Lenny went on a hunting trip every year to what he called “Colorado”. I found out from the guys he went with that they NEVER went to Colo, they went to Utah, IF they got that far. Every year Lenny drove his truck and it broke down. Usually around Las Vegas. Once in Mesquite. Boy! Lucky for them it happened in a convenient place, like in the casino parking lot, huh? The first Vegas breakdown I knew of he brought back a wiped out transmission gear to show everybody (Mrs. Lenny) that he’d really had the trouble. I’ve been playing with old cars since I was 12 and guys always do this. You wipe something out and you want to show it to your buddies over a brewski and everybody says “Oooh, Dude! You really creamed this! If this hadn’t happened you would’a won the race, I bet”. Then you eventually throw it out or it becomes an ashtray, but the REALLY cool ones you keep. Lenny needed evidence. That’s different.
Every year he made the big production of showing us he had his deer tags. Every October he lunched his tranny in Vegas and had to stay over. Every year he showed us his gear. He kept it in the closet at work. It. Not THEM. He should have had a fine collection of trashed Jeep parts by now, but he always operated a couple of miles from the truth, anyway. For one thing they never got a deer. Never. We all said the only deer he hunted were the “Pink Dears” in the hotels. The truth just wasn’t in him.
He claimed to have been in the Marines. Had Semper Fi decals on his truck and wore Marine T shirts and sweatshirts. Nothing official, G.I., but the same ones they sell in surplus stores. He missed his beloved Corps. That’s why he had to have a Jeep. TWO of them, in fact! One time one of his old service buddies came to the shop telling war stories and Lenny tried really hard to get the guy to shut up but he wouldn’t do it. Turns out they were in the Air National Guard together all along, never the Marine Corps. Once a CO, always a marine. Mrs. Lenny called him “The Survivor”, because he talked that jive at home, too. Just like he was “The King of His Castle”. He and Ralph Kramden. Those guys always have the last word; it’s “Yes, Dear”.
He also had a photo from one of his trips into the wild outback. It was a Polaroid and showed a tiny red thing about 100 yards away in the trees. It could have been a red rag or a hunter’s vest and it could have been ON somebody but science and Lieutenant Columbo together could not have determined who. It could have been a “No Hunting” sign. He claimed it was HIM. That was to prove that he went into a forest at least once, or anyway over by a few trees. 30 hunting trips. No game. One photograph. Of nothing. A smashed transmission gear. He should have had the damn thing bronzed and mounted. He DID have some mounted fish, but he got those out of a dumpster when the sporting goods store closed its doors. Well, it was ‘fishing’ of a sort, and he caught them.
He talked constantly about going fishing. In the 15 years I knew him he never went. Well, maybe once; I’ll let you decide. First, though, there was an earlier Polaroid of him standing by a camper holding a stringer of miserable little dead fish he said he’d caught. Brian, the guy who owned the camper, said HE had caught them. Every once in a while they would get to talking about how they ought to “take off up into the canyon” and Lenny would bring out his photo and the argument would resume. Then one time they were doing this and Brian brought out a photo of his own. Shows HIM standing there, exact same place in front of his truck holding the same stringer of bait. They didn’t even think to turn the fish around so you maybe couldn’t tell. Looked like a computer done thing where you take out one guy’s face and paste in the other guy, but this was way before ‘puters.
The other (posible?) time Brian wanted to go fishing with him and it was still pretty early in the morning and Lenny stalled until Brian left alone. Lenny said maybe he’d see him up there later. About 11:00 he finally took off. The next day Brian came in all excited about the fish he’d caught (even if you don’t personally know a fisherman you must be able to imagine what a “Fish Heads’ Meeting” is like) and he wanted to talk to his fishin’ buddy about it. He asked Lenny if he’d gone up to the canyon yesterday. Lenny said, and I quote; “Yeah, I caught ‘em. Let’s go to work”. That was the whole extent of the conversation! Not fisherman like, atall. A little while later I happened to notice a fishing pole in Lenny’s truck and I took a closer look. Just a pole. No line, no tackle box full of smelly plastic fake bait, no wind-up gizmo for the line, just a bare pole. What do you think; did he go fishin’? Or maybe stalkin’ for “young fish”?
This was when I first began to suspect the psycho was truly dangerous. There was a serial killer a few years before named Arthur Shawcross that preyed on kids, using the fishing ploy, and they caught him with a bare pole like this. It was a prop. And Lenny had a cigar box full of razor blades on his truck. Why? And he hung around town for days when he was supposedly up in Utah. And dead prostitutes were being found in a local park during these exact same times. And he called ALL WOMEN “hookers”. Dun da DUN dun. (Theme from Dragnet).
He was hooked on Jeeps. Had to have a WW2 one. Bought a body from a guy that had welded two bad ones together to try and make one good one. He failed. Lenny wanted to believe it was factory original. The front was from about a 1939 one and the rear half was from one about 1948. He spent $20,000 on this contraption, and took it out once. Whatever you may think of Jeeps, I personally have a low regard for them, but imagine the two lemonest ones in the known universe - they were both his. And he wanted to tow one with the other all the way to “Colorado” and break them down in the parking lot. He wanted to borrow tow lights and I knew some guys that had junkyards and body shops that did towing and repos and they loaned him a set.
They stick on with big magnets and have one long wire which can only go back along the left side of the car and the short wire which goes from that side over to the right. No matter how hard you pull you CANNOT hook them up any other way. I put them on the first time for him to show him this. He says “How am I going to know which one goes to the left side?” (Duh) I said; ” Put a piece of masking tape on this one and a piece of tape on your left fender here”. He says “How will I know where the OTHER one goes?” ( I had to WORK for this guy) I said “O.K., then, put TWO pieces of tape on THAT one and TWO pieces of tape on that fender over there.” When he brought the set back after breaking down in Las Vegas there was a piece of tape on one and two on the other. I’m not making this up. My biker buddy that loaned them to him said “They take him out of town with loaded guns in the truck and THEY BRING HIM BACK? We’d have to stop and take a leak at the first whiff of sagebrush and I’d be done with him EARLY”.
One time he told us he took his brother in law hunting with them. He said; “That guy walks around in the forest with a deer rifle over his shoulder tripping on all the roots, and gets hit in the face with branches all the time. He’s a tangle foot”. I said; “Funny. He’s over at his work right now telling the same story on HIS brother in law.”
Posts: 1859 | From: / | Registered: Nov 1998
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Really great story...even though I was priveleged to preview it....it was funnier the second time around..
Hey why don't you draw up a carricture of this guy to go along with the stories......
Shep'
-------------------- Arvil Shep' Shepherd Art by Shep' -------- " Those who dance are thought to be mad by those who cannot hear the music " Posts: 1281 | From: Mt Airy NC | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
I don't think he has to draw a picture Shep. I have a mental picture of a dude with a red chek shirt hanging out over baggy jeans using rope for a belt. He would be a tall gangly bloke with gappy teeth or what's left of them with a long daggy straggly moe with nicotane stains in it and long stringy eyebrows. Am i close mike?
-------------------- Drane Signs Sunshine Coast Nambour, Qld. dranesigns@bigpond.com Downunder "To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer" Posts: 965 | From: Nambour, Qld. Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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Yeah Mikey......what DID Lenny look like again? I know in my mind I see a blonde man..with greasy longish hair...dirty jeans, and funny shoes.
Posts: 3729 | From: Seattle | Registered: Sep 1999
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