MEMORIES FROM SOME OF MY "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING'" DAYS

THE SUMMER OF 1968
MY CHEAP ROAD TRIP TO CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK AND BACK

In the summer of 1968, while I was a third theology seminarian, I signed up as the first Catholic seminarian for a program offered by the United Church of Christ called "A Christian Ministry in the National Parks." It was a program to give seminary students experience in ministry. Since I was the head of a team of three assigned to work together, I was directed to preach every weekend in three campgrounds of Crater Lake National Park. On my team was a Episcopal seminarian from Illinois who was to run a Sunday School and a Christian Church female seminarian from Texas who was to be our music minister. We all met in Chicago to be trained at Saint Richard Episcopal Church.  

Each seminarian was also required to have a job in the park. I was hired to be the night desk clerk at the main lodge. I also filled in as a garbage truck driver, bar tender and wine steward in the dining room. 

I had the great honor of being selected to be the Master of Ceremonies for the Miss Crater Lake Beauty Pageant. Each department had an entry. The rules were they had to make their dresses for less than $2.00 around the theme of their department. "Miss Garbage Truck" won that summer in a dress made from green garbage bags. 

FIRST, I HAD TO FIND A CHEAP WAY TO GET THERE

   

GOING OUT, I DELIVERED A 1967 LINCOLN CONTINENTAL CONVERTIBLE

When you don't have any money to follow your dreams, you have to be imaginative. I heard that I could deliver a car across country for a firm in Chicago. I was given a car just like the one pictured above to deliver from Chicago to Seattle. From there I took a bus down to Crater Lake. 

The trip across country was wonderful. The car felt as smooth as if I were floating across water. I only encountered two problems. First, I got a speeding ticket in Nebraska. Even though there was no cop car in sight on the open roads of Nebraska, there are police helicopters who can spot you and alert a police cruiser. Second, I left Chicago with the top down. Thank God it did not rain, because I had no idea how to close the top. I was even forced to drive through the snow in Washington state with the top down which resulted in me getting a terrible cold. It wasn't till I was almost to the place where I was to deliver the convertible that I found out that the button for opening and closing the top was inside the glove compartment! Inside the glove compartment, for God's sake!!!

SECOND, I HAD TO FIND A CHEAP WAY TO GET HOME

COMING BACK, I DROVE MY FREE 1951 BUICK ROADMASTER

At the end of the summer, I needed a cheap way to get home or else spend a big chunk of what I had earned that summer. This is how naive I was! I was going to try to deliver the cab for a semi-trailer back to Chicago, until one of the summer workers offered me a free car. My free car  was just like the one shown above. 

He had driven it from Connecticut. It had belonged to an old lady who had kept it in her garage for years. He drove it across country, all through California until one of the wheels (left front) came off on a California freeway causing great damage to the axle where the lug bolts hold the wheel on.  The only thing he could do was to weld it back on which meant that it would never come off for a tire change. 

That was not all that was wrong with it. The compression was so bad that I had to get a push to get it started on my 2400 mile trip home. This meant that I could never turn the engine off. I had to let it run when I stopped to eat or nap. Someone made a bet that I would not make it out of Oregon! 

Things were going pretty well as I left  Oregon, crossed Idaho and entered Wyoming. Half-way across Wyoming, near the town of Medicine Bow but still in the middle of no where, I had a flat tire. Miraculously, it was not the  front left (the one that was welded on), but the front right tire.  

I got the bumper jack out of the car and started to change tires.

I was parked on the blacktop since nothing was coming in either direction for miles and miles. Once I got to the top of the jack, I noticed the car was still on the pavement. That old car was extremely heavy. On closer examination, the jack had gone down into the pavement rather than raise that heavy old car up. There was no way to budge the jack pole embedded into asphalt. I could not just abandon the car, nor could I change the tire, nor was there any human habitation for miles and miles. I was screwed! I don't know why I looked in the trunk, but when I did I miraculously found another jack - this time a scissors jack. I changed the tire and continued my trip. 

In Missouri, I wanted to stop at a roadside cafe to eat. I pulled into the parking lot and instinctively turned off the key. I was screwed again! I was forced to call a tow truck to help me get it started again. As the tow truck was about to pull into the parking lot, I decided to try it again to see if it would start. Miraculously, it started! Knowing I could not afford a tow truck charge, I peeled out of that parking lot and was gone before that tow truck knew what was happening.

I barely made it home the night before I was to report back to the seminary. I left the car at my parents house until I could get a weekend off to see what to do with it. It never started again, no matter how much I pushed it or pulled it. I gave it away and it sat the rest of its days in a junkyard. 

The engine was a mess. The axle on the front left needed some work. However, the body and interior were almost perfect because the old lady had used it gently and kept it in her garage for years. To this day, I wish I had put it in a barn and covered it up. It would have been a fabulous old restoration project! 

The weirdest thing to happen was the day when the young man who gave me the car showed up on a motorcycle at the seminary about a month later looking for me. He was on his way back to Connecticut and could not believe that I had made it! He wanted to see for himself! He was not the one who had made the bet, so I could not collect! 

When you're young, you take risks like that! I am glad I had some of those childlike experiences, without getting seriously hurt. Old people think themselves out of so much fun by being too careful! Looking back, there were so many things that could have gone terribly wrong! As Otto von Bismarck once famously said, "There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America."