about every 20 years, my father in law runs over his subscription glasses

We were on a 14 day car camping trip to the east coast and back. 2 weeks spent in PEI and now we were coming home. It's 1984 or '85, traveling along the TCH (which was then just one lane each way), my brother and I in the back seat, my father driving, the car loaded full with suitcases, camping equipment, etc. There's so much stuff we've attached one of those temporary suction cup roof racks to the top of the car. We look like the Joads, headed for California. My mother pauses the conversation occasionally to worry about losing stuff off the rack, the weather, the roads, how fast we're going. Then we're going past a farm, and my mom points out that this is where the car caught on fire once.

In 1970, my parents had taken this same trip without us (actually I was there, but as the family joke goes I didn't have a window seat.) My father was smoking, had the windows rolled down, and threw a still smoldering butt out the drivers side. Aerodynamics being what they were on a '70's pinto wagon, the butt came around and flew back in the rear window. After a few more miles flames leapt out of the back seat, and nearly wrecked the car. They managed to pull over and avoid total pinto destruction by running to the nearest farmmhouse (the very one we were passing as the story was being related) and getting help from the farmer who lived there.

As we were hearing this story and marvelling at the close shave my parents escaped from, there was a quiet moment. Followed by:

an enormous bang
the car buckled on its shocks
bags and tents and gear flew ten feet in the air
and landed all over the road

We skidded to a stop on the shoulder and tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. As near as we could tell, the roof rack, which was two pieces of wood held on to the car with suction cups, had disengaged its' front section and flipped completely over, taking all the stuff with it on a wild ride.

We got out to see tents, knapsacks and sleeping bags just lying all over the highway in a rough line about 100 yards long. My father braved the highway to collect everything, and I set about fixing the rack so that this could not happen again. I remember pulling on those straps until I was lifted off the ground. We were getting close to finishing and I was working on the driver's (road) side of the car when I looked up and saw panic flash across my parents faces. This was followed by:

A deafening noise mere inches from the back of my head
an even more deafening horn blast
me screaming inaudibly over the sound as I realized I was about to get pulled into the slipstream
of a gigantic tractor trailer that was going past me with about an inch to spare.

I think the picture of it for my parents is one of those you can't ever unsee. Me, at 14, mouth full open, and you can't see anything else behind me except onrushing truck.

We got back in the car just as it started to rain a bit. There was a little discussion about the it-could-have-been-worse factor, since the rack could have come off in the rain. This was broken up by mom continuing to worry that we still hadn't done a good job with it and we should pull over to check it again. The rack was fine, it was just fine, okay? We managed to drive for an additional 7 feet before my father pulled over in an exasperated huff. It was really raining now, so of course I was asked to go outside and do a once over. Which I grudgingly did. I re-re-confirmed everything and was about to get back in the car and let them know we could go when the driver's side window went down and my father asked me to come around. "Is everything okay?", he asked. Yes, I told him, everything is fine, and I was just about to get in on my side and tell you that, can I please get out of the rain now?

I got back in, we started to get back on the highway, and my father put his window back up. Except it wouldn't go up. There was a vague grinding motory noise, but no window. The motor seized. In the rain, which was fast becoming torrential. We pulled over again, and tried to tape a green plastic garbage bag over the cavity. It kept the rain out, sort of, and made this noise: . For over 100 miles it made that noise. Until beaten, we pulled into a motel in New Hampshire for the night.

And after we had registered, we walked back to the car. Someone stopped us on the way to ask "Is that your car over there?"

"Yup, that's ours", we said. "You have a flat", he said.