant from Staten Island. Only he wasn't pumping gas anymore. He was a
rock star with hit records, fame and wealth.


Now he was the great Tom Petty, of "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers."


Pete laughs at this memory. Petty never did pay up the 90 bucks he still
owes.


And Petty never got his Social Security card back, either, though my brother
held onto it for a long time. He says he can't locate it now.


The beloved Corvair? Eventually it was sold to a scrap dealer for $25.


So there you have it - a brush with rock 'n' roll history. I invite readers
to submit similar true tales of encounters with past and present rock
greats, from Abba to Zappa. If they're good enough, I might incorporate
those stories in future columns. I've done this before and the results were
pretty interesting.


A postscript: When my sons were small, they set up a lemonade stand on the
street near our house, which is just down the road from Sarah Lawrence
College in Yonkers. The college had just held its graduation ceremony and
there was a heavy flow of customers. Finally a car stopped and a man gave
them $1 for a 15-cent drink.


"Keep the change," he said. Then he said something about how relieved he was
that he didn't have to pay college tuition anymore.


The generous man was Tom Petty.


Small world.


Reach Phil Reisman at preisman at lohud.com or 914-694-5008. Read his blog,
Extra, at http://reisman.lohudblogs.com/