Linda Stories

                                       
                                                       Linda Stories


                                 Accident Prone

     When Linda and I were dating my dad called to tell me my brother Pat was going into the Navy and would I want his car, just take over the payments. Up until this time I would hitchhike from the base in Cocoa Beach to Linda's house a distance of about 20 miles, at least two of those miles involved walking so obviously my answer was yes. The car was a six year old 1960 Ford in good condition.
     Funds were limited in those days, I only made $49.00 every two weeks but I had to have a car. I took leave and went home to get the car. I left Nashville with probably no more than $25 -$35 which should have been enough but then I wasn't counting on the generator going bad, to make a long story short I arrived back at the base with fumes in my tank and empty pockets.
     Linda and I made good use of the car, we were both proud of it. I decided that Linda needed to learn to drive it. She protested at first but I kept at her until she finally got behind the wheel. The street she lived on was short and you had to turn onto a rather busy two lane road. There was no power steering in the car, to make a sharp turn required having to turn the steering wheel completely around at least twice. Traffic was heavy going left so I had Linda turn right, she pulled out and started to make the turn but she failed to turn sharp enough and we wound up getting hit almost head-on.  Our injuries were light, mostly bruises but the car was totaled and Linda received a citation.
      Linda was very upset about the wreck, after all she had totaled my car. Any other suitor might have walked away taking this incident as an omen of things to come but I didn't see it that way. I may have lost the car but I still had the girl.
     This was accident number 1.


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     In 1972 we bought our first new car, it was a 1972 Dodge Demon the cheapest model they had, no carpet, air conditioning or automatic transmission and the seats were vinyl. To be honest gas prices were rising sharply and I could no longer afford my 69 GTO.
     I was working at a bank downtown and spent days at a time chasing people who wouldn't pay their bills and the bank provided me with a company car. Most of the time Linda road a bus to work so she would only need our car for grocery shopping and the like.
     One night I returned home and there sat the Demon in the drive, I noticed that the right front fender appeared as if someone had tried to open it with a giant can opener. I went inside where Linda was sitting on the couch crocheting. When I asked her what happened to the car she just gave me a strange look. She honestly had no idea of the damage.
     I finally deduced that two nights prior there had been a heavy rain storm and Linda had been caught out in it, rather than pull over to the side of the road and wait for it to pass she just slowed down and kept going ( she could be stubborn like that ). One part of the route home was a short curvy stretch of road that passed a house where a plumber lived and he often parked his work truck in the drive and that night it must have had a pipe protruding from the bed and Linda hit it as she passed by.
     We never fixed the fender we drove the car for another year or so and sold it as is to a mailman in the country. I suspect he never fixed it either.
     This was accident number 2.


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     Not long after we bought the previously mentioned Demon I had an opportunity to purchase a boat from a bank I worked with in Muscle Shoals, Al. The bank had repossessed the boat and needed to get rid of it and after several months made me a deal I couldn't pass up. It was a nice boat that originally cost about $4ooo and I got it for $1900. It was 18 ft. in length, tri hull design, walk thru windshield with a 125 hp. Johnson engine.
     We spent every weekend at the lake waterskiing or camping or both, we enjoyed the lake so much we bought a house just 200 yards from the water and kept the boat at a boat dock so we didn't have to be troubled with launching and loading the boat whenever we wanted to use it.
     One Saturday before we moved to the lake we picked up my little brother Ronnie and went to the lake for a day of waterskiing. Everything went fine until Linda, who was driving the boat with Ronnie sitting beside her, turned into this cove that was long and narrow. She quickly saw that there was other boat traffic in the cove headed her way. There was a side cove to the right, it was small but more importantly shallow and strewn with rocks. I  knew very well what was about to happen so I tried pulling on the rope to get Linda's attention but to no avail and finally I just tossed the rope in the air and settled into knee deep water. Linda kept going and hit some rocks going full blast, the engine raised up in the air and slammed down hard on the transom and raced at high speed before shutting down. I walked over to the boat and I must say I was pissed, I remember not saying anything at all. I checked the engine and found that all of the propeller blades had been sheared off to some extent, there was a dent in the lower unit but the motor ran.
     We were about a mile from he dock and the motor would barely make headway so it was a long quiet ride back. When we got to the dock I stepped out and tied up the boat and walked to the car, got in and started it, Linda and Ronnie were so concerned over my silence they ran to keep up so they wouldn't be left behind. I dropped Ronnie off at home without getting out of the car, when I reached our house I walked straight to the bedroom and went to bed. In all this time I never said a word.
     About an hour later I stirred in my sleep and awoke to find Linda stuffing clothes in a suitcase, tears were silently running down her cheeks.When I asked where she was going she said she was leaving me because she broke everything I had and didn't want to cause me anymore pain, I would be better off without her. I can't get down to details but let's just say that after pulling her down on the bed and kissing away the tears and telling her how much I loved her, I convinced her to unpack.
     Days later I found out that all the boat needed was a new $30 propeller, a far cry from what I thought. Linda learned to stay out of that shallow cove and I still cherish the memory of kissing away Linda's tears.
     That was accident number 3.


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     Things went pretty well for the next twenty years or so. It was sometime in the late nineties when I came home one night to find the Ford Taurus Linda drove was gone but Linda was home. Seems she had been out shopping and was stopped at a light when a cement truck rear ended her totaling
 the car.
     I wasn't involved in this and Linda assured me that it was all being taken care of, Linda was unhurt and that was the important thing.
     This was accident number 4.



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     Next comes the Dodge pickup truck we purchased in the later nineties. During this period I worked a very late second shift and Linda made doughnuts for the Ingles store often going to work around four in the morning, she drove the truck.
     One morning I was turning into the subdivision just as Linda was turning on to the hi-way. I glanced into the rear view mirror and noticed there was only one tail light showing. I turned around and drove to Ingles, Linda was already inside when I pulled along side the truck.  There it was, the right rear taillight busted and a piece if tree bark was embedded in it. Linda had no idea what had happened.
     Once I got home the sun was starting to come up and it didn't take long to figure things out. Linda had somehow managed to hit a small oak tree while backing out of the drive. Linda said it was dark  and our truck windows were dark tinted so she couldn't see the side mirrors while backing up. That was her story and she was sticking to it, beyond that I still haven't figured out how she managed to back up the drive and run into a tree four feet away from the driveway.
     I repaired the truck cheaply enough and decided Linda may need more room while backing so I cut down the tree. I liked that tree.
     This was accident number 5.



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     In 2007 we bought a new Ford truck, this was to be the last vehicle we would own, this was the truck the boys would fight over when we were gone, and it well may be after all.
     Not long after Linda was diagnosed with her heart troubles, she went shopping in Athens. I was in the garage when she pulled up, she got out of the truck and said " I'm alright ". The truck was a different story, the most obvious thing was the right side of the front bumper was actually bent around into the wheel well and folded back on itself, this was a steel bumper mind you. Other than that, most of the front end had to be replaced as well as the right front door. Total repair cost about $8500.
     Seems that Linda was on her way home and realized she was in the wrong lane and before she could change lanes the car in front of her stopped. The lady in the other car told police that she was not hurt but not surprisingly racked up a decent medical bill later, the whole thing wound up costing $38,000 .
     Linda was already starting to have some medical issues so I decided to retire her from driving, from that point on I drove her where ever she needed to go, I didn't mind as I got to hold her hand as I drove.
     The truck is still going, it has 110,000 miles and according to Ford after charging me $650 for a tune up it is good for another 100,000 miles. We'll see about that.
     This was accident number 6.

     Update: it is now 2023, the truck has about 158,000 miles. I only use it to tow the boat to the lake or pick up lumber at Lowe's.


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     Now before you assume that I never had an accident I must in all honesty say that I had my share. There was the new 1980 Chevy Malibu that I was driving when a woman decide she wanted my space on the road. We also had a Chevy Monte Carlo I was driving home from work when a big deer decided run across the road. The above mentioned Dodge truck attracted deer like flies, I killed two of them at the same spot in the road a year apart.
     These accidents that Linda seemed to be prone to were often a source of humor to our friends and a momentary irritant to me. Linda did several things that would make me bite my tongue but I could never stay mad at her, I loved her too much.
     I wish she were here now, I would let her drive the truck.