[Osage Orange]

When I bought my first car, a '29 A coupe, I didn't check anything on it before driving it 30 minutes home in rush hour city traffic. Well, first the front brakes weren't working, then I lost a clevis pin on the left rear, so the first stop sign I came to, I locked up the right rear tire and sent billows of tire smoke into the air as I screeched diagonally through the intersection, barely missing oncoming traffic. When I finally got to my neighborhood, the last half block was on a pretty steep hill downward, then the driveway also went downward. I got the car stopped and parked just in time. The emergency brake handle clevis also came out, so as I rubbed the front tires along a brick curb next to our house, the car finally came to a stop. I put it into reverse, grabbed two concrete blocks to put in front of it and learned quickly how to install brake clevises, how to adjust mechanical brakes and how to change and adjust brake shoes. I had icewater in my veins back then. Nothing fazed me. Nowadays, after 17 years of being a newspaper reporter and seeing dozens of horrible crashes, even screeching tires rattles me.