The Traveling Daredevil

I've known ole JoeBob, Joe Chambers, and his older brother Ed, as long as I can remember. Their dad, Ed senior, and my dad were on the Director's Staff of Hejaz Temple of the Shrine for many years, and every time there was a convention, somehow Ed, JoeBob and I ended up together. Friendships that have endured the ages.
Ed has always been quieter, and more conservative than JoeBob and myself, whose sense of humor has always been too close to the surface and two wicked to talk about.
These Chambers brothers have always been into music, and when they were just kids they formed The Royal Scotsman Band, bought a school bus, and hit the road. They backed up a whole host of beach music acts through the years and have recollections that are just fun to hear.
One time when Greenville-Pickens Speedway was hosting a traveling daredevil, JoeBob casually said, 'I know him. We were playing in Montgomery, and that guy came in and started a whole bunch of trouble. It ended up with the police being called to calm things down.' What JoeBob glossed over was how he, personally, and the daredevil almost came to blows right on the dance floor over the disruption.
And that particular daredevil was going to jump cars at Greenville-Pickens.
On Tuesday of jump week, JoeBob called me at the newspaper and started the conversation with, 'Guess who  just walked in to buy a bunch of wood to build a ramp?'
JoeBob was over shipping and receiving at GBS Lumber at the time, and the daredevil had showed up with a list of materials to be delivered to the track. He did not recognize JoeBob, of course, and when he insisted on picking out the wood himself, JoeBob was quick to oblige. He called one fo the men who worked the yard (I'll call him Willie), introduced them, and sent them out to start picking.
The daredevil didn't know who he was deling with, but everyone certainly knew who he was. When the lumber was picked, loaded, and paid for, Willie showed up in JoeBob's office and made the announcement, 'That man ain't gonna build a ramp capable of holding up a car with the lumber he picked out. He's got all kinds of wood full of knots'.
Everyone had a good laugh and forgot about it.
Until Saturday night. I was at the track, covering the event for the newspaper, and when the daredevil came rouring out of the fourth turn, all set to go up the ramp and jump the cars, he hit the ramp and wood went everywhere. The ramp just disintegrated. The daredevil slammed into the first car he was supposed to jump. The fans were booing at full strength. The deredevil had lots of reasons for the failure.
I couldn't wait to get home and call JoeBob to give him the ramp collapse news.
In fact, we spent most of Sunday afternoon and evening celebrating the failure. And somewhere around the second or 12th beer, we came up with an idea. We'd blame the whole thing Willie, the yard worker who let him pick out the knotty wood.
One of the things that JoeBob was regular with was his failure to get to work on time. But this joke just had to have him there on time. Before they went to work, the yard guys would sit around in JoeBob's office filling up on coffee and cigarettes. I was going to call and pull the joke on Willie, and JoeBob was going to stop things before they went too far.
Everything went exactly according to plan, except for one small item.
JoeBob was late for work.
He had promised to be there. He had intended to be there. He just wasn't there.
That led to a problem. A big problem.
When JoeBob's office phone rang and 'Lieutenant Evans of the Greenvill County Sheriff's Office' was on the line asking to speak to tWillie, JoeBob was nowhere to be found. The Lieutenant didn't know this, of course, so when he started in telling Willie a warrant had been issued citing him with 'Attempted Murder' for letting the daredevil pick inferious wood. The problem was, it was a busy morning at the LEC, and there wasn't any officers with time to head to Mauldin to pick him upl So the Lieutenant told Willie to just leave work, get to the LEC, and turn himself in at the front desk. Willie readily agreed that he would show up, because it 'would look better at the trial if he turned himself in'. He went to the timeclock, punched himself out, and headed for his car.
Luckily, just as Willie was getting in his car, JoeBob came sliding in the parking lot. JoeBob asked Willie where he was going and was told he had to turn himself in because there was a warrant out for  him. When JoeBob started trying to get him to go back in the shop, Willie. He said they Lieutenant told him to come right on or he would make people mad.
JoeBob asked him what the warrant was for. "They said I killed somebody,' he said. "JoeBob asked who he had killed, Willie said he didn't know, but he must has killed somebody or there wouldn't be a warrant out for him.
JoeBob finally coaxed him back in the building by saying he would call the LEC and get things straightened out. And he called me.
JoeBob was wanting 'Lieutenant Evans' to put a halt to the proceedings. So I asked to speak to Willie and told him there had been some question about what was going on, and for him to just go ahead and work his job and not say anyting to anyone.
A few hours later JoeBob went out to tell Willie 'Lieutenant Evans' had called and said everything was a big mistake and to forget about it.
Willie did, but JoeBob and I eased back on our practical jokes for several weeks.

Broadway Joe and the Super Bowl

Every Super Bowl, every year, brings back the memory of when Greenville's own Dan Foster, Sports Editor of the Greenville News, had to defend his Super Bowl story in a telephone conversation with none other than Broadway Joe Namath.
For anyone who has been a vacuum for decades, when Deion Sanders and all the other NFL trash talkers go into their routines, they are but a pale copy of the ultimate and original trash-talker --Broadway Joe Namath.
Namath came out of Beaver Falls, Pa, and made a national name for himself by playing quarterback for Alabama under coach Bear Bryant.
Joe cut a wide path, both on and off the field but he arrived, truly arrived, when his Jets were going to play the highly-favored Baltimore Colts and quarterback Johnny Unitas in the Super Bowl.
Never the shy one, Namath announced, long and loud, how his Jets were going to do things like wipe up the field with the Colts, In other words, he predicted victory.
This brash and totally unvelievable act was taken to task by football purists everywhere, including Dan Foster. Never one to shy away from a turnstyle or hesitate to spend company money, Foster was one of the many nationally-recognized fooball expert-scribes to attend this Super Bowl, and Foster took Namath to task for running his mouth, saying outlandish things, and a lot of othe stuff. The only think Foster didn't touch on was Namath's family.
Of course history proves Namath and his Jets really did put a whipping on the Colts a beathing that put the AFC and NFC divisions of the NFL on a much-mor even keel.
While the world was shocked, that wasn't the good part.
That night, that very night, way up in the night, Foster's hotel room telephone rang. Already asleep, Foster was roused to answer and was shocked by talking to none other than Broadway Joe Namath, who took Foster to talk over the contents of his newspaper column.
Now, think about it. Dan wrote for the Greenvlle News, the last time anyone checked on the map is still right in the upstate of South Carolina. History will prove the News did not have a newspaper rack anywhere in Florida, especially Miami. How in the Wide Wide World of Sports could Broadway Joe even hear of Greenville, much less be offended by a newspaper article that picked the wrong side.
The cold hard facts are -- Broadway Joe never, ever heard of Dan Foster or the Greenville News. Even if he had, it would have been just one more in a huge pile of articles that didn't give the Jets a chance.
The idea what Namath had not read, nor care, what he had written never occurred to Foster.  He could understand completely how Namath would see and be insulted by the article. He attempted to defend himself.
And Namath pulled him through the hot coals. It was a long conversation when, finally, Foster got Namath cooled down enough to talk in a civil tone. 
Somewhat appeased, the conversation between the Super Bowl Hero and the Upstate's finest scribe ended.
As far as I know, Foster never mentioned the telephone call to anyone. It was something he must have kept to himself to the grave.
Maybe you are wondering how I found out about it. I could say Namath himself brought it up one day while we were havin lunch in the bar the NFL made him close, but that wouldn't be anywhere near the truth. I did meet Namath  at a meeting of the Easley Football Jamboree not too long after this, but I didn't learn about the converstation, then, either.
The way I found out was by talking to the REAL caller, who only said he was Namath.  It was the Sports Editor of another Upstate newspaper.
 It sounds just like something I would have done,though.