The word was out about a street
down by the "Todd ship yards". After the swing shift left, a perfect
place for night drags. Harbor Island was located on the West Side of
the Bay of Seattle, it was not an Island, but a man made peninsula.
Harbor Island was an industrial area, with huge warehouses,
along the waterfront. There was a radio station amongst this
industrial area, called "KJR" .at the time our only Rock and Roll
station. KJR did not have much sound proofing in the announcer booth,
while the drags were going on, you could hear the cars in the back
round when the DJ spoke.
We thought it was neat, to have twenty to thirty cars with
their windows down tuned to KJR, while the drags were going on. The
Seattle police picked up the fact they could hear us over the radio
every once in a while they would send five police cars down to Harbor
Island to catch us. It was on one of those raids, that we found the
Banana boat.
The four of us just got into Larry’s 47 Ford, from the KJR
radio station, when the red lights came on down the street, were the
drags were going on. Hot rods were going hundred different directions.
Larry took off down a road on the water front, we could see police
cars up head, cutting across the railroad tracks, to set up a road
block for the cars behind us. That’s when Denny notice a huge gate
open next to a warehouse.
"Pull in there Larry"
The gate was open only a couple of feet, Denny and I jump out
of the car, and ran up to the open gate. The gate was twenty feet wide
and it had steel wheels on the bottom. Denny and I push the gate open,
and Larry drove in and around to the front of the warehouse. We closed
the gate, and then we went running around to the front of the
warehouse.
There was huge ship tied to the dock. Conveyer belts ran from
the ship into the warehouse. We could see huge bundles of green
Bananas left on the belts. Every once in a while one of us would walk
around to the gate, to check and see if the police cars were still
around. After waiting for about two hours, we figured it was cleared.
The four of us walked up to one of the belts to check out the Bananas,
the bundles were big, they must of weight about hundred pounds, it
took two of us to carry a bundle back to Larry’s car. Larry opened his
trunk and we threw the bundle in. It took four days for the Bananas to
ripen. Every day at lunchtime at school, Larry would open his trunk,
and there would be kids line up for free Bananas.
After fact…..We never went back for Bananas, but some other kids in
school did.
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