John Budzash:  

After HS I went into the Army in July 1970. I was discharged in January 1972 with 2 letters of commendation and medals for being a Sharp Shooter and an Expert Shooter. I was also a "forward observer" On my way home I stopped in Ohio for gas and a bucket of KFC. (I LOVE KFC) I pulled back onto I-70 and quickly hit 130 mph. I was immediately pulled over by an Ohio State Trooper who had me clocked on radar at 155 mph in a 70 MPH Zone, I spent the night in jail with 2 guys who "accidentally raped and murdered some girl". Soldiers were quite unpopular back then so the judge fined me all of the money in my wallet but gave me back ,$20 for gas. Luckily for me, I filled my tank at the gas station next to that KFC. I got back in NJ and ran outta gas about 100 feet from my parents driveway. I put it in neutral and coasted into their driveway. Was I lucky or what? I reopened the body shop I had opened while in high school and then moved it from Keyport to Hazlet, to Matawan and then to Hwy35 in Sayreville (everyone thinks that's a part of South Amboy). I was selling speed equipment for cars trucks and motorcycles as well as building radical Custom Corvetts, Harley Choppers etc. for people from Binghamton NY to California and down to Florida I even had customers from Brazil and England. I raced the red 66GTO I drove to school and work every Day while in HS. After I opened my Speed Shop, I raced my 69 AMX , a couple of Corvettes and a 32 Bantam that used to run in the AA/A Fuel Altered class . I quit racing cars and my shops last Radical Bike was a turbocharged 1964 Harley radical Custom Chopper that won 1st place Radical Custom Bike, Best Engineered and Best In Show awards. The only people I saw after graduation was Fred aka 'Curley' Delapetro (probably misspelled his last name) and both of our cars were featured in and on covers of the same Magazines. I also ran into Bill Tweety one time around the early 1970's and that's about all up until our 25th Reunion up in New Brunswick back in 1994. I got bored after 20+ years and sold the Speed Shop business and began buying run down homes and remodeling them then selling at a very good tax free profit. I also worked for the post office for a couple years and in 1990 I got pissed off at our insane high taxes and started Hands Across NJ by accident on a Radio Talk show . Thanks to a handful of great helpers we were organized in 19 of New Jersey's 21 counties within just couple of days. On day 9 (July 1, 1990). We held what State Police told us , was the biggest Rally in NJ history and every road going intoTrenton was jammed up with stopped dead traffic with cars that all had rolls of toilet paper over their radio antennas, and every bridge we passed under was packed with flag waving supporters. Thanks to those people who attended the Rally and others on the bridges we became instant powerful people and kept getting taxes cut until we made our mark of over 2 BILLION DOLLARS IN TAX REPEALS AND TAX CUTS. I also lobbied successfully to get the sales tax lowered back to 6% and eliminated the new tax on heavy trucks which would have resulted in higher retail and ...Expand for more