Car Stories

I mentioned my 1966 Cadillac 4-door Sedan de Ville in the hitchhiking memory -- here's the story of how it died, but I didn't. The car was a "hand me down" -- it had been our family car, but it became my primary transportation at the beginning of our pisshead year. The plan was for me to drive it until graduation, when I was promised the first (and only) new car of my own. In late spring of our sergebutt year, I had made a weekend trip home. Unusually for me, it was a solo trip. My first Monday class that semester wasn't until 9am, so I decided to stay home on Sunday night, get up early Monday morning, and time the three-and-a-half-hour drive so that I could make it to the dorm, into my uniform, and to class on time.

Everything worked OK until I got to Temple, Texas, which is about two-thirds of the way to College Station from Brownwood. As Texas 36 crosses I-35, it is a divided four-lane highway bridge. Speed demon that I was (and am), I was on the inside lane, slowing down from warp speed because right after that bridge, there's a stop light as you enter down-town Temple. There was an almost-solid line of traffic in the right lane. On the east side of the bridge, the northbound frontage road of I-35 has a stop sign. Apparently, a kind soul in the right lane of TX 36 decided to let a woman in a station-wagon come across TX 36 in front of him. She must have figured that since the right lane of TX 36 was stopped, the left lane should be, too, and came across the left lane just in time for me to T-bone her just aft of the left-front door.

I never even had time to hit the brakes. This was before airbags, but I always wore my seatbelt and shoulder harness -- it made sense to me, because flying is a lot safer than driving, and pilots always wear seat belts and shoulder harnesses. The impact totaled both cars. I wasn't injured, but I was mad as hell -- the Cadillac had 99,282 miles on it, and I was really looking forward to seeing it turn over 100,000. I got out and headed for the station wagon, but I saw that the driver was a woman, that she was bleeding from a scalp laceration, and that there were people helping her, so I decided that I really shouldn't slug her for being stupid and nearly killing us both. The police arranged for wreckers, and I called my Dad from the wrecking yard. I hitched a ride on to College Station, but I didn't make the 9am class.

Two weeks later, I made it back to Brownwood, where I picked up my late Grandfather's 1966 Chevy Impala that had been sitting out on our driveway with a "For Sale" sign on it, and drove it back to Temple. Dad had told me that the insurance company considered the Cadillac totaled, and he wanted me to get all my personal stuff out of it before he released it to them. I went to the wrecking yard, found the Cadillac, and, just like Shotgun's mule, found that it was still alive -- the clock was still keeping good time! Besides my personal gear from the car, I also managed to un-bolt the frame-mount trailer hitch, and stuff it into the Chevy's trunk.

About Christmas of 1972, when I got my new 1973 Monte Carlo, I dug out the trailer hitch frame, and with the help of a welding shop, had it installed on the new car, where it stayed until about 1985. When I got rid of the Monte Carlo, I again harvested the trailer hitch, and, this time, had it mounted on a full-size GMC van. About four years later, I traded vans, and, once again, transferred the hitch. There it remained, as a reminder to me of its original "donor" every time I pulled a trailer full of Boy Scout gear to a weekend or summer camp, through 2000. That's when I bought a Corvette and had no more use for the trailer hitch that had started out on that 1966 Cadillac.

John (Yankus) Yantis

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It must have been our sergebutt year and Billy was dating Marcia over at Sam Houston State (Huntsville). I was his ride over there and back so Marcia fixed me up with a blind date. There wasn't much to do in Huntsville for us so we headed down the road to the county line to a bar in the next county. Just like Brazos County (where A&M was located) the county where Huntsville was located was "dry" - no liquor could be sold there. However, there always seemed to be "wet" counties next to the dry ones so liquor stores and bars lined the road just inside the wet county.

Later that night we dropped the girls off at their dorm and headed back to A&M. It must have been 1 or 2 in the morning so Billy was out like a light just minutes into the drive. I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes opened.

I had perfected a driving technique that I used when I was really tired. There was no use trying to keep my eyes continuously opened so I did something different. I would close my eyes and probably doze for a few seconds. Somehow, I always managed to will myself to open my eyes every few seconds to check the road.

We had been driving like that for some time. At some point in the drive I has just opened my eyes for a quick look and then I let them close again. I was processing what I had seen when I suddenly realized that something hadn't looked right. I opened my eyes and saw a horse in the middle of the road directly in our path.

The adrenaline quickly kicked in and I whipped the steering wheel to the right. We went flying across the shoulder and into the bar ditch. By now Billy was whipped around enough that he was wide awake too. I finally gained control of the car and steered back onto the road. We were both wide-awake for the rest of the trip.

Tom (TE) Schoolcraft