Category Archives: Driving

THAI ACCIDENTAL SMILE By Peter Nolan Smith

January 6, 2022 – 4:41 am

December 1990 I nailed my first big sale at the diamond exchange with a 5-carat round brilliant. F color. SI in clarity. The year was 1991. The profit margin was 20%. My commish was $1500. The NY Times travel section advertised a round-the-world ticket for $1399. I had 5 Gs saved in the the bank […]

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JAI YEN MAI by Peter Nolan Smith

December 27, 2021 – 8:48 am

Several years ago on Boxing Day my daughter was playing on our soi in Pattaya. A pick-up roared down the street like the driver had murdered his wife and was bell-bent for the border. From my perspective the bumper came too close to my little precious daughter and I jumped on my scooter to chase […]

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A FLYING DIME by Peter Nolan Smith

November 2, 2021 – 11:55 am

On an June evening in 1939 my uncle and three of his teenage friends exited from Portland’s State Theater’s western matinee of STAGECOACH and JESSE JAMES. The gunfights in the cowboy double bill had had a funny effect on their blood, for while America was still peace, the threat of war loomed across the Atlantic. […]

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Beware of Moose

November 2, 2021 – 12:03 am

Several Christmas Eves ago I traveled north from New York to Boston on the Lucky Star bus. My sisters and I attended a party at our old next door neighbors from the South Shore. Everyone was in good spirits. I drank a little more than more but not more than everyone. It was a time […]

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Mission Delta 88

July 25, 2021 – 2:44 pm

People drove big cars in the early 70s. My father bought a four-door Delta 88 Royale in 1973. Only 7000 were made that year. The overhead-valve high-compression V8 engine owed its existence to muscle cars such as the GTO. The Delta 88 was no family car. A heavy foot on the pedal rocketed the ton […]

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