Looking through some of my 'memoirs' from the attic, I found a sticker from
'Pedros'. It was a remarkable store in a place called Dillon, South
Carolina. If we drove straight down to Daytona without a stayover or not,
we always stopped at Pedros. For miles before Dillon, Pedros was announced
on billboards that got larger and larger every 20 miles or so until you got
to Dillon.
In this store you could buy any form of firearm from a Thomson machine gun
to a water pistol. We used to buy M80 'cherry bombs.' They were global in
shape and about an inch in diameter with an inch long 20 second fuse. When
they exploded they went off like a cannon.
It was in France somewhere on one of those balmy sunny days, and several
teams were driving in convoy to a race. We came to a halt at one of those
little boxes with a French policeman half inside it directing traffic. When
he waved our transporter through Trev Taylor lit an M80 and dropped it out
of the transporter through the rubber gear lever grommet.
We were clear when the M80 went off. The policeman didn't know whether to
blow his whistle or pull his gun (circa that time French students were
throwing plastic explosives about all over France for some reason or other
- very nasty). Anyway as we were driving away the convoy behind us was
stopped and Monsieur Plod, whilst apparently shouting 'Merdre Alors!!, qu'
est ce qui ce passe?" (which roughly translated means 'Shit what the f**k
was that), arrested those inside the next but one transporter behind us.
They were carted off to jail. Not knowing anything about what had just
happened, 'of course', we stopped. After due deliberation between the
teams, and because I spoke French, I was elected to go to the police
station to explain what we thought might have happened.
It was duly brought to the notice of the police commandant at the station
that Trev and I had spotted a rather suspicious looking onion seller on a
pushbike, with a banner on his beret saying 'Student D' Academe Francais
Paris' written on it, cross by the policeman's box on our near side just as
he waved us on. Several police cars shot off with sirens blazing, the lads
were released, and apologies were given to all of us for the inconvenience.
Paul
It was then that I noticed three people walk by in close order
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