Way back in 1977, shortly after my eighteenth birthday, myself and a small group of others piled into my 1971 Ford LTD for a trip to Misqumicut Beach in Rhode Island. It was a Saturday and drove the 50 or so miles north on I-95 for a night of revelry. At the end of the night we piled into the car and headed home. For some reason, I like to believe it was Devine intervention, I initially took U.S. 1 south instead of getting on the connector to I-95. I was in Westerly, R.I on Route 1, when suddenly the right rear wheel fell off and rolled by and into the break down lane and into the adjoining brush and overgrowth along the side of the road. It didn’t take long to navigate to the side of the road, and upon investigating the void where the tire once was, discovered the brake drum had separated along with the wheel. We located the wheel quickly enough, but after a half hour of searching, the drum was nowhere to be found. Upon retrieving the wheel, I had the good fortune of finding all of the lug nuts contained inside of the wheel cover. I reinstalled the wheel, and with the utmost care, nursed the car home, applying the brakes ever so gingerly as to not blow out the wheel cylinder. I successfully navigated home without further incident, though it took twice as long. The next morning, after conducting a thorough inspection, I discovered that the brake cylinder was fine and the only loss was the brake drum, which was a quick fix after a visit to Rocklen’s Auto Parts. I torqued ALL of the lugs nuts on each wheel and was good to go. I could never figure out what really happened as I always torqued the lug nuts when installing the wheels, and had not performed any swaps or changes for at least two months prior. The only thing I could think was somebody at Misquamicut Beach committed a random act of criminal mischief of which I was the victim. At the end of the day we all were all right and survived without any lasting effects, except a memory retold every so often when we do get together.
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