Doctor Lazenby and His Errant DeSoto

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Doctor Lazenby and His Errant DeSoto

The first famous DeSoto, a fellow by the name of Hernando, got lost leading the boys through the swamps of the New World in the 16th Century and died of a fever somewhere along the Mississippi River in 1542.

Because DeSoto was in the past considered a hero (the cultural milieu skated around that genocidal maniac thing), Chrysler produced a series of cars under that name until 1960.

Doctor Lazenby, the ancient dentist who could have been a character in Andy Griffith’s fictional Mayberry, drove a turquoise-and-white DeSoto which was not unlike its namesake in blundering around the streets of my small town in the 1960s. His DeSoto was one of the last of that mark, a sort of land-bound HMS Ark Royal with high-sailing tailfins that menaced the town’s one blinking caution light.

Dr. Lazenby was known as a great dentist and a poor steersman – he lumbered his DeSoto along Main Street on whichever side seemed convenient.

The town raconteur more than once told of the events one high noon when Dr. Lazenby was driving on US96 slowly but erratically. The young chief of police – in those days the only police – turned on his bubble-gum machine and followed Dr. Lazenby for a long, long time. After a few musical bars from the siren, the officer finally coaxed Dr. Lazenby into docking his DeSoto along the shoulder.

“What do you want?” Dr. Lazenby is said to have asked, somewhat annoyed.

“Right now I want your driver’s license,” the officer replied.

Dr. Lazenby gave his license to the officer, who then walked back to the Shamu to radio a license check to the dispatcher at the county seat.

Dr. Lazenby decided that he would continue on home to lunch as planned.

Another lengthy, slow-speed pursuit ensued, and again Dr. Lazenby stopped the DeSoto at a time convenient for him.

When the officer, with the license (driving, not dental) still in hand approached the DeSoto again, Dr. Lazenby is said to have demanded, angrily, “Now what in the (Newark, New Jersey) do you want!?”

Let us all pause and savor the moment.

I never knew Dr. Lazenby very well; my parents took me to one of those young whipper-snapper dentists educated after the Spanish-American War. Thus, for me Dr. Lazenby was a sort of background character, a cheerful old codge, one of the many wonderful people whose genial eccentricity gives a small town a certain quiet joy.

Whether the story about old Dr. Lazenby and the young police officer is true, well, I don’t know, but if not, it ought to be.

-30-