In the summer of 1965 while a junior at good ole Houlton High School in Maine, my father trusted me to buy and own a 1956 Ford 2-Door Victoria with that great big V-8 with Thunderbird badging on the valve covers. A few days after I owned it some friends and I took it over to Canada, 12 miles away. We picked up 3 more guys and had a total of six young punks in the car. Time to take it out onto the new 2 lane Trans Canada Highway and see what she would do. At 110 mph I came upon a slower moving car and went to pass it. There was another car coming and I did not trust that he would pull over into the breakdown lane so being an idiot, I nailed the breaks. The car spun around twice going down backwards into the ledgy ditch. Lots of dust and a flat tire. We changed it and were on our way. I called dad and told him a whopper. He wanted to use the car to go to Bocabec and being a mechanic put it on the lift to check it out. I was at the dinner table when he came home and through the door. He pointed one of his massive fingers at me and said, "come out side, we need to talk." He said that there were rocks between the rubber bead of 3 tires and the rim. The whole undercarriage was scratched. I knew I had to come clean. I often wonder why we didn't roll over that dusky summer evening. Just luck of the draw, I guess. There was lots of physics at work. Thanks dad for not reaming me out too bad. He was a pretty understanding dad, I miss him. Bocabec and I are still here. I learned a lesson.
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