What was your best "oh thank you, thank you Lord" moment?

Almost weekly for me but the one that stands out is @ the day of the drags a couple of years ago when my roadster went into a front end "death shake" as I crossed the line and braked doing over 100 mph. I thought I was about to meet my maker. Upside, I got my Kontinentals 100mph patch!

 

Bringing a dead van back from "vacation" where it broke the crank in Rapid City, I was coming up Vantage Hill on I-90 with the van on my trailer doing about 40mph. As I topped the hill I looked in the mirror to see if anyone was coming out of the rest area and saw the LR tire on the trailer about half way out past the fender. I'd just checked them at the last gas stop (300 miles into a 450 mile trip) and figured it was a flat. Wrong again! as I pulled off the freeway I watched the wheel come farther out, meaning it wasn't attached to the trailer any more. When I cleared the shoulder of the road while coming to a stop, the wheel came all the way out and slowly headed for the freeway traffic. I stopped the truck, stepped out and turned around in time to grab the wheel and hoist it into the bed in one motion. Visions of the next car hitting that at 75 vanished and I made it back OK, but I never figured out why it came loose in such a short period. New studs and lug nuts did make me feel better though.

 

4K lb. '73 Volvo wagon (165/80/15s) rainy day, coming down the mountains in NC on the interstate, brakes start fading BAD (foot almost to the floor), downshifting makes the engine scream ****** murder, foot to floor, hand poised on emergency brake, downshifted but we were still gaining speed even with my foot off the gas... where is one of those truck run-offs when you need one!!!

Leaning hard as we are rounding a corner doing about 80-85, oh ****, the car has decided it wants to be in the far right lane, don't let it slide on the wet road!... I look up and I see the road is now straight and going back uphill long enough to stop... Thank you, thank you lord!

We stopped and let the brakes cool off and the rain eventually stopped.

 

Man, how did I ever live long enough to get this old?

#1. Just got through paying a power bill in downtown Raleigh, get in my old Rabbit parked on the right side curb, on a multi-lane one way street, with one other car parked in front of me. I get ready to pull out, turn and look behind me, there is a semi w/ a flatbed trailer turning into the center lane back up the block. I signal and start to pull out around the car in front of mine.

Just then I notice that the truck is moving over to the right, and the F***ing flatbed trailer is over the hood of my car as I'm pulling out at an angle! I'm visualizing the rear trailer tires smashing into the left side of my car at the same time that I'm whipping the car back over to the curb on the right as I get past the other one parked there. Just as soon as I am back beside the curb, I watch those rear tires roll by my window. Cold sweat time!

#2. Driving back down the mountain from a party weekend in Boone, N.C., we're in my new '83 GTI, on a two lane highway outside of Wilkesboro. This highway is perched up on top of sort of a causeway, with very little shoulder on either side. The road is flat at this point, and making a long, broad sweeping curve off to my left. There is a large semi truck coming towards me, and what looks like well over a dozen cars behind it.

As I got further around the curve in the road, and closer to the truck, I was able to see down the highway in front of me. Way back down the line of cars behind the semi, there was this red VW bug that was trying to p*** the entire string of cars. As I got closer, I flashed my lights several times, but he wasn't pulling over. There was traffic behind me, and no place to pull off the road, except for a small gravel turnout with some mailboxes about halfway between me and the red bug.

I dropped down into 4th, wound it up to about 70, and then slammed on the brakes and skidded across the gravel turnout as the bug went by to my left. I didn't have room to come to a full stop, so I popped the clutch with 3rd wound out and came back on the highway before I ran out of gravel siding. I was too busy driving to get a look at what kind of problem this clown was causing for the cars behind me.

#3. Somewhere west of Winston-Salem on I-40, I'm in the right lane coming under an overp***. I notice some traffic coming down the on-ramp to my right, so I move over to the left lane. I hardly needed bother as this lead car is coming down the ramp fast; its one of those early 70's Torinos with the huge sloping back end, a bright red two-door. It merges onto the highway, then starts to speed up as it moves into the left lane in front of me.

Suddenly, the rear tires break loose as the car starts to fishtail violently in front of me. As I'm just starting to think "Hmmm, weird", the damn thing turns sideways, with the p***enger door facing me and the rear tires smoking as they scrabble for traction. I lock up the drum brakes on my little '66 Mustang and slide straight for the side of the big Ford. Just then, it gets some traction, and shoots off the right side of the road into an embankment, and my car and an old Volvo that was behind and to my right go sliding through the spot where the Ford just was! As I go sliding by, I could see the entire underside of the Torino, as it had tipped up onto its p***enger side.

After I got stopped on the shoulder with the Volvo guy behind me, we got out of our cars just in time to see the Torino start rocking from side to side and then flop over onto all fours. As soon as all four tires hit the ground, the driver had it throwing rooster tails of gr*** and dirt, and it came roaring back up onto the highway, with the girl behind the wheel ******ing gears as fast as she could wind it up, and about four other high-school aged girls grinning and waving as they flew by us. The right side of the car was a m*** of dents. and dangling trim parts.


Gee, all of this makes the time that the steering wheel in my '59 Ford came off in my hands seem kinda boring, by comparison.


Later, *****6

 

high school days, living in the rural arkansas delta, roads straight as a string for miles. I drove my 52 ford hardtop as fast as it would go the 13 miles to school every day. One day got to school, was backing in to my spot, tierod drops off the minute I put it in reverse. That slowed me down for a while.

 

My brother and I rebuilt our first engine with just a Chiltons as a guide. She started up and ran fine until years later when I sold her. I thanked God a lot that day.

 

Just finishing up radiusing the rear wheel wells on a 69 Dodge van. Was welding a small strut rod to strengthen the rear quarters.

I was rolling over to weld the other side when I stuck the electrode to the bottom of the gas tank. When My heart slowed down and I opened my eyes, the welding rod was stuck tight to the bottom of the gas tank (I had jerked the electrode holder loose then I heard it arc).

I cut it off with a pair of sidecutters, because I figured if I broke it off it would put a hole in the tank.

I still shudder thinking about that.

GV

 

The carb froze on my 68 buick skylark, about 95 mph approaching a 90 degree turn tried to unstuck it by pumping the pedal furiously (18 yrs old and kinda wet behind the ears dontcha think?) car starts accelerating hard.. started to realize it.. isn't.. getting.. unstuck..killed the ignition (POW!) goodbye engine ,turn the wheel hard right, curled up into a fetus position and let it ride. Somehow managed to first utterly ***ault a large oak and bounced like a ball back across the other side of the road going in the opposite direction across the turn by about a 40 degree angle snapped one telephone pole smashed a old new england thick stone fence apart severed a smaller tree laid out a thick stone wall five feet high snapped second telephone pole and slid to a stop on the side of the road. Open my eyes right? See the engine, hissing like a pissed girlfriend in the p***enger seat next to me,the rest of the front end is wrappped around the right side of the car, the back is pushed in a big V all the way to rear of my bench seat, pushed over the roof and slightly downwards. I kicked the remains of the driver side door off the car and get out, un****hed, not a scratch not a black and blue, NOTHING. and, The lights still worked. The guy I was racing (told ya I was young and dumb) saw the whole thing from behind me and was white as paper, not bad for a Portuguese guy.

THAT was an Oh thank you Lord moment.

 

One time, I was stuck in a truck with this crazy broad **points at Ragdoll**. She was towing my trailer with a 22 Dodge body on it and hit a pothole.

The truck came up, the trailer came up and we came up. When we all came down, the trailer couldn't keep up and took off fishtailing. Long story short, we ended up removing said trailer from said truck. Slinging the body across 4 lanes of highway, the trailer up on the center divider and the two of us on the shoulder. It was memorable.

Next time, that same crazy broad and I were hauling *** across 8 miles of bay bridge in the middle of the night in a 66 Mustang. No lights, no clue and no fear. Pedal to the metal and both of us screaming at the top of our lungs like wild women.
.
.
.
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Thelma and Louise ain't go NOTHIN on us.

 

Not the best, but one none the less..
I had just finished putting my 57 back together the second or third time..motor, trans, brake upgrade.
Anyway, decided to take it around the neighborhood..No problem's..
Around the back side of the street, lay into it a little and catch second gear then back off and slow down because there is two corner's coming up. No problem.. car go's great, and stop's much better than it did........so far. When i went for the brake's for the second corner, the pedal hit the floor, followed by the pin that's SUPPOSED to be holding it to the master.
The genius that i am forgot to put the cotter pin back in...
It didn't set in until i idled back home how nasty that could have been..
Had that happened on the straight part of the street when i did get in to it in first and second i would have ended up in someone's house!
I refrain from doing 'hot laps' like i used to..and alway's triple check whenever work on brakes.....or steering...or suspension..you get the point

 

1989 - My thanksgiving got interrupted by a hurricane and so the family drove up to Dallas the get away from the storm. I left from there to head back to Athens, Georgia for my last quarter of College. Somewhere in the middle of Louisiana I was driving in the right lane 70 mph with three cars behind me. In my rearview mirror - left lane -I saw a toyota truck closing on me fast. The truck got to my blind spot and I felt like it should have p***ed me. I looked to my left and the truck was in the gr*** median.....p***ing me. I looked in front of me and there was an overp*** coming up. The truck couldn't stay in the gr*** without hitting concrete pillars. The toyota truck does a dukes of hazzard and cranks the wheel sharply to get back on the highway. He gets all 4 tires off the ground coming right at me. I swerve and next thing I know the truck lands and over compensates....rolls right in front of me and I have my brake pedal to the floor locking them up to keep from running into the underside of the truck. I have no idea what the cars behind me did.... I was busy. The truck rolled a bunch and landed on it's drivers side door and slide across my lane and up the bank until it found a pine tree. The tree landed right at the roof and the truck folded over in a "C" shape around the tree.I stopped and did my thank you lord Jesus. Walked over to the truck and saw the drivers arm hanging over the dash of the truck...the rest of him was under the dash!!! I didn't even think to take a pulse and told the guys that had stopped behind me that he was gone. They said....what about the other guy. I went and looked and sure enough there was a trail of little pine trees that had been bent over.... I followed it and found another guy that had been thrown from the truck. He found a pine tree that wouldn't bend over for him. He was at the base of the pine tree and you could see where he went splat and then slid down the trunk. I thought he was dead too. His eyes were gl***y and he didn't seem to be breathing. right as I walked up to him He took a big breath and scared the **** out of me. He had one of everything broken on him but when he came to he started trying to get up...so I had to hold him down waiting for paramedics. It wasn't pretty. Both guys were alive when I finished giving my police report. I had to drive 5 miles down the road and walk into a gas station with a shirt covered in blood and buy rubbing alcohol and paper towels to clean myself up.... I looked like I had just murdered someone.

 

My thank you Lord moment was 8/24/07 at 4:35pm. That was the moment I realized my family was safe after our house was DESTROYED by a tornado. The good news is that nobody was hurt, the bad news is that the 50 Fords can fly. The car took a beating as the roof is caved in and every panel has is at least 1 dent or crease that wasn't there before. The Studebaker was buried in what was left of the shop. The house is almost done and the shop won't be finished until the spring.

Moral of the story,

1. Heed all weather alerts because it could save your life. If I had ignored the sirens I
would have been outside when this storm hit.

2. Make sure you are adequately insured. If I had any less insurance I don't think I would
thinking about hot rods, instead it would be where am I gonna live and how can I
give the kids a decent christmas.

Even after all we have been through in the last few months, Xmas will be good and we will be moving into the house just after the New Year. Hopefully the hot rods are in the not too distant future.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All

Eric

 

!994 last race of the season for CENDIV SCCA championship at Blackhawkfarms in Rockton Il.
Having a good season in my formula ford, and looking good for year end points. 1st practice sesion of the weekend going into turn 1 flat out The brake pedal broke when I apply the brakes at the 1st shut down marker.
The rear brakes lock up - no front brakes at all.
The back of the car goes right around me and I go left off the track at about 100 miles per hour. Lucky for me the tree in that area are all about the size of my thumb. The car stoped in about 50 feet backwards.
Any were else on the left side of the track or straight off the track there would have been real trees.
After I rebuilt the car I sold it and went back to racing sedans.

 

A little over 25 years ago my wife and 2 year old son are taking our second ride in my just completed 34 P/U. It's only got a couple of hundred miles on it. Cruising about 65-70 on the interstate when I hear something hit the bottom of the truck. There was nothing in the road for me to kick up. At that moment the steering gets loosey goosey. I slow down and pull over. The bolt on front steering arm is hanging from a few threads on one bolt. The other bolt is what hit the bottom of the truck! Thank God we were on the rural eastern shore where they stock 1/2 x 1 SAE fine thread bolts for tractors. They were in a John Deere green and yellow box. On a Sunday morning no less!

 

We had a similar T-5 issue Tommy.
This summer we worked our ***es off to get the
"missing 32 roadster" on the road for the Dearborn Reunion. Two months off hell.
Hours and hours and hours of last minute stuff right until we fired it two hours before the scheduled leave.
First time for a T-5 installation for us. The transmission would not go in gear.
At that point just minutes before leaving, we imagined alot of issues preventing this. Knowing we would not have time to dis***emble.
We all about cried too...
We sat down and thought about what we did wrong.......
Matt decided to look at the clutch throw which of course needed bent to fit.
We decided to bend it some more.... That was the problem.
I don't usually pray for such trivial issues... but after everyone working so hard.. I did ask for some divine intervention on this one... He never fails me.

 

Well it was beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon. I had loaded my 5 year olds 71 Lemas sport on the car trailer. I had a 79 short box ford 4X4 lifted about 6 inches. I rolled the car on the trailer, stood back and decided it was to front heavy. So I moved it back about a foot, stood back that looks good the pickup is squatted just enough. Dad looks at it and said you should move that forward, I told him well i had it up and there was to much weight. I would still move it forward, I didnt and off on a 160 mile trip. We (the wife, son black lab and myself) were cruising down the hiway 15 miles in the trip. Went across a bridge and that is where the trouble started. The pickup started to bounce with the trailer. When the trailer would bounce the pickup would loose traction, and it would push us. Then down we would come, each time this would happen we would get alittle more out of shape. There were times when the pickup and trailer were sidways across both lane. Towards the last of this the trailer was sliding sidways in the ditch, on its last bounce it dug in and lifted the back of the ford off the ground and turned us around. How we are facing the wrong way on the road. In all the excitment I hadnt seen the 18 wheeler that was coming at us. He was slowed down to almost a stop, when I looked out the window I could see the color of his eyes.. This was the scariest day of my life. No one was hurt the car stayed on the trailer. The pickup had a bent wheel and a ripped off bumper from the trailer came out of the ditch.. After that I went and bought a goose neck trailer, I will never own a bumper trailer ever again...

 

In 1993, I used to play in the band at Sesame Place in Langhorne, PA, and would drive up I 95 to get to work. There is a 2 mile stretch of road that is a straight shot which the troopers never patrolled, so people would routinely fly through that area. I had my '70 Nova up to 111 when I started to feel a shake, so I slowed down and got to work.

That evening, I headed over to Willow Grove on the turnpike, and as I got onto the offramp, my right tire went flat. When I got the car to the emergency lane and looked underneath, BOTH of my tires were worn through to the radial belts on the inside edge (I had lowered the car a while back, but never got the alignment done- DUH)!

Funny, that was the same year that I studied the Bible and made some really life-changing decisions- can't thank God enough for all the times He was watching out for me when I was acting like an idiot.

 

A little O/T, but the one that comes to mind is opening morning of deer season, around 6:00 am. The footsteps I heard coming up the rise in front of me was an 8 point buck (4 per side) who then stood and watched me for about 15 minutes. My deer season lasted all of 16 minutes, and he was tasty!
Funny thing is, I said a little prayer of thanks right before I shot him, and another one afterward.

 

the last one I had was coming home from a swap meet with my brother and my uncle last march. I had decided to take my new-to-me 2005 f150 that I had gotten two weeks before as it was the most reliable vehicle between the three of us to make the 50 mile drive. we leave a cold miserable drizzling swap meet with a nice F1 box and some other goodies. feeling pretty good.

about 10 minutes into the ride home the highway turns into a sheet of ice. at the first exit decide to take the two lane back road home. I'm running along route 202 in m***. near Quabin reservoir. taking it easy in 4wd on the ice. I start up the long steady uphill right at the base of the res. the road is narrow and straight except for a little kink about 3/4 up the hill with a 4ft drainage ditch on either side. I'm about 1/4 up the hill and here comes a car doing about 35-40 down the hill. I think to myself, your in trouble when you hit that kink in the road buddy! sure enough at the turn the back end starts to come around and he overcorrects and around he goes! the car is spinning but he manages to get it under control enough that he's on his side and straight as he goes by me. WHEWWW! saying my thank you lords big time that the guy was good enough to save it before he got to me! just as my ***hole unpuckers another car crests the hill and does the same thing! this time I'm not so lucky and the car is totally out of control and spinning without hope of correction. I look to either side of the road trying to save my truck but there is no place to turn off to get out of the way. I have enough time to see that if I goose it and dodge in between two old guardrail posts she'll go by me just about straight and just miss me. which is exactly what happened. here I am stopped in a ditch after two cars just missed me. I look at that car in the mirror and watch the back end get ****ed into the ditch about 150ft p***ed me. I looked at my brother and my uncle and decided that being the ex-boyscouts that we were we had to see if we could help. so I backed the truck out of the ditch and into a little pulloff I found about 50ft on the other side of the car. my hands are still shaking like crazy from the adrenaline rush when I finally put the truck in park. walk over to the car to see if the driver's ok and see the most scared (not to mention cutest!) 18 year old girl behind the wheel crying. turns out she was okay and only the back tires were in the ditch with the fronts just off the pavement so the car was at a pretty good angle. We calmed her down enough that she was able to get back behind the wheel to see if we could get it unstuck. I popped my head in and told her if it came out to just keep rolling and don't stop. with the three of us pushing that little car pulled right out with barely a spun tire. She dun good and was on her way home to her little sisters birthday party. thank god!

turns out that after all that mess we got to the top of the hill and all that ice turned to wet road. everyone crested the hill thinking it was just wet and it instantly turned to ice on the other side of it. I didn't stop shaking the whole rest of the drive home though!

 

Well my biggest one is not car related ...but it was a thank you Lord non the less.....Iraq...the year was 1991...in the sand box ...setting up a perimeter in somewhat of a semi circle..and all of a sudden out come these Iraqi soldiers(probobly not soldiers but farmers that had no choice but to put on a uniform) out of their underground bunker...behind us with there weapons above their heads...they had lost the will to fight and just wanted to give up.....I've been in some tight ones but this was my biggest "thank you Lord" so far.......

 

The day that I made the mistake of going for a ride with a complete stranger (who, as it turned out was also a complete PSYCHOPATH) in his home-built early 70's MG convertable with a 327 4 speed, and we went ***-out at around 100mph when he hit 4th gear, and somehow we didn't flip when we went off the road.

Hole ****, I get a little shaky just thinking about it.

 

I've had many but the three that top the list all involved 2 wheels and alcohol. I won't bore you with a lot of the details, you probably wouldn't believe me anyway but they left no doubt in my mind that angels are real and I had at least one watching over me. The second one cured me of mixing bikes and booze. The third one involving a drunk blonde in a station wagon cured me of bikes.

 

Doing about 100 through a sweeping uphill s-curve, suspension unloaded on a dip in the road, lost traction and went into the ditch. I was stuck between the top of the p***enger seat and the roof, friend one was thrown about 60 feet, friend 2 was stuck in the back seat. We rolled eight times according to witnesses, we all walked away. From that day forward it has been straight line stuff only and no more ****ing around playing Watkins Glen with a street car. The
Lord was watching over me that day and has continued to do so.

E.T.A. After looking at the pictures for a minute, I can taste the dust, smell the gas and oil, and feel the gl*** slicing into my back. Weird....

 

it was 79' and i was heading north on I-5 through seattle delivering a van load of 49' hudson parts,pretty much a whole car cut into pieces and had 3 wheels come loose leaving just the centers bolted on. brand new "crome spoke" wheel and daytona radials, my first new set of custom wheels 3 days old. get a ride to tow yard and back to van driver hooks up and goes 100' and bamm! his engine blows up in tow truck. driver calls for another truck and when he's pulling the blown up truck out of the way they fail to realize the magnetic light are still mounted and looped around my mirrors, ripped both mirrors right off the doors. it was a really expensive day for the guy that sold me the wheels as he agreed to pay for everything as long as i didn't say a word to anyone. found out years later he had been selling "offshore wheels" in reused name brand boxes but was no longer doing it because he was in jail for arson and insurance fraud.

 

Have you noticed all the "thanks you's" were when we are in deep ****. lol Just a reminder to thank Him every day for the good stuff too. I'm cerrtainly as guilty as the next guy on this one.
GV

 

...last time I farted and it was DRY!!!....

 

i have two that come to mind. the first one is when i got t-boned by a t-bird doing sixty. i was in my '88 formula firebird i got a week earlier. no one got injured more than bumps and bruises. my fault i pulled out in front of him. if i had been in my '89 lincoln or '78 f100 i also had at the time he would be dead. (thank you god). the other was when the brakes went out on my '65 c10 in the parking lot at work (all right!) right after i had just droped my daughter off at daycare. (wooohooo). no damage to the truck and no one hurt. quick fix too, just a slow leaking line and i was out of fluid.

 

I've got a bunch, but these are the ones that could have really hurt..always put a wheel/tire under the frame if you're working under the car and it's on jack stands or a floor jack. It saved my life during a roadside fix.

Always put a safety chain over the cross member of a car on a trailer. I somehow drove through Atlanta rush-hour traffic with the '54 Buick on a trailer, and the next day when I went to move the truck and trailer in front of my house, the Buick rolled off the back ofthe trailer because the tie downs were sawed through from contact with the frame. It didn't snap or pop or anything...I literally drove the trailer right out from under the car.

Always check the MARKS on a battery when you're jumping it. Don't trust that the red cable is going to positive and the black is going to negative. Right before hooking the cables up, I checked just to see if I could get it started again, even though it was so dead the solenoid wouldn't even click. It fired right off, and because it did I didn't wear a face full of battery acid that day. I didn't realize the cables were wrong until much, much later.

Same trip, got hit by a drunk while crossing the street. It's amazing how fast your mind works: My leg/ankle was pinched between the bumper and the ground as I was rolling up onto his hood and the car was nosediving from hitting the brakes (he hit me from behind), and i thought "Pull your leg out of there or it's going to snap!" and I pulled it out. I landed flat on my back on his hood and hit my head by his windshield, and then he hit the brakes and I went sailig like a Frisbee...As I was going through the air, I thought "Don't hit your head on the concrete! Don't hit your head on the concrete!" and tucked up, landing square on my *** and elbows. My camera was in my right hand, and when I hit the ground it hit hard and I thought "Damn...that's the third time that camera has hit the ground!" immediately followed by "Roll out of the way, he could still be moving" so I rolled onto the yellow line. Got up, hobbled over to his car (My ankle was really sore, but nothing was poking out of my sock or pant leg) and took my hat off his windshield. A few seconds later he sped off, and that's when I found out that my camera was in fact busted, because it wouldn't take a pic of his license plate while he was speeding away. As I limped back across the road, my son was standing there watching me. When I got onto the gr***, he said "What was that all about?" "He hit me with his car!" I replied. "Oh. I WONDERED what you were doing on his hood." Then he turned around and we walked back into the restaraunt to wait for the cops. I think his reply is the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. I don't know why, but I still laugh when I remember that part of it.

I was greatful that night that I wasn't dead, and greatful the following morning when I woke up--I was worried the paramedics might have missed something and I'd have a blood clot or something stupid.

After that trip, I made an appointment with my Pastor to get dunked.

And as GV suggested, I frequently do take the time to say "thanks" just for still being around, and for everything I've got.

Have a couple near-death experiences, and all the mechanical or day-to-day troubles we have really don't warrant a "thanks for working that out for me."

-Brad

 

got a couple, but this is the most recent...

I have a '50 Lincoln, originally with a 337 flattie. Drove it like that for 8 years until this past winter i got bored, sold the flattie, and picked up a nice 429 caddy. My dad and i took it out after the trans (400) was rebuilt, and we were checking out our carb linkage. No front fenders, no hood, no bumper.

Well. i had it in 2nd gear...or so i thought. It felt like it had one more gear to go, so i moved the shifter to what i thought was "D". I should also point at at this point that the original trans was " N D L R". didn't have my tag put in to tell me what gear i was in..

SO, long story short ...it turns out the car will indeed go in reverse at 40 miles an hour pretty easily all the while spinning you sideways toward a ditch, a single lane bridge, and a creek 20 feet down.

somehow i drove wonderfully, my dad had the cool to reach over and hit a different gear, and we stopped skidding about 8 inches from the ditch.

that'll make you check your drawers

 

Anyone who grows up in these parts and doesn't have at least ten or more to tell has lived a sheltered life...I guess it just goes with the environment...

Here in Franklin County, AR, there's enough miles of curvy dirt/gravel roads in the mountains to keep Pikes Peak wannabes busy for years. Thankfully, there's not much room to get up much speed in a car not prepared for it.
I've had too many inexplicable and unbelievable close calls up there doing stupid things in cars not meant for it....'51 Ford business coupes and '59 Biscaynes are not meant to do po'boy rallying...

The closest I've come to meeting up with my maker isn't nearly as scary as some of what I've read in this post, but scared me none-the-less.

Dad's Dodge dually diesel has seen a rough life, but the ol' man keeps truckin...anyway, he had a guy at the local welding shop build a hitch that attached to the frame, because supposedly the bumper setup on a 1-ton Dodge truck isn't sufficient for hauling an eighteen foot trailer loaded to the top of the sideboards with melons...eh...I wouldn't think so either.

Dad sells watermelons and other fresh produce when he can get it, one trip we make often is to the McAllen or Edinburg TX areas. The night we left for this one particular trip, I noticed the safety chains weren't hooked up...I started to put them in the holes on the bumper, Dad stopped me and said the should go on the hitch...I looked at it for a second, he went on to the cab, I put them in the bumper anyway, just being a smart***...

The trip down went fine...on the way back, we got as far as Victoria when there was a loud cracking sound when we hit a rough spot going onto a bridge...everything seemed fine, dad didn't want to pull over...until the temp gauge went up. Seems two blades came loose from the fan and one had went through the Radiator, the other...well, never found it...stuck overnight waiting for a new fan and radiator, got it, put them in the next morning and took off. Dad had other places to go, so it was getting late when we got close to Ft Worth...

in the 5 PM traffic, the truck starts doing the whole "pushing" us thing...it was feeling odd, I stopped on the side of the road and looked everything over...except where the hitch was attached to the frame...I got in the driver's seat and headed back into the flow of traffic...not wanting to be a roadblock, I was driving just as fast as everyone else on the freeway, dad was freakin' out about it saying he didn't care if everyone else was going that fast...once I convinced him that we would be in more danger going slow, he relented.

"Hey..uh...dad, hang on..." What? "Uhm...just dont worry about it, hang on...."

I was telling him to hang on, because right in the middle of bumper to bumper traffic rolling down the freeway at 70+mph, the trailer was going everywhere behind us, not just fishtailing, mind you, the WHOLE DAMN TRAILER. The trailer went just under a semi trailer that was to the left of us, and back out, I don't know what happened to everything on the right, because it parted like the red sea for Moses...I managed to get slowed down without trying to lock up the brakes, made it to the right shoulder and stopped just past an off-ramp.

The emergency break-away trailer brake thing had not been charged at all (dad just had it there because it HAD to be), but it worked....I dont know if it charged from some kinda induction or what...but it worked, that one time. The trailer electrical connector had not come apart, but all the wires were yanked out...and that marvelous hitch ***embly the guy made for dad? was twisted around and gouging the pavement, only one of the 4 bolts he used to put it in was still attached and holding the mangled piece of steel under the truck. yeah, that's right...BOLTED ON. the ONLY thing holding the trailer to the truck was the safety chains that I had put on the bumper instead of the hitch like dad tried to get me to do...I prayed, one of those loud "Thank You" prayers right there on the side of the road...

The trailer did just fine from Ft Worth to Ozark, AR hooked to the bumper after that point...after taking the mangled mess off, rigging the lights, and dad telling me to just get us home

I've not seen my dad shed tears except when someone has died...when we got home early that next morning, he hugged mom and broke down.

Me? I took a shower and slept for 12 hours. He's not said much about my driving since, but I swear it had more to do with someone, somewhere watching over us, and someone praying mighty hard about that time than ANY amount of driving experience I could ever have.

I wish dad wasn't so cheap...and would get a goose-neck....