i·me·michael

I had a 1973 Riviera boattail, 455-4 barrel. The thing would scream from a standing start, and burn rubber if you floored the gas. Nothing got away from me.

And it was in this car that we, my two best friends and I, found ourselves tailing a limo headed from Nassau Coliseum into Manhattan. The limo naturally didn’t want to be followed, and began to try and speed away. I just chuckled to myself. They had no idea what this car is capable of, but I did.

There’s a section of the Major Deagan Expressway, just as you enter Yonkers, that is fairly straight and open, not to mention police free. Many’s the night I would pin the needle on this road and get a feel for what my cars could do.

So here we were now in a high-speed chase just starting to tip past 90. A cakewalk. I pulled up alongside the limo at 100 and we just waved and smiled. We were beaming with pride. We knew there was no getting away from us. Now they knew it too. We figured they were having as good a time trying to elude us as we were having chasing them. As we entered the city, things naturally slowed.

We wound our way through the constantly active streets of Manhattan till we came to the Berkshire. The limo pulled up to the front entrance, and we, surprisingly, managed to park directly across the street. We hurriedly hopped out and ran over to catch the limo’s exiting passengers. We never stopped to think that we might have seemed like lunatics. We were just some fans.

And out they came. Robbin Crosby, Warren DeMartini, and Bobby Blotzer. Three fifths of the band Ratt. They were cordial. We talked about the show, the chase (fun for them too), took pictures [pic], and had them sign autographs. The most talkative and friendly was the drummer, Bobby Blotzer. He just seemed to enjoy hanging about with his fans. We did later remark that we thought he was pretty coked up, but we went away happy and let them all get to their hotel rooms and waiting females.

We leisurely drove back home to Yonkers and reminisced about our little adventure all through the night and days following. I always thought having these little memories is so much better than, “Dude! I got so wasted that night I can’t remember a thing. It was Great!”

Fast forward — I come to bury Crosby, not mock him.

So long Robbin, thanks for the memories.