Milwaukee Road E9 diesel locomotives nos. 37A and 38A leading a football special passenger train from Milwaukee down East Wilson Street in Madison, Wisconsin, on November 9, 1968. The University of Wisconsin fell by a score of 43-8 to Ohio State. While the Badgers lost all of their games in 1968, the Buckeyes won all of theirs, beating the University of Southern California in the Rose Bowl to win the national championship. Photograph by Thomas F. McIlwraith, McIlwraith-01-025-04, © 2018, Center for Railroad Photography & Art, www.railphoto-art.org
@swi66 Hello, In 1968, after my wife and I got married, we drove two cars, the red 65 El Camino and her blue/silver 1962 Corvair that was her first car from high school. One day, she had business in metropolitan Los Angeles near Pomona. We had just gotten married and were looking for another car to replace my wife’s 62 Corvair Coupe. She drove it as far as it would go, I did as much mechanical stuff as I could, yet, it remained on the sell list. After getting stuck on the San Bernardino Freeway interchange, near the Los Angeles City Hospital in East LA, the reliability was in question and my wife was in a scary location. She called me from a public phone…remember those? The orange vested Cal Trans guys stopped when they saw a silver blue Corvair stuck in the narrow center divider. A 20 something girl pops out and asks for help… that could have led to plenty of scenarios, but for us, it was all good. Those nice guys said to leave the Corvair there and they would take her to the nearest public phone at the hospital. So, she went with them and called me to come and get her + the Corvair. We did not have time to sit there and guess at what was taking place to make it so “awful.” (her words back then). So, it sat outside our apartment, while we were in the “looking stage” for a newer car for her daily driver. Jnaki I drove up there as fast as I could and found her at the telephone booth near the General Hospital. She said that her Corvair was running fine as she drove to catch other freeway interchange home. All of a sudden, it just quit in the fast lane. She could not accelerate, there was no power. So, she pulled over in the narrow median area. What luck. But, in those days, there was no cell phone service. So, she waited for me to arrive. What? We had a planned thing when one of us was going to an interview or photo shoot. After the assigned situation was over, we would call the other person to say we were coming home. If I knew the location, I knew the time it would take to get back to our apartment. (in the Corvair, her driving or my El Camino.) This time, it was deep into Los Angeles Metropolitan area and the surprises that awaited at the locations. Note: After I picked her up, she was relatively calm, but was glad to see me. She knew I would be there as fast as I could drive. So, I had the Corvair towed to our friend's Los Angeles garage and left it there with a note of what happened and that I would call the next day. The main thing was that my wife was safe and we drove home talking to each other to both calm down. The photo showing the Corvair with the person wearing sunglasses could have been me coming home on the freeway after picking up the Corvair. Heading East on the downtown LA freeway was the fastest way home. Our friend had kept it for several days, did a thorough inspection, changed some things, added a new fan belt and made sure that it ran with a good tune. It was a once in a lifetime incident. It never happened again. It ran smoothly for another several months, until we decided to get our hot rod project finished asap. (I was the primary Corvair driver for this period) Then a few months later, we sold, actually gave the Corvair to her uncle as he was in need of a car. For us, the El Camino and 327 powered Ford Sedan Delivery were the great running cars and she had her pick of either one for a daily driver, visits to friends and of course, shopping. YRMV
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