I'm Not Sure This Is A "Ted May" Story...
It was the summer of 1962, and Ted May, Ernie Dawe and I decide we should go to Valley Joe to race....(Vallejo)...Of course, none of us knew where Valley Joe was...
My dad didn't like the idea of racing my DU, as I'd won every race that year, but he said I could run CU, as I usually ran close to the front with that one and going to Valley Joe would screw up my chances for DU High Points....
In those days, well actually today, San Francisco is a long *** haul from SOCAL...Well, I teamed up with Erine Dawe and his dad, Ruben, and we headed for Valley Joe...on Friday morning.... Jimbo and Ted decided to leave Friday night...because Jimbo was coming from Needles...
Well, Ernie, Ruben and I got to Vallejo Friday evening and got a motel near the race course. We went down and looked at the race course, and it looked somewhat like the ocean, with submarines cruising up and down the bay....
Well, California, as then and now, had a speed limit of 55 with a trailer... Jimbo is driving at about 2 A.M. pulling a trailer up the old 99....Ted was sleeping....Jimbo says, "Ted, the guy behind me has a red light on, should I pull off?" Ted says, "Yes, and how fast are you going?" Jimbo says, "55". The cop comes up to the car, Ted get out and starts yelling at the cop saying, "God Damn it, he was going 55 miles an hour, I was watching him..." (Ted had been asleep and didn't have a clue as to how fast Jimbo was going....)..
The cop says, "Sir you are right......he WAS going 55 miles per hour, right through that STOP SIGN...".....
Ted got back in the car and went back to sleep...
Saturday, we kind of fooled around in Valley Joe and went bowling.....Ruben drank too much an did a lot of singing about..."when it comes to lovin..he's a human oven.." When Ruben drank he could sing and recite poetry like you couldn't believe....As he said, "He had them all cheated because he was steam heated..."
Anyway, on Sunday, Ruben was still drinking a few...so he went to watch the races from the pier....Well, he made friends with a few fans on that pier, and as the first race came up, he bet on TED MAY..Well, TED MAY WON..Next heat, ERNIE DAWE came out and Ruben bet on him...Ernie Dawe won...Well, the next heat, Ronnie Hill came out and HELL, he won...These guys that Ruben was betting with wanted to take him to the horse track...they thought he had a way of picking winners...As it turned out Ted, Ernie and I won every first place trophy....Jimbo had A FEW SECONDS...I never raced in Valley Joe again... that was 44 years ago, and I never forgot that race....Maybe, because, in he middle of a C Runabout heat, a submarine decided to surface right in the middle of the course....Holly Crap, I'm coming around the first turn and here comes a submarine out of the water....scared the crap out of me...
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October 1963: Needles Marathon
Maybe because Ernie Dawe and I were together for five straight days, maybe, it was becasue of the holidays...(I spent many a holiday or two with Jimbo and Ted....in Needles)... But I got to thinking about Ted, the other day...
When you think of how safe our modern cars are, it is really hard to believe that TED MAY DROVE HIS 1955 T-BIRD OVER 192,000 MILES. And many of those miles were pulling race boats. Who in thie right mind would pull a triple deck trailer, with six motors in the back, with a T-Bird???
I drove that "BIRD" with the trailer on it several times, and everytime I ever got over about 55 MPH, the damn trailer would start going where it wanted to...That trailer kept me from speeding for sure....
In the SPRING of 1961, Jimbo and I "PROMOTED" a Boat Race at Rainbow Beach. We made a program and got trophies donated.... First heat out was B Hydro. Ernie Dawe was a LOCAL HERO, driving B Stock Hydro, on a DeSilva with the new Kit on is Mark 20-H. Ernie probably jumped the gun, but he was leading down the front straightaway, when he and his boat parted company. Ernie went *** OVER TEA KETTLE, his boat went left and Ted May went right, then his boat went right and Ted May went left. Finally, Ted's boat "T-Boned" Ernie's motor and the Ted's boat stopped in about a foot but Ted kept going. He did a perfect 1 1/2 front flip and put his hands together and dove in the river without a splash.....Looked like an Olympic Dive....
Ted had always told us guys, he and his brother and few others would sneak into the Olympic Pool by USC and swim at night. Ted always told me not to look down while jumping off the high dive platform at night, as he said you can't judge the water and it will blacken both your eyes....when you hit the water. Well, I told Ted several things, one, I wasn't going up on NO HIGH DIVE PLATFORM in the first place, and in the second place, I wouldn't do it at night and third, if I did jump off, I sure as hell wouldn't look down.....I always assumed Ted learned the hard way about the BLACK EYES, but never really asked. As Ted told great stories, who really needed to know if they were true..???
Anyway, after Ted did the perfect dive into the river, everyone was saying he should get a 10, Tehn, we all realized Ernie Dawe was floating in the river without his helmet.....Ernie ended up with a few stitches...but didn't get to race the rest of the weekend...We taped the nose of Ted's Gilmore hydro, and he won A and B hydro with a duct tape nose...orange boat, silver tape, looked good, out front.
Ted used to tell us when he was a kid, they "HITCHED RIDES" behind buses, when they were on roller skates. I kind of forgot about this until one time we all went roller skating and Ted told us he couldn't skate... Ernie Dawe, Val Sneed, Glen Chambers, me and a few others decided to go skating at San Diego, so Ted said he wanted to go along....but he said he couldn't skate.... Well, I wasn't a great skater, but had spent time in the Cub Scouts and we used to go skating all the time, so I'm "HELPING" Ted. His feet are going about 200 miles per hour, his skates are, sometimes over is head....He looks like a TOTAL ACCIDENT ready to happen...but he'd catch himself before he fell...he'd skate about ten feet, and christ, feet would go everywhere. his arms would be swinging...everyone in the skating rink would be expecting to see a BIG "SPLAT" on th floor....After about six laps, and everyone in the place laughing like crazy people and trying to help this "MAD MAN".....They, and I, realized that Ted May could ROLLER SKATE LIKE THE WIND. Hell, he could skate sideways faster than I could go forward. He could turn, he could jump, he could fall and slide and get back up. He said he hadn't skated in 20 years, but there was no one in that skating rink that could do what he could do....All us boat racers just watched in AWE....Like how could someone be that good, and not have skated in 20 years????
I probably could do a GOOGLE search and find out, but what if this wasn't true...? Ted said when they'd catch rides on the bus (Being pulled on skates), that Poncho Gonzales (Who later was a World Champion Tennis Player) would catch rides with Ted and his friends, and Poncho's brother played football during the seven years Ted went to high school. But Poncho was the little brother and in tring to keep up with the BIG BOYS, he fell off his skates and tore most of the skin off the side of his face, which left some bad scars. Ted said, that when Poncho was healing the bigger boys told him that from now on, he couldn't go with them as he was too small. They told him to go to the park and play tennis. So, Poncho started playing TENNIS. I do know that Poncho Gonzales was a great tennis player and I do know he had scars on his face. Many thought the scars were from growing up in the tough area of LA.....
Ted said when they were kids, they'd sleep on top of the rest rooms, before SC games...When the crowds started showing up, they'd drop down and watch the games.....
I miss TED.......no matter what we did together, we seemed to always have so damn much fun, it never seemed real....
Here is a picture of Ted, BU Winner, Needles Marathon 1963...Mrs. Hill life Jacket...always full of life, always the life of the party.....
ADD TED MAY: I was thinking, one reason Ted was so well liked, he was as good of loser, as he was a winner. Life wasn't always good for Ted, maybe it was playing sports and all, but he took losing in stride, and alwasy came back. Ted had a very bad temper, but generally, it was only verbal....He usually cooled off as fast as he got mad....Unless, he was fishing with JIMBO!!!!