It was 1959.

It was 1959.  I was 16 and about to be a senior in high school; Bill was 18, two years older. Had his own car too.  A beautiful 1955 Ford convertible, V-8 engine. White over red; white leather interior, automatic transmission. (His mother had a severe guilt complex that she was divorced and gave Bill anything he could think that he might want.))
It was a quiet Friday summer night in Cleveland Ohio, around one in the morning.  My friend Bill and I had gone to the wrasslin matches.  This was way before WWF or what ever other group calls themselves today that puts on entertainment and calls it wrestling. 
Friday night and no dates…..the pits..  We decided it might be fun to take in the wrasslin matches and kill a few hours. We might get lucky and find someone to take home too.  (Fat chance)  While we both looked far older than our actual ages, the folks who generally went to these activities were far older than we and of course not interested in anything we might have to offer.
So there we were, killing time, (the matches were over at twelve thirty in the morning) trying to think of something to do, so we wouldn’t have to go home.  The fact of the matter is, we simply didn’t want to admit the night was such a dismal failure. We took to driving up and down some of the streets off the main road of Lorain avenue.
West side of Cleveland, one in the morning, top down, garbage cans out for tomorrow’s pick up, temperature about 78 degrees. Quiet…..not even the crickets sounding off. Bill basically had the car going at idle.  We were cruising about five or six miles per hour.  Now, you have to understand Bill’s car was tuned up to the max.  When we were going that slowly, you wouldn’t even hear the engine.  However, should you mash the gas pedal fast and hard, the cut-outs would engage. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, an engine loses a lot of its power by sending its exhaust out through the mufflers and tail pipes.  The cut-outs allow the exhaust to come directly from the exhaust manifolds, by-passing the mufflers and the tail pipes.  Needless to say, when you by-pass the mufflers, the sound is loud….very loud, but you get a lot of power, quickly.
Bill is slouched over to his left, resting his head on his left hand barely paying attention to his driving. I’m slouched down in the seat, knees up against the dash and barely able to see straight ahead. 
About a block and half ahead I see someone coming down the driveway towards the sidewalk. An older man (to us) of about forty five, with the pants hanging down in front because they were belted below the beer belly. Wearing an undershirt on top.  We called them undershirts back then, now a days they call them “wife beaters.” Thin bands over the shoulders, large holes for the arms and ribbed cotton for the entire garment.
He’s looking around, probably couldn’t sleep, doesn’t see us because we are about a block away by this time, but we are going so slowly we don’t attract any attention.  Bill still bored out of his mind, driving nearly on autopilot. No cars parked on the street as garbage day is tomorrow and the city forbid parking as it blocked the trucks picking up trash.
As we came nearly even with the homeowner, he must have spotted something interesting in one of the cans as he bent over, head so far in the can his belly was even over the lip.  Right then we were even with the can, the homeowner and about two and a half feet from the curb.
I simply couldn’t help myself…..the situation, the timing, the boredom….all were too perfect.  At the top of my lungs I shouted….

GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE YOU THIEF…….

Now mind you the following actions took place nearly simultaneously.  I can’t tell it that way, but try to picture it in your mind as all happening at the same time.
The man was startled so that he jumped back up, cracking his head on the dirty inside of the garbage can.  Cussing a blue streak as he tries to see who hollered and scared him so badly.
Bill, my friend the driver, is startled as badly as the “garbage can man” and instinctively bolts upright and hits the gas to get away from what ever danger there may be.  Whipping his head back and forth looking for problems he yells…WHAT?…WHERE?….WHAT?…All the time we are increasing in speed to where we are now nearly doing fifty miles per hour on a narrow secondary city street with the cut outs fully engaged so we are sounding very much like a jet plane as the sounds from the exhaust manifolds echo back and forth across the street.
Me? I’m laughing so hard I nearly wet my pants.  After about three blocks Bill figures that if I’m laughing as I am, the danger can’t be too bad and he slows down, makes a few lefts and rights so no one would be able to identify us from the sound coming down the street.
It took about five minutes before I could actually talk and explain to Bill exactly what had happened.  While he agreed that, in retrospect, it was very funny, and he made me promise never to scare him so badly again. 
I promised….and I really meant to be able to keep that promise….