Everyone should take a "trip" sometime during their lifetime. Mine was to Milwaukee, where husband and his brother-in-law were working. It was a 200 mile trip, but I thought it would be fun to surprise them by showing up unexpectedly. Not wanting to drive it alone ------ being a month away from having first baby ------- I conned some others into going along. One was my mother, who should have known better, the others my sister and her 6 year old daughter.

      What we didn't know about cars would fill the Library of Congress, so in our ignorance we surmised that the old car that sat in the back yard would surely take us to Milwaukee and back. We also thought that all tires fit all cars, and that the 4 or 5 tires that we found would surely be useable, should we need them ......... piling them confidently into the back seat. Even if they had fit, we did not have the tools or the know-how to change a tire.

      If I remember correctly, the car also did not have a license, so one had to be sent for in order for us to paste the money order onto the windshield.

      Eventually we got some clothes packed into paper bags, (depression, remember?) and some lunch into a cardboard box, and so began our great adventure.

      Shortly after departure, we found that the gas pedal did nothing about pumping gas, and as this car was older than any living thing, it came with a choke, which I worked while sister did the driving and worked the brake.

      The next crisis showed itself as we approached Green Bay in a cloudburst, and turned on the windshield wipers ............. excuse me, TRIED to turn on the windshield wipers. Second thing that didn't work. As I was in the passenger side, I reached around the windshield to work the wipers by hand, getting soaked almost completely in the process.

      After we worked our way through the downpour to the south side of Green Bay where it tapered off, we had smooth sailing until we were almost to Milwaukee and needed the headlights. They WORKED !!!!

      But not for long............Luckily we found a box of fuses and the place they fit into, but each fuse only lasted about a mile and then had to be replaced.

      We finally reached the city limits and drove into a gas station/garage to see if something could be done about the light problem. The mechanic on duty thought it might be something that needed extensive studying, not to be corrected at this hour of the night.

      They say there are no more caring people in the world, well, that nice man insisted on driving us to the rooming house where the guys were staying, not satisfied with letting us travel it alone, but I think I saw a lot of sweat running down his face, and quite possibly his hands were shaking also.

      But we sure did surprise them. John kept saying "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, well, I saw it with my own eyes and I STILL don't believe it."

      They found us a couple of rooms in a nearby hotel and we sailed in with our paper bags of clothes as though we were toting suitcases from Saks Fifth Avenue. Somewhere along the trail sister had sat on a banana, which didn't add to our dignity.

      If we thought we were taking that car on a return trip we surely thought wrong.......the next day they put us on the train back home, even as we were arguing that we could drive. A week later husband driove it home, and it was just as we said.............no trouble at all, we could have done it easily.

      Now doesn't this make you all want to make a "trip"?