The Cos and effect: Speed fever By RICK de YAMPERT VOX POP Last update: March 11, 2005 Bill Cosby almost got me killed. Though I survived the ordeal, I still hold Cos responsible for inducing the most bone-trembling terror I experienced in my childhood. Growing up in Los Alamos, N.M., my two brothers and I were treated to all sorts of albums courtesy of my dad. Hank Williams, the Beatles, Louis Prima, Bill Cosby comedy records, the soundtrack to the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" -- Dad brought them all home, where they found their way into our big, boxy, black "hi-fi." Occasionally I caught Dad squinting and squaring his jaw like Eastwood, and I wondered if Dad were swept up into some high plains day-drifting. Otherwise, he didn't seem too interested in the sounds he was importing into our house. We brothers were glad for that when we heard Cosby do his "Mothers and Fathers" routine: "Mothers say to their kids (adopts high-pitched, frazzled mom voice): 'You're going to drive me to my grave!' Fathers say (adopts rumbling Zeus voice): 'I'm going to drive you to your grave.' " We brothers howled at that, and nervously looked around to see if Dad were listening. How did Cosby know our parents so well? But Dad's ears perked up like a Doberman pinscher the day he heard Cosby's voice asking, "How many of you out there own a sports car?" The album was "200 M.P.H." In the title skit, cool Cos related his encounter with a Carroll Shelby GT 350 Ford Mustang -- a car whose speedometer went up to the mercurial figure of "200." Two hundred! My dad was hooked. Within months our driveway was graced by a white Shelby GT 350 Mustang with blue stripes and the speedometer with that King Kong number. The cachet of us brothers skyrocketed in our neighborhood. We were the kids whose dad owned the coolest car in all of Los Alamos. I reveled in this newfound coolness -- until I rode with my dad on a trip to Albuquerque, 80 miles away across the New Mexican desert. Dad, you see, was not only a newfound fan of Cosby. He also was a racing fan who admired the Indy-driving Unser brothers, and Richard Petty, Bobby Isaac and those other stock-car boys kicking up sand in Daytona Beach. That day, Dad fired up the Shelby, and we headed south. The trip was uneventful as we weaved down the mountain road from Los Alamos. But once we hit the desert plain outside Espanola, Dad's inner Petty emerged. I was already white-knuckling the backseat as the speedometer settled in at 80 mph or so. But every time a car passed Dad (yes, it happened even at 80), he'd get that Eastwood squint in his eye and square his jaw, the Shelby's speedometer would climb to triple digits, and my heart would leap into my throat and dance the Watusi as Dad raced back to the "lead." All those Dracula movies, the Weegee Monster rumored to haunt a Los Alamos cemetery, and even the time my mom thought she saw a ghost weren't as terrifying as flying 120 mph across the desert. I knew one loose pebble in the highway meant we'd crash and burn like Elvis in "Spinout" -- but without the King's miraculous ability to survive such a calamity. After the fourth or fifth "race" with a competing madman with a souped-up sports car, I started screaming. I was that scared. Dad relented and tamed the horses throbbing under the Mustang's hood. We slowed down. We survived! No thanks for the thrill ride, Cos. But many thanks for all those childhood laughs. Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Entertainment/Headlines/03SceneCULT02031105.htm
