Off and away
Ere you left your room this morning, did you think to pray?...hymn # 140
BYU shifted its semester schedule the year I started college. I did not go to BYU, but it had an impact nonetheless because it changed the whole find-a-ride picture. Previously, BYU's schedule had mirrored the local public schools: they started in later September, with Christmas break followed by a return for the end of term and finals, and then the second semester would get out Memorial Day. The point is, now they were starting the end of August, with freshman orientation, class registration, and other preliminary programs earlier than that. The school year would end by May 1. As someone who needed to catch a ride across the country--something not hard to do with the numbers of BYU students heading out from the D.C. area--it left my folks scrambling for options when the calendar didn't match up.
Because-- I was going to be a student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake, on a scholarship from the local alumni association, and the 'U' was on the quarter system. My classes wouldn't start until September 28. We would investigate student standby fares and use them after this, but I had to get out to Utah and we couldn't afford a plane ticket.
Arrangements were made to just send me out ridiculously early. Thanks to the generosity of my Aunt Bonnie and Uncle David, I had a home to go to while waiting for the dorms to open. Mom secured me a spot in a car being taken by a returning BYU junior whose family we had known in another ward, and I was set. The owner of the car was taking me, a friend of hers, and two boys age 10 and 8 who had been visiting relatives and needed to go home. (Their mom had run out of money to buy them airfare.) With all of us chipping in, it made her trip pretty cheap. We were taking off in an older American Motors station wagon, with a rotating assignment to call and report in nightly. Back in those days, long distance phone calls were expensive, 'phone cards' not yet thought of, so we were limited to collect calls; the deal was, one of us would make a quick collect call home each night, and that family would call and report to the others. We had it all figured out.
The day came, the station wagon arrived to load me up and take off, and we were away. My family hugged me goodbye, then stood in the carport and waved as the car backed out of the driveway. Lanie, the junior, remarked, "You're a freshman? Wow, your mom is being awfully calm. The first year I left, my mom was crying." I was the oldest child, to boot--the first departure.
Lanie was concerned that, as a car with three young women and out-of-state plates, if we had any troubles with the car, we could be seen as easy pickings for some mechanic. She determined that she would not make any repairs on the say-so of one person, but would look for a second opinion. Sounded reasonable. The first day's problem was obvious, though: we lost our muffler. The delay to replace it wasn't too bad, and we were off again. I think some other minor problem happened the second day.
The car started making a noise by the time we reached Nebraska. We pulled off into the next town, stopped to consult, and there didn't seem to be anything serious. It continued, and two subsequent places said it sounded like it was probably in the transmission, and as long as we were on the highway, not shifting much, we were okay until it could be looked at in Utah.
But it didn't sound good, and the noise had increased by the time we hit Wyoming. There was just empty space, nowhere to go. As we approached Laramie, Lanie said, "I don't care what they told us, something is wrong. We need to find an American Motors dealership where they will know what they're talking about."
We took an exit, pulled off at a phone booth, and found the one dealership in the Yellow Pages. I think she called them to get directions, but we missed the turn and found ourselves approaching a shop as she said suddenly, we have to stop RIGHT NOW. We pulled in, piled out--three young women ages 21, 20, and 17, and two young boys--and Lanie told our story. They pulled the car into the bay and we went to make the waiting room pretty full.
The mechanic came out with a funny look on his face. When did it start making this noise? We stopped in Omaha first, we told him. You drove this from Omaha here to Laramie? At 70 miles an hour?
He told us that the u-joint was gone. The beginnings of the noise was friction where there shouldn't have been any, because the joint was failing. Highway speed had fully destroyed it, and there was, when we pulled in, nothing keeping the driveshaft in place. Just air. It should have fallen out, hit the pavement and been shot back up by the impact and our momentum right through the center of the back seat. I turned a little green at that point, because the center of the back seat was where I had been sitting. In the process, of course, all control of the car would have been lost. We should all be dead.
We were stuck in Laramie overnight while they started calling around for a new part. The dealership we hadn't reached couldn't help, the car was too old. It was dial-a-junkyard time. This was going to take a while. Now, registration was looming for the BYU students and snow was falling. Were we going to be stuck here? Would they be able to find the part?
Lanie called the operator and asked for a listing for the Mormon Church. She found the listed number for a bishop and called him, and he showed up himself, small children in tow. After assessing our situation and making some phone calls, he lined up places for us to stay the night, and regroup in the morning. The world is a more dangerous place now, and a young bishop today, as a matter of policy, would not be putting strangers into the homes of his ward members, but that's what this one did for us then. He took the two boys himself, and his wife fed all of us before farming us out for the night. They made us feel much better.
We checked in with our families back home, gave a report and thanked them fervently for their prayers for our safe journey--because they had definitely been answered! We had started every day with prayer too. There were angels answering; we had no other reason to be unharmed, and we knew it. Some literal hand had held that car together.
Underway the following afternoon, we had no other problems and made it to Utah, very late. When I called to warn my aunt and uncle that we would be in past midnight, my cousin took down the message on her way out the door, pinned it to the bulletin board, and took off. It apparently fell off and fluttered down behind the bookcase, so they had no warning after all when we were pounding on their door after 1 a.m. They were just glad that I was arrived, because they were worried they hadn't heard anything. Lanie and her friend would have reached Provo by maybe 3 a.m., so they made the 8:00 registration, though they were very bushed.
That was the first, last, and only time that I went back and forth to school in a car. (After all, my starting and ending times still didn't match the BYU schedule, which is where the rides were.) We discovered student standby fares, so at Christmas, and summers, I flew. I got stranded at O'Hare once, but that's another story. I'll save it for another day.
BYU shifted its semester schedule the year I started college. I did not go to BYU, but it had an impact nonetheless because it changed the whole find-a-ride picture. Previously, BYU's schedule had mirrored the local public schools: they started in later September, with Christmas break followed by a return for the end of term and finals, and then the second semester would get out Memorial Day. The point is, now they were starting the end of August, with freshman orientation, class registration, and other preliminary programs earlier than that. The school year would end by May 1. As someone who needed to catch a ride across the country--something not hard to do with the numbers of BYU students heading out from the D.C. area--it left my folks scrambling for options when the calendar didn't match up.
Because-- I was going to be a student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake, on a scholarship from the local alumni association, and the 'U' was on the quarter system. My classes wouldn't start until September 28. We would investigate student standby fares and use them after this, but I had to get out to Utah and we couldn't afford a plane ticket.
Arrangements were made to just send me out ridiculously early. Thanks to the generosity of my Aunt Bonnie and Uncle David, I had a home to go to while waiting for the dorms to open. Mom secured me a spot in a car being taken by a returning BYU junior whose family we had known in another ward, and I was set. The owner of the car was taking me, a friend of hers, and two boys age 10 and 8 who had been visiting relatives and needed to go home. (Their mom had run out of money to buy them airfare.) With all of us chipping in, it made her trip pretty cheap. We were taking off in an older American Motors station wagon, with a rotating assignment to call and report in nightly. Back in those days, long distance phone calls were expensive, 'phone cards' not yet thought of, so we were limited to collect calls; the deal was, one of us would make a quick collect call home each night, and that family would call and report to the others. We had it all figured out.
The day came, the station wagon arrived to load me up and take off, and we were away. My family hugged me goodbye, then stood in the carport and waved as the car backed out of the driveway. Lanie, the junior, remarked, "You're a freshman? Wow, your mom is being awfully calm. The first year I left, my mom was crying." I was the oldest child, to boot--the first departure.
Lanie was concerned that, as a car with three young women and out-of-state plates, if we had any troubles with the car, we could be seen as easy pickings for some mechanic. She determined that she would not make any repairs on the say-so of one person, but would look for a second opinion. Sounded reasonable. The first day's problem was obvious, though: we lost our muffler. The delay to replace it wasn't too bad, and we were off again. I think some other minor problem happened the second day.
The car started making a noise by the time we reached Nebraska. We pulled off into the next town, stopped to consult, and there didn't seem to be anything serious. It continued, and two subsequent places said it sounded like it was probably in the transmission, and as long as we were on the highway, not shifting much, we were okay until it could be looked at in Utah.
But it didn't sound good, and the noise had increased by the time we hit Wyoming. There was just empty space, nowhere to go. As we approached Laramie, Lanie said, "I don't care what they told us, something is wrong. We need to find an American Motors dealership where they will know what they're talking about."
We took an exit, pulled off at a phone booth, and found the one dealership in the Yellow Pages. I think she called them to get directions, but we missed the turn and found ourselves approaching a shop as she said suddenly, we have to stop RIGHT NOW. We pulled in, piled out--three young women ages 21, 20, and 17, and two young boys--and Lanie told our story. They pulled the car into the bay and we went to make the waiting room pretty full.
The mechanic came out with a funny look on his face. When did it start making this noise? We stopped in Omaha first, we told him. You drove this from Omaha here to Laramie? At 70 miles an hour?
He told us that the u-joint was gone. The beginnings of the noise was friction where there shouldn't have been any, because the joint was failing. Highway speed had fully destroyed it, and there was, when we pulled in, nothing keeping the driveshaft in place. Just air. It should have fallen out, hit the pavement and been shot back up by the impact and our momentum right through the center of the back seat. I turned a little green at that point, because the center of the back seat was where I had been sitting. In the process, of course, all control of the car would have been lost. We should all be dead.
We were stuck in Laramie overnight while they started calling around for a new part. The dealership we hadn't reached couldn't help, the car was too old. It was dial-a-junkyard time. This was going to take a while. Now, registration was looming for the BYU students and snow was falling. Were we going to be stuck here? Would they be able to find the part?
Lanie called the operator and asked for a listing for the Mormon Church. She found the listed number for a bishop and called him, and he showed up himself, small children in tow. After assessing our situation and making some phone calls, he lined up places for us to stay the night, and regroup in the morning. The world is a more dangerous place now, and a young bishop today, as a matter of policy, would not be putting strangers into the homes of his ward members, but that's what this one did for us then. He took the two boys himself, and his wife fed all of us before farming us out for the night. They made us feel much better.
We checked in with our families back home, gave a report and thanked them fervently for their prayers for our safe journey--because they had definitely been answered! We had started every day with prayer too. There were angels answering; we had no other reason to be unharmed, and we knew it. Some literal hand had held that car together.
Underway the following afternoon, we had no other problems and made it to Utah, very late. When I called to warn my aunt and uncle that we would be in past midnight, my cousin took down the message on her way out the door, pinned it to the bulletin board, and took off. It apparently fell off and fluttered down behind the bookcase, so they had no warning after all when we were pounding on their door after 1 a.m. They were just glad that I was arrived, because they were worried they hadn't heard anything. Lanie and her friend would have reached Provo by maybe 3 a.m., so they made the 8:00 registration, though they were very bushed.
That was the first, last, and only time that I went back and forth to school in a car. (After all, my starting and ending times still didn't match the BYU schedule, which is where the rides were.) We discovered student standby fares, so at Christmas, and summers, I flew. I got stranded at O'Hare once, but that's another story. I'll save it for another day.
Good grief! That's a story and a half! And after Alison's story yesterday, there is no doubt in my mind that the Lord watches after you.
ReplyDeleteOh, I have an O'Hare story, too. I should put that on my blog some time.