Women, the car breakdown, and the cell phone
Commenter “Baklava” started a fascinating conversation yesterday that was (among other things) about women and car breakdowns:
I’ve heard this from many women friends. They simply aren’t interested in entertaining the idea of getting a car that is older to begin with. [My girlfriend] thought she was buying a rock solid machine. She had no idea what Consumer Reports said.
Think about it guys. When you go through life as an attractive woman (put yourself in their shoes) what do you think they have to go through if they were stuck on the side of the road. It’s a situation that isn’t pretty.
Which reminds me of a time long ago (late 70s). I was driving my very old Plymouth (and just to show you how traumatic the experience was, I’ve forgotten the name of the model) along a country road in rural New England. At night.
A very dark night at that, because in the country there are no street lights. It was about nine-thirty in the evening on a Sunday in summer, which meant it had only just gotten dark and so it really didn’t seem all that late.
I was returning from a pleasant visit to a friend who lived about two hours from me. I had my ten-month-old son in his infant seat in the back of the car, but since he was never much of a sleeper he was wide awake.
All was fine until I noticed that the dashboard lights were a little less bright than usual. Or were they? Was it my overactive imagination? I began to feel just a bit jittery.
I knew this road quite well, having traveled it a host of times. There were gas stations seeded here and there, but as I passed the first one I realized that at this time on a Sunday night they were unlikely to be open. Ditto for the very few restaurants and stores.
Things weren’t too bad—yet. I could see clearly enough, and the car was driving fine. But a short while later it became impossible to deny that my all the lights on the car were fading fast, and the power was dropping as well.
The road was single-lane, with no breakdown lane and no shoulder. I couldn’t even see how much grass was on the side of the road before the trees began. If wasn’t winter, but it was chilly, and since I’d only planned to be gone for the day I didn’t have the proper jackets for me or the baby. I was only about forty-five minutes from home, but cell phones didn’t exist, nor did pay phones on this particular road.
There were not many cars either, although I was ecstatic every time one began to approach me from behind. Their headlights provided light for a while, and I had hopes that they would notice that my car not only had no lights but was now going about twenty miles an hour instead of the usual fifty-five. Maybe they would help me, somehow.
But what few cars I encountered sped by with hardly a backwards glance. I didn’t want to pull over to the side of the road; there was no side of the road and I was afraid a car might hit us. Plus, I knew if I stopped the car it probably would not start again, and I’d be stranded with the (now mercifully sleeping) baby in the cold.
Now that I think of it in the calm light of day (and subsequent decades), I realize I could/should at least have pulled into a business parking lot off the road—one of the restaurants or perhaps the gas stations. That way, I’d at least have a choice as to where I stopped rather than letting fate decide—or worse, having an accident.
But looking back, I know I preferred to hope that the power would hold out until I reached a place with people who could help me. I would have felt especially vulnerable sitting in the car in a small parking lot (on that road, they were all small) with a spotlight shining on me, although in retrospect I know I was more vulnerable driving in the dark. But in the latter case I was doing something rather than waiting, which somehow felt better.
And so I drove on. I remember my foot shaking as it pressed on the accelerator, and my teeth actually chattered with fear. I kept going over my alternatives. Was it more dangerous to keep driving, or more dangerous to stop? There was a little bit of moonlight to give me a vague idea of the outlines of the road, but my own lights were completely gone. I knew I’d run out of power soon, although I still had plenty of gas.
And then, and then—just when I thought I’d have no choice but to stop and take my chances—a light! It was a motel, and to this day I cannot pass that place without feeling a rush of gratitude. I stopped there and felt the car heave, almost with a sigh of sympathetic relief.
The rest was relatively easy. The door was open, the proprietors responded to the little bell I rang, and they graciously let me use their phone to call my husband and sit in their office until he came to rescue us. The car (which, just as I had expected, refused to start again) was left in the parking lot and picked up later; as you automotive people no doubt already know (but the details of which I’ve since forgotten), the problem was some sort of electrical belt gone bad.
Later I went back and clocked how far I’d actually driven from the time my lights began to fail until the blessed motel: it was “only” ten miles, one of the longest ten miles of my life.
Many years later, when I got a cell phone, one of my first thoughts was of that night, and the knowledge that with a functioning cell phone the whole thing would have been a mere inconvenience rather than a traumatic experience. I never drive without one now—although I do continue to drive old cars. No more old Plymouths, though, even if they’re given to me for free, as that one was; it’s a 1997 Corolla at the moment.
[ADDENDUM: I fear I’ve grievously libeled Chrysler, which certainly doesn’t need the aggravation. It came to me today while I was driving that the car that broke down that epic night long ago was no Plymouth. It was actually made by GM, one of these suckers.]
Maybe it’s because I have a twin sister. I can’t remember the day I became aware of the issue with women and needing a reliable (or new) car.
To be clear, not all women are this way. But I’d put a dime on the fact that there are statistics out there showing women have newer cars in general.
Just as statistics show that in the past decade more women are earning degrees than men.
Security is important.
Sometimes though that degree was not much of a salable skill – (not nursing, accounting, computers, etc) and sometimes that car had big black circles in consumer reports mag.
For whatever it’s worth. I bet you the women in college thing is contributing to woman voting patterns – with the indoctrination.
I went to college and almost every instructor/teacher/professor tried ramming down some liberal viewpoint every 6 minutes.
It irritated me because it was MY OWN money I was using. In Psychology class for instance, the professor went on an anti-gun tangent every 6 minutes. Odd since she was actually a Jewish child in Germany when she was young. But guess what my report was on at the end of class. Guns. I got an “A” because it was very well written but she had a bunch of red ink on my paper countering all my points with “feelings” not even addressing the things I wrote about 1500 Orlando women being armed with concealed weapons in 1987 and the subsequent year rape declined 88%. She didn’t address those points whatsoever.
I’m off on a tangent myself.
It’s got to be an ego thing. Drivng a pretty new car makes a gal/guy feel pretty her/himself. My 1999 Toyota has over 200k miles and it always gets us there and back no matter where we go. It’s all due to regular maintenance every 3k miles.
I car-travel with a loaded pistol. Never had to pull it, hope I never will. Shoot practice rounds, though.
An important Forest Sevice road in SE AZ warns drivers with a big sign that the road is unpatrolled and dangerous for the next 30 miles, and driving thereon is undertaken at one’s own risk. That’s our gummint at work! This is 30 miles N of Mexico, with narcotraficantes and other illegals traversing the country, where cell phones don’t work. Water and weapon are essential.
I’m working on my girls to be similarly protected.
I’d say it’s more a product of our fear mongering media and their narrative of a psycho behind every tree that drives this security issue with women (and men).
Dear Neo,
Had a similar experience last summer–a bad alternator on my 1990 Corolla. And, of course, my cell phone died. Fortunately I was in the suburban town where I grew up, so I knew the lay of the land. And I was alone, so I didn’t have to worry about kids.
Still, it was an exercise in logical problem solving that I could have done without! 😉
We did get the car home and the problem fixed. I’m still driving that car. Just paying more attention to potential problems.
Baklava,
I’ll throw another consideration into the pot: After college I lived in Philly, where car theft was rampant. After an accident in which my car was totaled (not my fault), I called my father and asked him to look for a car for me–one so ugly that no one would steal it. He found me a 60 something, one-owner white Rambler that looked like a shoebox. I was delighted to know it would never be stolen.
he he
I should be a professional trucker the way I drive hither, thither and yon and this reminds me of one of many great stories from my driving resume of years gone by….but before I tell it, let me say I think a woman needs to have her car serviced regularly whatever age it is. My car guys are an integral part of my life as they keep my car in tip top shape. Also a woman needs to have AAA Plus though there are limits to what it can do instantly.
Meanwhile, a while back I was driving cross country around December 27 to meet friends in Colorado for a week of skiinng.
As I drove from Missouri into the middle of Kansas, I noticed the the alternator light come on and the power started to fade. Somehow I got to a exit in the late afternoon and managed to get a new/used alternator installed in four hours and was on my way into the night. I drove for several more hours trying to make up for lost time but finally stopped at a little motel to sleep and set my clock for 4 am at which time I got up and started to drive in the pitch black dark. Only it was now snowing, the wind blowing fiercely and the temperature had dropped to -10. Great driving weather, I thought as I gave thanks that I had a new alternator.
As I drive in western Kansas in the dark early morning, I looked down and noticed the alternator light had come on again. And then I saw all the gauges beginning to drop. Clearly I was losing power and on the high plains in a snow storm with almost no exits was not the best place.
I began to pray out loud as I considered my diminishing options. The next exit was miles away. I saw a rest stop sigh up ahead and decided not to stop but to try to make it to exit miles away. I drove by the rest stop and continued on…….I had to move, I told myself. This was before cell phones and I was alone.
And then, then as I drove past the rest stop, out of the corner of my eye…something caught my attention. As I drove on suddenly it hit me…..and I screeched on my brakes.
My prayers had been answered, only not in the way I expected. I slammed on my brakes, pulled over. Then breathed a sigh of relief…..then back up in the Interestate margin to the entrance of the rest stop…..then into the rest stop. I then surveyed my salvation as the last little bit of energy drained out of my drying car……
Now, I ask you, do you know what I spyed from the corner of my eye that saved me that day in desolation of western Kansas in a snowstorm in sub-freezing weather and a snow storm?
I’ll be back with the rest of the story later……
a ’97 Corolla? Assuming you’ve put some mileage on it, I’d think you’d be better off getting a new cheap car like a Kia or Hyundai (good reviews on both) as you can get a little one for under 14K and it would be safer, better equipped, require less service (almost all new cars are significantly more reliable and require less service than than a 10 year old car- better tolerances and fit on the moving parts), get better mileage, and be much, much cleaner. In this day and age, if your car is more than about 8 years old, I don’t know why you’d keep driving it unless it’s got particular sentimental value, or is some kind of collectible, or secondary car.
Scamp? Challenger? Fury? It’s not important but how can you do that to us?!?
Well, goodness, douglas, because it gets me where I’m going without a car payment. I drive a 11-year-old Subaru with over 140,000 miles and some incipient rust. It always starts. It always goes. It always arrives. I could afford a newer car and sometime, I’ll get one, but for now, why would I add a car payment to my finances when there’s no reason to?
Of course I’d enjoy the bells and whistles of a new car. And if my car were becoming unreliable, I’d obviously replace it — I do a lot of driving alone and have no wish at all to be that woman everyone’s been talking about, broken down by the side of the road. (SteveH, sorry, but you are clearly not female.) But my car is not unreliable at all. And it might very well keep humming helpfully along the way it is right now for quite some time.
Now, I do have a secret weapon in the form of a husband who likes fixing cars and who pays attention to my oil and knows how to turn off the check engine light and generally keeps me on the road. If not for him, I’m sure I’d be driving something newer. But as it is, why fix it if it’s not broken? It’s no longer true that a high-mileage car is necessarily a recipe for high repair costs.
And as for the cleaner-and-greener part, even if that were higher on my priority list than it is, you’d have trouble getting me to believe that building a whole brand new car just for me is in any way more environmentally sound than keeping my own little already-built vehicle on the road and out of the junkyard for a few more years.
douglas: My Corolla only has about 100,000 miles on it, which is practically a baby in Corolla terms. So far (knock wood vigorously) it’s been very reliable and gets excellent gas mileage. And I own it outright.
webutante: You can’t leave us hanging like that!!
Oh my, a Phoenix, a.k.a. Chevy Citation. One of the worst cars ever. You indeed were lucky.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called my wife from my cell phone to hers, only to hear it ring from the table where she left it before rushing off to work…
without reading any one elses comment first : ALTERNATOR
1994 chevy S10. 253,000 miles +/-
ok alternator belt
I don’t have the luxury of having a husband who can turn off the “check engine” light or otherwise fix things. He takes very good care of his car and I am expected to take care of mine. And therein lies the rub….
Over the course of the last four years, the “check engine” light of my 2001 Ford Explorer has been on fairly consistently (150,000 miles) and there never seems to be much wrong…so, I just position my seat in such a manner as to hide the light from my view. I have also been known to turn up the radio to hide the sound of strange engine noises.
When my teenage son started driving (and was quickly taken off the road), he managed to have three minor accidents in the first 90 days and we canceled the collision insurance. So, the car also has substantial dents in the front, side and rear. Nevertheless, the darn car keeps running and I think about a new car but always conclude that I just don’t need a new car.
I’ve owned exactly one Toyota; I sold it (for $100) at the 194,000-mile point. The buyer kept it going past 200k until it was T-boned by some guy who didn’t leave his name.
Current wheels: Infiniti I30 (Nissan Maxima in a prom dress), 116,000 miles. Just broken in.
And Pontiac, before too long, will be just as dead as Plymouth.
As a long distance touring motorcyclist I’d like to point out that there are many areas in the U.S. and Canada where there is no reliable cell phone service. It’s good to have a plan B. You are usually OK on the Interstate system.
Lots of references to the “check engine” light. Apparently an ingenious invention to tell people their car is broke down before its even broke down?
Heck i consider mine a night light.
It was the fan belt which also turns the alternator which in turn charges the battery and runs the lights alternating the current between the regulator which holds the power steady in your electrical system (your brightness) and sends a charge to the battery at the same time. Geez after once having such a scare you’da thunk of puttin a cardboard box in the trunk with a few spare parts, hand tools and a flash light. duh!
Approx 1985, my cousin and I were driving west from Bakersfield on a tiny road through a national forest across a mountain top on a Sunday night. We left Bakersfield with a 1/4 tank of gas and a half dozen towns ahead on our map. We were woefully unprepared: didn’t expect the mountain; didn’t anticipate that all the map towns had populations under 50, and of course no gas stations open on Sunday night. We were in a brand new Chev. Jimmy. I had the Owners Manual open and was trying to calculate how far we could go on a 1/8 tank of gas, and then once the gas light came on. When the moon is a sliver, national forests are exceedingly dark. We topped the mountain and headed down, though we weren’t certain we had completely topped the mountain. And we basically coasted down the mountain with the gas light on for ever and ever(40 minutes?), around curve after curve, trying not to hit the brake to slow our momentum, until we finally came into a decent sized town.
And the thing I remember is that our adrenaline was sky high. And I’m a person who stays level headed during a crisis. But, for whatever reason, the deep darkness, the orange gas light, my adrenaline rocketed.
I have, also, driven across the great plains when the weather suddenly turned icy and freezing cold. Before cell phones, this event was quite serious. You had awareness of a life-threatening predicament if you had car trouble. If you’ve never been there: the plains can become very cold very fast. They can be bitter, harsh. You can be dangerously isolated, without water.
I was also chased by an ice storm once from El Paso to Ft. Worth. Got past Abilene before it caught me; was able to drive home very carefully the last bit. Have never been in these situations with a small child in the car. That would add an element of terror which I can only imagine. I am thankful I’ve never been through that.
As I age, I can see how foolish and cavalier I was when I was young. I used to just jump in the car and go, never checked weather. Never had a cell phone. I was invulnerable, immortal.
I used to drive a lot in my wild and crazy youth, and broke down a number of times. Here is my best story, and it’s almost the exact opposite of neo and webutante:
Around 1992 or so I was driving a 1981 Chevette, which I bought used in 1987. I was traveling south on I-95 through Philadelphia one evening. I was in the left lane when suddenly my dashboard lit up and I lost power. There were six lanes of wall-to-wall 60 mph traffic so I couldn’t pull over to the side of the road. I coasted to a stop in the left lane. I put my flashers on even before I came to a stop. I jumped out of the car and dove over the concrete median because I was certain that someone was going to plow into the back of my car at any second.
I crouched behind the median and had to wait for fifteen minutes for the traffic to thin out enough for me to RUN to the side of the road.
I called a tow truck and rode in the cab as it towed my car home. The problem turned out to be a broken wire on the ignition coil, and the towing charge was more than the repair cost.
Eventually in 1999 I bought a 1991 Corolla. (It seems like half the people on this thread are driving Corollas.) I still have it, and there are only 145,000 miles on it. I don’t drive that much nowadays. The Chevette had 190,000 miles on it when I finally threw in the towel in 1999. I’ve been told that 190,000 miles is pretty good for a Chevette. 🙂
I hit my brakes in the darkest hour before dawn on I-70 that late bitter cold December morning, backed up, then drove into the rest stop in the wind and freezing snow. What had caught my attention from the corner of my eye and now loomed dead ahead of me was nothing short of amazing. It was certainly the unexpected answer to my prayers.
But I was running out of time. Could I get the help I so desperately needed before my car lost all power again?
All I could do was go for it.
I pushed my automatic shift into park, jumped out of my barely idling car and ran around in front of it. Then I started screaming at the top of my lungs over the blizzard. I stood on my tip toes and reached up to pound the bottom of a large tractor trailer cab door, screaming as loud as I could, “Hello! I need help! Anybody up there…?”
It seemed like forever but I kept yelling and pounding the bottom of the door. Then suddenly a man’s head popped up the the drivers window and looked down at me. He had been dead asleep.
“I need help. Could you help me? I’m going to Denver and it’s my alternator…it’s almost gone and I have no power….it may already be too late, but I know you could help me if you would….I hope it’s not to late….”
No further explanation was necessary. He instantly got the situation, what I was talking about and what needed to be done—fast.
Without batting an eye the man yelled back to me “Go into the ladies room and wait, I’m going to get you to Denver. Run fast and get out of the cold. I’ll come and get you when it’s time to come back.”
I did as I was told and took shelter in the ladies room.
Ten minutes later this big trucker pounded on the ladies room door and yelled for me to come out. He told me everything was okay and he was ready to take me to Denver.
So I came out and ran to his big truck. He opened the passenger door of his cab, got the ladder down and helped hoist me up into the front seat. It was warm inside the trucker’s cab and I had never sat so high off the ground except in an airplane.
As he climbed into the drivers seat, he introduced himself and away we went. Not only did he get me to Denver four hours later. He radioed ahead and found the best Volvo dealer to take me to. Then he radioed for someone to call my friends so they could meet me while my car was being repaired. It and he was truly a Godsend. And he was a very nice and honorable man.
By now I’m sure you must know what caught my eye from the Interstate that morning, but just in case you haven’t figured it out:
It was a huge tractor trailer car carrier— fully loaded with sparkling new cars….er, except for one little empty space on the lower back of his behemoth truck.
As it turned out Divine Providence, had been saving that space, that bitter cold and snowy morning in Western Kansas for my little Volvo.
And now you know the rest of the story….
wow.
I have two canoe stories…
but they won’t top that.
Mrs. W and Neo, of course I understand the value of not having a car payment, and if your cars have been reliable, and you’re willing to forego the safety factor of ABS brakes, airbags, and a tire pressure monitor- standard on even the humble Kia Spectra- then of course you’d keep your car. The difference between 25 and 30 mpg alone isn’t going to make it worthwhile to get a new car, obviously. Of course, one could also get a newer used car. I just know from experience that, at least with a high mileage (70,000 plus) car of the late 80’s, that the monthly payment of around $150 (on a $14K car with a reasonable down payment) was a better way to deal with the inevitable expenses of car maintenance, than having the unpredictable hit of a $4-800 car repair every 3-5 months, plus regular maintenance. Of course, traffic in L.A. in the heat makes for some hard miles, so we may not be comparing apples to apples either.
Of course, I’m still driving my six year old VW Jetta with over 170K miles on it- good car. It’s handling has kept me out of more than a couple accidents.
I have ABS brakes and airbags, and they sell tire pressure monitors at the dollar store. (The old-fashioned kind, natch.)
Webutante — wow!! That is an awesome story. You have now topped the breaking-down-alone-in-the-dark thread. But your tale would make a great start for a being-rescued-by-truck-drivers thread. They seem to do a lot of that and should get more credit than they do for it.
Tire pressure monitors are standard now? Huh, shows how much I know. I’m only 25 and I’ve been driving the same ’96 Rav4 forever. It’s got 130k miles, is paid for, and I’m going to drive the damn thing until the wheels fall off.
But in the latter case I was doing something rather than waiting, which somehow felt better.
I’ve been in that situation, but in my case it was going about 200 miles at night in heavy snow in Western Arkansas.
Not car trouble, but a situation in hilly deserted country, with snow so deep you could hardly tell where the edge of the road was, and were depending on sheer inertia to keep going through some spots (if you stopped, you would not have traction to get moving again).
And this was LONG before cell phones.
I made it, but there were many times when I was asking myself “WHAT AM I DOING HERE?!!!”
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
–
I was driving my Subaru Outback on I-35 in KS. Was nice weather, a bit cool for early June, and I pulled over at the rest-stop north of Wichita. I got out, rested, came back and had no electrical system. Nada – no clock, no odometer, no door lights and of course, no ignition. There’s no pay phone and I didn’t have a cell-phone at the time. I popped the hood and looked inside, but all the belts were tight, as were the battery cables, and I didn’t see any signs of a short.
A few people saw that I had a problem, and didn’t stop – drove through the rest area parking lot and back onto the interstate. After fifteen minutes, I noticed that I had a bit of a door light. So I waited another five minutes and lo and behold, I had electrical and the beast started! The alternator was doing its thing, battery charging, no more problems. I stopped for fuel in Oklahoma City and it started again just fine.
As it turned out, and as I’d guessed, the battery cables were a tad bit too big. Apparently they got just warm enough to lose their connection. After cooling off, the metal contracted enough to get a good connection again, and by the time I reached Oklahoma City, everything was hot and fit fine. So I got the proper cables and its never happened again.
And I now have a pay-as-you-go cell phone.
douglas: airbags? My Corolla not only has driver and passenger airbags, but it’s got side airbags, too.
’88 Jeep Cherokee with 387k miles.
The tranny is making funny noises, probably should have it looked at.
Once had a Peugot 504 disiel. Visiting a friend, the alternator died (essentially the same problem neo faced), except that the Peuget didn’t require electricty to run, only for the lights and for starting.
The other thing is that my passenger was a young male like myself (we were friends from karate practice, and both black belts), and we were coming back from target practice so the car was full of weapons.
We drove back to his house, I think what happened is that I spent the night at his parent’s house, in the morning they charged the battery and I drove home.
Since we’re telling car stories, here’s mine. I went to college in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the roads of which can be as cold, snowy, deserted, and bleak as anywhere else in the country on a winter night. Just a few cities up there, and long distances between small towns with no guarantees that anything will be open, especially in the mid-70s. I was probably a fool to trust my junker car to these conditions when going from my home in the Detroit area to school and back, but being young, indestructible (or so I thought), and broke, I didn’t have much choice. It was either that, or put up with the drunks, weirdos, and chain-smokers on Greyhound. So I drove. Never had a belt break, but I did have a carburetor on my Ford that was prone to icing during snowstorms. Not good. So I’d have to stop, (well, I’d already be stopped), take off the air cleaner, spray some deicer into the carb, wait a minute or two, then start it back up. I’d hope to get 50 or so miles down the road before I’d have to stop again, or drive out of the snowstorm. All this at night, with no streetlights anywhere, before cellphones, in temperatures that hovered between 10 and 20F (ironically, temperatures below zero were actually better for my car, because it didn’t snow as much then). I traded that car as soon as I graduated and started drawing my 2nd Lt’s pay in the Army and could afford something more reliable. Fuel injection was becoming more common then, especially on European cars, and I bought a Volvo, one of the old 240 models that was styled like a refrigerator (but less exciting), which had a 4-cyl. fuel-injected Renault-built engine. I bought it new and got about 400,000 miles out of it in 12 years.
Since then, I’ve owned, European, American, and Japanese cars, new and used, and have had no really bad experiences with any of them. The last car I owned before I moved overseas was an S-class Mercedes that I bought used, from a model year that was a Consumer Reports “black circle special”, but it never let me down. Now I’m car-less and rely on taxis to get around the third-world city where I live. It’s cheaper and far less complicated than owning a car around here.
I was a junior in college in Texas and home visiting my parents for a weekend. I remember it as a breezy Sunday night in early November when I started my trek back to my college town and rented house. My yellow-green 1963 VW bug had been coughing and backfiring now and then during the previous week. When it acted up I just did a little tap tap tap on the side of the carburetor with a wrench and then it ran fine until the next time. That worked and that was good enough for me since I had no money. I left my parents house around midnight for the two-hour drive and, being 21, I chose to take the back roads that rimmed a large lake because I liked it. It was a fun, curvy drive on a lonesome road. I gave no thought of course, to the time of night nor to the coughing problem in the VW. I had my Martin guitar in the passenger seat (I even looked a little like Bob Dylan, but better) and a bag of clothes my mom had washed for me and, well . … . I was 21. After about an hour on the road sure enough the VW started coughing and backfiring. I pulled over to do the tapping thing, but when I opened the hood (in the back) this time flames shot upward. I had no fire extinguisher, no blanket for smothering, no nothing except my clean clothes. A pair of jeans didn’t do it. It took only about two minutes in that breezy night for the flames to travel to the back seat and everywhere else inside and outside. All of a sudden I was on the side of the road with a totally burned up car, stranded and no way home and nobody in sight. Finally, a car passed by without stopping. Apparently he/she/they drove to the next town and called the cops. (This was during the early 1970s and no cell phones of course). The cops and a firetruck arrived, but way too late to do anything for my car. The cops called for a tow truck and also called my father via a radio who got out of bed and came to my plight. He paid the tow truck driver in cash to take me and my completely burned up VW to my place which was still an hour away. I’m not sure I ever thanked my father for that. He’s 88 now. I’ll thank him next time I see him. That drive wasn’t fun when it was happening, but I can’t keep from grinning when I look back and see myself scrambling to put the fire out and knowing what my feelings and thoughts were the time. I suppose I was lucky, but it was a different time then and it was in the backwoods of Texas which might have made a difference. I still have my Martin guitar and I’m still better looking than Dylan.
JohnC: well, it’s not hard to look better than Dylan these days.
You guys all heroes. Stories like that is one of the reasons I’ll never make myself go and learn how to drive.
I was actually on my way to a Dylan concert in Delaware when I broke down on I-95. I still have the unused ticket.
Baklava….I love to hear canoe stories…..
Well. Hope you come back to read this.
My twin sister and I entered into a canoe race at a campground when we were about 14 years old. We had practiced so we were very good at it.
Everybody lined up. The signal to start was given. We raced off! We were supposed to go up the river, around an island and then come back.
When we got to the island there was a little sandbar that everybody had to get out and lift the canoe over and then get back in after getting over it.
We got to the island before anybody else. Our practice paid off.
When we got to the sandbar we jumped out and I stupidly said, “Watch out for the snakes!”
She jumped back in and I had to lift the canoe with her in it over the sandbar…
Needless to say, even though we were first place to the island we didn’t get it back together again.
Serves me right! 🙂
wow…..
that’s very damn funny,
thanks.
ps. I would’ve been in the canoe with her… having you drag us both across the sandbar….
pps. I have a story about a gar that jumped out of the water into our canoe in the Everglades one time….and it had very big teeth…
It was 1978 or 1979. I was living in Buena Vista, Colorado, which is approximately 100 miles west of Colorado Springs on US highway 24.
I had made an expedition to the Springs for records or some such, and was headed back to the high country in my 1956 Chevrolet Bel-Air. I had recently talked my mechanic into replacing the old, worn-out generator with a spiffy Delco alternator.
It was rather well up the hill towards Woodland Park, and in the gathering gloom of evening that I noticed that the headlights and the dash lights were decidedly dim. Obviously, something was awry with the charging system. I decided to keep going. It was a winter night (snow on the ground in South Park), but there was a full (or nearly full) moon. I made the trip in fine style, with the headlights off, and not running the fan on the heater.
When I tapped the brakes at the junction with US 285 at Antero Junction, the engine tried to die, so I rolled right through that stop sign.
When I arrived at Greg’s Garage in Buena Vista (right down the street from home), I turned it off, and then turned it back on. The idiot lights were barely visible.
Since that old car had almost no electrical accessories, I took to declaring that I could get it started with 2 “D” cells and a cup of gas!… Quite reliable; I finally sold it in early 1988.
1981? I was nineteen, and working on one of my Dad’s sheep shearing crews in Northern California- We were traveling between jobs somewhere between Susanville and Eagleville or vice versa. My uncle (Dad’s older brother) and I were running one of my Dad’s crews while he was on another job with the other one. I was driving my Dad’s nearly new Chevy like this one: http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2068519900101561550WdFfak
(but green). I was also towing a five-man shearing trailer (which we set up at each job). My brother’s friend Andrew was riding shotgun. A chute for the sheep ran along the whole length of the trailer- when it was setup on a jobsite, a shearer could just reach under the burlap sacks that formed the inner wall of the chute, and grab their next sheep, shear it, then push it out a hole on the other side of the trailer so the sheep could run down a little ramp and go free. (or be wormed or be eaten, whatever happened to them, I don’t really know).
Behind me, my uncle was towing an identical trailer with his brown late ’60’s GMC pickup. At a jobsite, both trailers would be connected together, and a ramp would be provided for the sheep to climb in the trailer and run along the chute.
The road was dusty, it was getting dark, and we were pushing to get to the next jobsite before we lost all daylight. Ahead, through a light haze, I saw a calf begin to wander onto the road from the left. Everything went into slow motion as I jammed on the brakes and skidded up to the calf. I had enough momentum left to knock the calf over, then the truck came to a halt. As I watched the calf spin back towards the side of the road, to my horror I saw my uncle emerge from the cloud of dust about 50 feet behind me. I watched him immediately crank the wheel furiously to the left to avoid smashing into my trailer, which jackknifed his trailer and flipped his truck onto its right side. His truck came sliding to a halt a few feet behind my rig.
With everything still in slow motion, I wrenched my truck door open got onto the road and ran back, past my truck, past my trailer to my uncle’s flipped-on-its-side truck. I figured my uncle was dead, but I scrambled onto his truck, opened the door (up, not sideways, because of the truck’s position), and hollered at my uncle, who was crumpled up in the passenger (down) side of the cab: “Are you all right?” He said, “Whaa …”, so I reached down to help pull him up and out the drivers door. His grogginess was wearing off, and he pushed my arm away and climbed up and out of the cab himself. He was really mad! When his truck flipped, the jackknifing trailer bent the bed of his pickup laterally at about the halfway point, right before it (the trailer) detached and flipped across to the other side of the road onto the shoulder, also ending up on its side. The wheelwell of the truck was bent onto the tire, rendering it inoperative.
Another (mama?) cow came up to the calf casualty and began licking it, but I didn’t pay it much notice.
After surveying the damage, my uncle pried the wheelwell off the tire, told me he was going to town to get help, started his truck, then drove away, the bent pickup bed making him look a little like a mechanized crab as he disappeared into the distance. While all of this was going on, Andrew was taking pictures (?!) It was lonely on that desert road after my uncle left (notwithstanding the company of Andrew, budding Life photographer). The sheep shearers had left the previous job after we did, but they soon caught up to the accident site, surveyed the downed trailer with a little bit of awe, then continued on to the next jobsite. After a few days we righted the trailer and got to the next job.
The calf? It got up and walked away.
Epilogue:
Several months later, a hundred miles away, I was eating in a little cafe on another remote road. I overheard some guys at another table talking about the flipped over shearing rigs. In a way, I felt good because I was so famous, but not so good that I wanted to introduce myself as prime actor in the drama. So I finished my meal and drove away.
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