Harking back to my first driving disaster

kw: observations, musings, driving

I just had to comment on this cartoon. Sad to say, I'd already worked the Sudoku on a following page before I decided to scan the cartoon and post it. Luckily the numbers don't show too bad.

On a rainy day in 1963, I was about 15½, and my Dad would let me put the car in the garage or move it out to the driveway. My street shoes had slippery soles, and when I put my wet shoe on the brake, it slipped off onto the gas pedal. The front of the car got about three feet beyond the back of the garage before stalling.

It didn't burst through the wall like Jeremy's Dad's car here. It pushed the back wall loose from the side walls, bending it a little, and just raised it like a big garage door on a hinge. My Dad is the kind of fellow who thinks little of remodeling houses—with our help, he has moved windows or added a room or half room or roof cupola to every house we owned while I was growing up. After the nest emptied and he retired, he, without our help, added an office loft to the newest house he and Mom bought, by walling off a third of the attic and installing a stairway to it.

So, Dad and I proceeded to jack the garage's wall back into place, replacing a couple of pieces of broken siding, and I had the job or repainting the outside. I wonder what today's paper will show Jeremy doing…