The Blue Olds

In need of a larger family car, at least four doors and room for two car seats, we traded in our sporty car for "the blue olds". Figuring we were not quite ready for the station wagon our "Cutlass" was a pretty nice car, even though this was not "your daddy's cutlass". It served us well considering we keep our cars for a hundred years, but really, it was because of our good friend Vinnie (and Holly). Vinnie was a GM auto mechanic and when we had a problem we went to see Vinnie. He nurtured us through a/c condensers and brake jobs when we could hardly afford it. As "blue" was getting up there in miles we figured it could make one more trip to Illinois with a stop in Tennessee, so we loaded up the three kids and off we went. About five hours up the road the car started clattering like a cotton gin. I think we were in podunk nowhere and after a backroad search for a garage the one we found came up with nothing and it had stopped rattling. We had another friend who used to lay hands on her broken down car or washing machine to get them going again, so we prayed over the car and figured it was "healed". While on the road again we were able to contact Vinnie and get his opinion. He thought it might be the oil and if it happened again to change the oil. Five hours later, a roadside oil change was enough to get us to Tennesse. The dealership there could not help us, but another oil change with some of the thickest oil we could find got us all the way to Illinois, nonstop. Now the dilemma, how are we getting back to Florida? I think the decision was to load up on oil and go for it, but God and my brother and sister in law had another plan. They would swap their mini van for our car. Such a deal! We were going home in a better vehicle than we came in, they wanted a newer van, and their newly licensed sons would drive that car into tarnation. What a "blessing".