I knew a lady who had an ederly Packard car. One day, on her way to work, she was in stop-and-go traffic when the drive shaft fell out and rolled over against the curb.

I was walking on a dirt road one day when I saw a '49 Ford coming toward me. The universal joint behind the transmission broke, the end of the drive shaft fell down and dug into the ground and the back of the car pole vaulted about six feet into the air. It stopped abruptly, and stood there in that position for a few seconds, then swung over to one side and landed on it's wheels.

A lady I knew was on her way to a covered dish supper. She had a large Jello salad on the seat beside her. The car slipped on some ice, spun around backwards, slid up a guy wire on a utility pole, and then flipped upside down. She was unhurt, but she was covered with Jello. So was the interior of her car.

A man called the police station and said that his engine was missing. The desk sargeant suggested that he take it to a good mechanic. But the man said, "You don't understand. Somebody stole my engine."

In a hilly area in California, a pool service man parked his truck and walked around to the back yard of a house just in time to see his truck burst through a hedge and into the pool.

My uncle was driving his old Studebaker down the street when the steering wheel came off in his hand. He waved the wheel out the window and applied the brakes. After he stopped on the wrong side of the road, someone asked him why he had the steering wheel out the window. He said that it was the quickest way to let other drivers know what was wrong, so they could get out of the way.

A woman came into a service station, all out of breath. "Help me start my car! Quick!"

"OK, lady," the man said, "We'll get to it in a few minutes. Where is it?"

"Down there on the railroad track," she said.

My mother and I came out of a store one night, got into the car and drove around the corner. "It sure is dark on this street," she said.

"Turn the headlights on, Mom," I said.

A short time later, she stopped for a green light. When it turned red, she took off. My mother was a busy person, and sometimes she was preoccupied. That's not good when you are driving.

One day, Mom looked out in front of the house and the car was gone. She called my father to tell him that someone had stolen the car, but during the conversation, she said, "No, wait. I know where it is." It seems she had taken my father to work, and on the way home she stopped at a neighborhood grocery less than a block for home. Normally, she would have walked to the store, so when she was through shopping she walked home.

Back in the days when cars had a foot starter, one of our neighbors was having trouble getting his car to start. My father walked over and asked him if he had plenty of gas. The man said he did. By this time my father was looking inside the car, so he said,"Have you tried the ignition?" After he turned the ignition on, the car started. He thanked my father and promptly backed into a utility pole. My father suggested that he take the bus.

I came out of the Wal-Mart the other day and walked up and down the parking lot looking for my truck. It wasn't there. I was just about to call the police when I found my car.

One day I came out of a store and had trouble unlocking my Subaru station wagon. The key wouldn't turn in the lock. It was the right key. Then I noticed that there was a luggage rack on top of the car. My car, which was the same color, didn't have a luggage rack. It was parked in the next space. In those days there were lots of white Subaru station wagons around.

One day I had a flat. The tire went down while the car was on the carport. So I jacked it up and put the spare on. I put the tire in the trunk to take it to the tire place to have it fixed. But the car wouldn't go. It started OK, and the engine roared, but it just shook and wouldn't go. It was still on the jack.

That same car had really weird brakes. They would stop you, but you never knew which lane you would be in or which direction you would be headed. It also had bad shift linkage. Sometimes you had to beat it into gear with your fist. For a while, if the air condition was on the heater came on too. It was a bad heater control valve.
Howard