Oct

7

On Sunday, I walked into a Slab City, CA camp as the new guy in town for an introduction to the informal Mayor. Slab City is a popular winter haven for nomadic misfits set on the concrete slabs of General George Patton's training center for the WWII African invasion. In the early 1940s, Patton flew over where I met the Mayor and declared, "This is Hell! My boys are going to train here for the African campaign." Hence, the Chocolate Mt. Bombing Range, second largest in the world, sits spitting distance from where the Mayor, bearded and strumming a guitar, chatted. Helicopters fired machine guns at 300 rounds a minute, and 10000-pound bombs rocked the ground beneath us.

The Mayor suddenly eyed me carefully, and shouted, "Steve Keeley! I've been searching for you for decades!" He recounted how his father, a genius three-time loser, once loaned me his VW van while the dad installed a cruise control in my Leach van. The VW brakes failed at a MI RR crossing, and scooped up on the cowcatcher of a moving freight train! The van folded in half, and I sailed down the track clutching the steering wheel to keep from falling out the window under the locomotive 3' cookie-cutter wheels…another near death. The Mayor grabbed my hand and shook it, and now I'm a made guy in Hell.


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  1. Anonymous on October 27, 2015 4:00 pm

    this is Ben Morofsky, mayor of Slabcity. I want to thank you for your time, energy, and input. the van you are talking about was my fathers.

    thank you Bo Keely for opening the doors

    Ben Morofsky

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