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Home > Articles > Historicar Society > Red Headed Flea by Darrell D. Mayabb
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Recollections about the name he painted on his "High School Ride",
accompany a well known automotive artist
on his long journey to the present.....
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| Red Headed Flea |
By Darrell D. Mayabb |
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 My days in high school were spent dreaming about Hot Rods. I had three hot rods in high school. One, a '39 Chevy sedan was called "Lil' Honey Pot"... you see we named our cars in those days. We took titles from songs, girl friend names or whatever struck our fancy. This also helped my economic struggle at the time. I was pinstriping and lettering names on the cars (I also did weirdo shirts, but that's another story). My second hot rod was a '34 Ford sedan, it went down the road quickly because I turned a profit on it. I didn't have the time to name it. The one in question was my third hot rod, a '55 Chevy two door post. I named it after an instrumental song of the day - 1958-'60's, "Red Headed Flea".
I have been in love with two women in my life. This was the time of my first love, Nancy Stewart (if you look closely at the glove compartment door, I lettered her name and mine on the door).
The second lady I fell in love with (and have been happily married to for thirty nine years) Sharon (Carpenter) Mayabb, has always accused me of naming my hot rod Chevy after my high school sweet heart. For over forty years I have asked every disc jockey, anybody that I though might know, "Have you ever heard the song 'Red Headed Flea'?" The answer was always no, never heard of it.
I was working in the studio one day some time back and there was a new radio station in town (playing old Rock & Roll) and this song came on and it sounded like the "Red Headed Flea". I got in touch with the disc jockey and told him he had played a song that I had been hunting for more than forty years, the "Red Headed Flea". He said he had never heard of the song "Red Headed Flea", what he had played was the "Green Mosquito" by the Tune Rockers. I got off the phone dejected, I still couldn't convince my wife... this just reinforced her contention that I had named the Chevy after my high school sweet heart. I thought about it and then thought, maybe I had heard the "Green Mosquito" all those years ago and having a red car I'd turned the "Green Mosquito" into the "Red Headed Flea"
Recently I was asked to attend a car show held in Milwaukee. When I got there they asked if I would be OK with an interview on the local radio station to promote the car show. I did the interview with Mark Dietrick on his radio program (The Gearhead Show). He turned out to be a real motorhead and well versed in old rock and roll. We talked about my art and my hot rods. He said he had found something interesting while looking into my past. "You had a hot rod in high school and you named it the 'Red Headed Flea'. did you not?" I jumped right on the comment and told him of my recent realization that the car was named after a song the "Green Mosquito". He then commented that he had a surprise for me and played the song... "Red Headed Flea" by The CAPS. After all these years (forty five years), I did name my hot rod after the old Rock & Roll song..... |
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| About the author: Darrell D. Mayabb is today an award winning fine artist, illustrator and automobile designer. His talents are featured in many of the leading automotive publications including Hot Rod and Street Rodder magazine. Darrell is a Motorburg associate artist & citizen and we're proud to present his fine art gallery of beautiful prints in our Shopping Mall. |
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