"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" 2025 # 12

THELMA AND LOUISE GET A TICKET AND A COLD

Back in the summer of 1968, when I was in the third year of Theology at St. Meinrad, my friend Pat Murphy and I decided to sign up for a United Church of Christ program for seminary students who were willing to offer interdenominational campground services in one of the National Parks. We attended an orientation program at an Episcopal Church in Chicago. He was assigned to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and I was assigned to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. 

As a cheap way to get out to our assignments, we heard about a company called Drive-Away-Cars. You could deliver a used car to Seattle from Chicago just by paying for the gas. We got a Lincoln Continental convertible to deliver. We considered ourselves two of the luckiest people in the world. We felt we had just won "the jackpot." 

When we arrived to pick it up, the top was down and in our haste we did not ask how to put it up! The weather was good so we didn't even think about asking. We surely looked like male versions of Thelma and Louise. 

All was going well until we got to Nebraska. I was driving that leg of the trip. We were speeding along as if we owned the highway with nothing in sight and no awareness of speed limits. All of a sudden a police car, with lights flashing, came up behind us and pulled us over. I knew we were speeding, so I asked the officer how he knew that we were going so fast since there was nothing in sight for miles and miles except wheat fields. He pointed to the sky and to a helicopter flying above. "We have been tailing you for several miles. Here's your ticket!" 

When we finally arrived in Washington State, it was still early June. There were snowbanks at least one story high on both sides of the road. We then realized that we needed to put the top up, but neither of us could figure out where the button was that would do that so we just put on a coat and kept driving with the top down. That is when we realized our second 'big mistake" - not asking the company before we left Chicago. I have no idea what we would have done if it had started raining somewhere between Chicago and Seattle! In our youth, we were oblivious! 

As it got colder and colder in our convertible, we decided to look for a Lincoln dealership or a garage so we could stop and ask somebody how to put the top up. As it turned out, the button was inside the glove compartment! Who would have thought of such a place to look. We certainly didn't! 

We dropped the car off in Seattle successfully, but I came down with a horrible cold! I took a bus to Klamath Falls, Oregon, and my friend took a bus to somewhere in Wyoming. We both had a good summer, but I cannot even look at a convertible without sneezing even to this day!