By my cousin,
Chip Arpin
(Time frame: late 1950's - early 1960's)
Chip Arpin
(Time frame: late 1950's - early 1960's)
Well, This might be as good a time as any to try my best at one of my favorite Gonka stories. I wish that we had a tape recording though!
Gonka was a fast driver...there is no other way to put that. his typical speed, by HIS estimation was always 60-65 mph. This was a very rough estimation, to put it mildly! He once bought a car that had a very loud buzzer alarm would go off every time the driver exceeded 70 or so mph...and the alarm was constantly buzzing away. Gonk had an amazing ability to completely ignore such tones...along with certain voices...like my poor Grandmother's. The alarm would make her almost as nervous as Gonka's driving, and she was really letting him know about it too! But to no avail....his response was "OH, Good LORD, they're just crazy to think you can hurt a car by driving it!" Then, he would continue on, passing people left and right, with the alarm and "Ammama" as we called her, both letting him have it "with both barrels" as Gonk would say. We were all glad when he had the alarm removed.
Well before alarms were invented, Gonka had a fair amount of business to attend to in northern Wisconsin, near the Flambeau Flowage and further north toward the Minnesota and Upper-Michigan borders. Gonk did a great deal of driving; thousands of hair-raising miles and not a single fatality, that we know of??
The old gentleman had an amazing capacity to down-play even the closest of close calls with a shrug and an "OH boys, what are you screaming about? I saw him the whole time". This, after another near head-on collision passing a "d___ farmer" with the audacity to go less than 70 miles an hour! The car coming the other way would somehow find a way to stop or get off the road in time for us to miss colliding head on. Gonk was so casual about these occurrences that we started to think of him as a sort of real Mr. Magoo with slightly better vision. We loved being with him so much though, that we never hesitated the chance to jump in his back seat for a second.
We were not along for the infamous "midget incident" however and have to take Gonk's version of what happened, which I believe to be absolutely true (within reason). Gonka was on one of his "business trips" up north and was travelling...oh...60-65 miles an hour along an old fashioned highway, which was no doubt very narrow, by today's standards. It was also very hilly country. As the story goes, Gonk came up over one of those hills to find a little truck at a dead stop right in the middle of the road! His thought at the time was that it "must have been a bunch of farmers looking at a bear", for some reason. Well there was no time to stop and no room to go around them, so his only option was to speed up (one of his favorites) and try to go OVER them! There must have been a little incline right before their vehicle and if anyone could make a car fly, it was Gonk. And he almost made it, too. Except that he ended up coming down right on top of those "poor farmers" and flattening that truck like a pancake!
As usual, Gonk was unhurt, and apparently unfazed by this unfortunate turn of events, so he got out of his car and climbed down off the wreckage to survey the damages. His first thought was "There can't POSSIBLY be anyone alive in there"! He always said that SO matter of factly that it really floored the listener! The truck was completely crushed, nearly right down to the pavement. Gonk was pondering his options, probably wondering how in the world he was ever going to get his car off that wreck and get back on the road....when lo and behold a pair of arms reach out of the window of the truck. The hands at the end of those arms were holding, of all things, a baby! A live baby too. In fact it was a live baby midget! and after Gonk took the baby, then another child was handed out, and yet another. Then the mother got out, then the father...when it was over, it turned out to be an ENTIRE FAMILY of MIDGETS! "That's the only people who could POSSIBLY have survived that accident"! Gonk shook his head and laughed in amazement. We have never seen the "official police version" of this little episode, but suspect the 60-65 part of it may have been altered slightly.
Gonk also never did say what that little maneuver cost him, but I'm willing to bet that little family was driving a brand new truck on future bear watching expeditions.
Gonka was a fast driver...there is no other way to put that. his typical speed, by HIS estimation was always 60-65 mph. This was a very rough estimation, to put it mildly! He once bought a car that had a very loud buzzer alarm would go off every time the driver exceeded 70 or so mph...and the alarm was constantly buzzing away. Gonk had an amazing ability to completely ignore such tones...along with certain voices...like my poor Grandmother's. The alarm would make her almost as nervous as Gonka's driving, and she was really letting him know about it too! But to no avail....his response was "OH, Good LORD, they're just crazy to think you can hurt a car by driving it!" Then, he would continue on, passing people left and right, with the alarm and "Ammama" as we called her, both letting him have it "with both barrels" as Gonk would say. We were all glad when he had the alarm removed.
Well before alarms were invented, Gonka had a fair amount of business to attend to in northern Wisconsin, near the Flambeau Flowage and further north toward the Minnesota and Upper-Michigan borders. Gonk did a great deal of driving; thousands of hair-raising miles and not a single fatality, that we know of??
The old gentleman had an amazing capacity to down-play even the closest of close calls with a shrug and an "OH boys, what are you screaming about? I saw him the whole time". This, after another near head-on collision passing a "d___ farmer" with the audacity to go less than 70 miles an hour! The car coming the other way would somehow find a way to stop or get off the road in time for us to miss colliding head on. Gonk was so casual about these occurrences that we started to think of him as a sort of real Mr. Magoo with slightly better vision. We loved being with him so much though, that we never hesitated the chance to jump in his back seat for a second.
We were not along for the infamous "midget incident" however and have to take Gonk's version of what happened, which I believe to be absolutely true (within reason). Gonka was on one of his "business trips" up north and was travelling...oh...60-65 miles an hour along an old fashioned highway, which was no doubt very narrow, by today's standards. It was also very hilly country. As the story goes, Gonk came up over one of those hills to find a little truck at a dead stop right in the middle of the road! His thought at the time was that it "must have been a bunch of farmers looking at a bear", for some reason. Well there was no time to stop and no room to go around them, so his only option was to speed up (one of his favorites) and try to go OVER them! There must have been a little incline right before their vehicle and if anyone could make a car fly, it was Gonk. And he almost made it, too. Except that he ended up coming down right on top of those "poor farmers" and flattening that truck like a pancake!
As usual, Gonk was unhurt, and apparently unfazed by this unfortunate turn of events, so he got out of his car and climbed down off the wreckage to survey the damages. His first thought was "There can't POSSIBLY be anyone alive in there"! He always said that SO matter of factly that it really floored the listener! The truck was completely crushed, nearly right down to the pavement. Gonk was pondering his options, probably wondering how in the world he was ever going to get his car off that wreck and get back on the road....when lo and behold a pair of arms reach out of the window of the truck. The hands at the end of those arms were holding, of all things, a baby! A live baby too. In fact it was a live baby midget! and after Gonk took the baby, then another child was handed out, and yet another. Then the mother got out, then the father...when it was over, it turned out to be an ENTIRE FAMILY of MIDGETS! "That's the only people who could POSSIBLY have survived that accident"! Gonk shook his head and laughed in amazement. We have never seen the "official police version" of this little episode, but suspect the 60-65 part of it may have been altered slightly.
Gonk also never did say what that little maneuver cost him, but I'm willing to bet that little family was driving a brand new truck on future bear watching expeditions.
OMG - someone please make a movie out of Gonka stories! Great story, don't know how I missed that one before.
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