THE S.O.B.'s or SONS OF BRIGHAM

   BY High’s great basketball team had done it again! After destroying our league opponents we were headed for the State Tournament. Under the judicial leadership of Les Brown (our school social chairman), Paul Evans, and Brent Yorgason an unauthorized club was formed called the "Sons of Brigham." The SOBs for short. It was made up primarily of Lettermen who were not playing basketball. Their purpose, I suppose, was to be an intimidating show of force. You know, put the fear of God in our Heathen Foes. All dressed in dark black sweatshirts and sporting dark black knit caps, the sharp white letters “SOB” stood out like a beacon. “Don’t mess with us!” Our loud, obnoxious cheers and questionable chants turned the heads of the more dignified fans in the crowd.

    After winning our first game at the State Tournament, many of the SOBs were heading home from Salt Lake City in two cars, my red VW Bug and Dave Beck’s green Valiant. Coming down the long hill from the “Point of the Mountain” the two cars pulled side by side, windows shot down and a barrage of playful insults were exchanged. It didn’t take long before things escalated and a milk shake splashed onto the windshield of Beck’s Valiant.

1960 Valiant 4-door sedan

   Turning on his wipers in the freezing cold weather only made matters worse. Beck was forced to pull over to the side of the road to clean things up. Driving on ahead we congratulated ourselves for a job well done. The evening’s activities completed and the pranksters delivered safely home, I parked the red VW Bug snugly in front of our single car garage. 

Rogers family single car garage on Ash Avenue, Provo, UT

   Very early the next morning Dad headed out the door, late for an important church meeting. There in the driveway, right in front of the garage door, he was met with a gut-wrenching sight. His red VW was covered from bumper to bumper in thick frozen ice cream. To top things off, all four tires were completely flat with valve stems missing. Angrily rousing me out of bed, Dad cried, “Who did this? I’m late and I can’t get my car out of my own garage!” Taking in the scene through sleepy eyes, I croaked, “The SOBs." "Who?" asked Dad. "You know, the Sons of Brigham!” It took some time, but with the help of a few extra valve stems I had stashed in the glove box [a story for another time], and some physical exertion with our hand held pump, the VW was relocated and Dad was finally off to his meeting. Oh the joys of fatherhood!

    The SOB’s. What a fitting name! 

The red VW Bug pumped, polished, and looking good again!

LEMONS TO LEMONADE

        My High School friends and I weren’t evil. We were just terrible teases. We enjoyed teasing girls, especially beautiful college girls, all dressed up in their finest church clothes. You see, there was a hill on the road just south of the Bean Museum that ran eastward down to a stop sign on Ninth East. To the right were the Heritage Halls which housed BYU coeds. On the other side of Ninth East was the church building the girls would attend faithfully each Sunday. On wet winter days a huge puddle of slushy snow and water would pool up right next to the sidewalk. Oh my, I think you can see where this is going.

        Still dressed in our Sunday duds Dave, Paul, Jed, and I would lurk patiently at the top of the hill waiting for the campus ward to let out. Just like clockwork, dozens of BYUs finest young women would gather in bunches waiting to cross Ninth East and move safely to the sidewalk leading them back to their dorms, and not so safely past the giant “puddle of doom.”

        Sitting in Dad’s red VW Bug with the engine purring quietly we exchanged sly glances knowing that the gaggle of girls had just entered the perfect slush zone. Suddenly the Red Bug lurched forward gaining speed as it accelerated down the hill, at the last moment veering right into the ice cold pool and sending a wall of slush cascading up and over the shocked church goers, covering them from head to toe. Running the stop sign on Ninth East we would turn south making our escape amid a barrage of shaking fists, obscene gestures, and language rarely heard from such well-dressed BYU church goers. 

Snarl!

        Soon other BY High friends caught wind of our adventures and wanted in on the action, come the next slushy day. And so it went. This time it was Brent, Bruce, and Paul Number Two who begged to share in the excitement. The puddle was bigger than ever. The crowd of girls was bigger than ever. And the crest of ice cold, slushy water was incredible. What a rush!

Puddle of Doom

        Several days later a letter addressed to my parents showed up at my house. The return address said BYU Campus Security. Evidently one of the angry girls must have had the eyes of an eagle. She had spotted my license plate number, and with the help of the campus cops they had traced it back to Dad’s red VW Bug.  The letter informed Dad that his car had been involved in a “splash and run.” The girls involved didn’t want to press charges. They just wanted $40 to pay for their dry cleaning. Needless to say, Dad wasn’t very happy. “I’ll get the money from my friends. It was an unfortunate accident,” I explained. Yeah, as if Dad believed that it was an “unfortunate accident” with Dave, Paul and Jed in the car. That would be a first! 

Ca ching! Ca ching! Ca ching!

        Let’s see. Forty dollars divided by four would be ten dollars each. A brilliant idea popped into my conniving brain. What about Brent, Bruce and Paul No. Two? We didn’t actually know which group of perpetrators had been found out. If I could collect ten dollars from all six of them, that would total sixty dollars. My share would be “zero” – and after paying the $40 for the dry cleaning, I would have a net profit of $20! CA CHING! After all, what are friends for?  All went as planned and each paid their ten dollars. No one was the wiser until years later at a class reunion when a group of us were swapping old war stories and the two different car loads told the same story. I had been found out at last! We had a good laugh and went on to more reminiscing about our youthful escapades.

        One day not too long ago Brent and I and our wives were out to dinner when we began laughing about the big splash incident. Brent’s wife, who had been listening, spoke up and said, “I think I was one of those girls!” Then with a disgusted glare, my wife growled, “If I had been one of those girls, I would still, after all these years, punch you in the nose!” Good thing she wasn’t!

(No last names of those involved will be given to protect the rights of the juvenile perpetrators.)

ON A ROLL or DAD’S GERMAN VW BUG

   Dad had returned from Europe with a new VW, a shiny red Bug. Wow! A Bug! VW Bugs were taking the USA by storm. This car was his pride and joy.

Francis with his dad's red VW Bug.

On rare occasions he would let me drive it, if I promised to keep it in showroom condition. My good friend, Paul Evans, was impressed. His dad had a small Fiat that he would race through “The River Bottoms.”  He couldn’t wait to introduce me and the VW to his favorite racetrack.

    Winding through its curves, adrenalin pumping, tires squealing, was a real rush! As time went by we were only satisfied with more speed, more G’s, and the feel of the Bug’s back end sliding out on the curves. We thought we were great drivers! Dad had asked, “Why are the tires wearing out on the sides?” The Red VW would become one of his great mortal trials.

   The night of BY High’s Homecoming celebration I offered a good friend, Paul Denham, center on our State Championship basketball team, a demo jaunt through the River Bottoms. The excitement was impressive as we leaned into the curves, our hearts pounding, lunging ahead with each shift of the gears. We were on a roll and also totally unaware that down the S-curved road about half a mile a gravel truck had lost its load. We hit the curve and the gravel at top speed. The Bug slid across the road sideways, hit an irrigation ditch and rolled twice into a hay field. Fortunately we were strapped in tight.

   We unbuckled, got out of the car, looked ourselves over for damage, and found none. I couldn’t say as much for Dad’s new VW. There was hardly a spot on it that wasn’t scratched or dented.

     The car started up and we got it back on the road, but as we began the long drive for home we soon discovered that along with other problems the back axle was bent. We bounced along, up and down, up and down. Our top speed was now just 10 miles an hour. We stood around for several hours at the garage where our friend, Paul Evans, worked. It was hard to know where to begin fixing the Bug. We decided it was definitely a job for the professionals.

   Climbing the stairs that night at 1:00 in the morning to tell Dad what had happened to his prize import was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. After making sure I was ok, he groaned, “We can fix it, but it will never be the same.”

  

ROAD RASH ON A SHINY NEW VESPA

Vespa 150

    Ash Avenue was buzzing with the sound of Vespa motor scooters. All of us got our drivers licenses about the same time and all of us “Ash Ave” boys bought Vespas: Paul Gilbert, Phil Swensen, Joe Clark, Kim Bateman, Emery Smith, Jan Henderson, Stewart Grow, George Taylor, and yours truly! It was almost comical to see us all arrive at BYU High, flip up our kickstands, grab our books, and head for class. We were cool, and that was for sure. I bought mine for about $600. It had extra equipment which made it just a little cooler than the rest.

    To make the payments I worked as an early morning janitor for JC Penney’s. Then I worked in the kitchen at a rest home. And finally I took over Stewart Grow’s car route, delivering papers for the Deseret News. There was a gas allowance for the car route, but using my economical scooter put extra bucks in my pocket.

1950s Deseret News masthead

    The paper route covered the River Bottoms and went all the way up Provo Canyon to Wildwood.

Wildwood community in Provo Canyon

Off and on my brother Russ would ride on the back and stuff the rolled papers into Deseret News tubes alongside the road. His reward was usually a pop or a milk shake at the Riverside Café near Vivian Park.

    One sunny Saturday Joe Clark and I took a road trip to Salt Lake on our shiny new Vespas. My 150 was a beautiful blue and Joe's 125 was a boring tan. We went by way of Camp Williams on Redwood Road to avoid the heavier, faster traffic.

Camp Williams on Redwood Road near Bluffdale, UT

     On the long straight hill just past Camp Williams we decided to see just how fast these babies could go. By crouching low we might be able to bury the needle at 65 mph. Joe was just ahead of me with our scooters whining at top RPMs. I was determined to make up the distance when suddenly a large German Shepherd bounded onto the road chasing Joe's scooter.

German Shepherd loving the chase

    It must not have seen me because it ran right into my front wheel. The next thing I knew I was flying through the air looking up at my scooter cartwheeling above me. The scooter hit the road in front of me showering me with sparks as it slid down the rough pavement.

With no helmet I followed, sliding from shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, and elbow to elbow, until finally coming to rest in the middle of the road. My clothes were shredded, my upper body covered with road rash.

A passerby in his car stopped and came to my aid. I was taken to a local clinic and hosed down with disinfectant. It felt like I had been set on fire. Still in shock, I can't recall how I got home.

    One month and eighty dollars worth of repairs later, I was back on the road. I still have small scars on my shoulders, hips and elbows where the road sanded me down. Looking back I was lucky, or blessed, not to have been seriously injured. In those days only dorks wore helmets!