> > A couple of classes later I went outside and there was my car splatted with mud. Not just mine; everybody's car was muddy...
>
> There was the time when I nearly died in my car. I was driving from College Station to Austin (a two-hour drive) in January -- the temperature was hovering around freezing. The road rose a bit, then curved off to the right at the top of the peak. Of course, that's where the only ice in Texas was that day.
>
> I hit the slick and, as I was in the middle of a turn, the car went flying. First into the oncoming traffic lane (lucky me -- very little traffic that Sunday) then a quick over-correction into the other lane. Slip. Slide. Slam. Although coming close to, the car didn't roll over.
>
> The car wound up perpendicular to the road, straddling a ditch. Both tires were on the ground, but there was about a three-foot drop directly under the car. A scar ripped across the hill on the side of the ditch, where the tires tore into the mud.
>
> Surprisingly, there was no damage to the car. I, too, was completely uninjured. My clean laundry was scattered throughout the interior of the auto, having jumped out of my plastic hamper.
>
> About three minutes later, another car came over the rise, hit the ice and spun out. Unlike me, she managed to stay on the road but wound up facing the opposite way, right in the middle of the highway.
>
> Like I said, very few cars on that road. Lucky both of us.
>
> That was my 1984 Ford Tempo. A really nice car.
>
> Anyway, I decided not to wash the car for about two weeks -- this little four-door compact sedan looked like someone took it out mudding. It probably looked like Howard's mud-rained car.
>
> -Faux "The car I was in on the way back to College Station had a dashboard thermometer. The ridge was right on the freezing line." Pas

That sounds like enough excitement to last for a while. That mud must have reminded you of what could have happened. I've been driving 51 years now and there are several things like that that stick in my mind. Some really old ones are still as clear as a photograph.
Howard