PRISONER EXPRESS

Breakdowns? How about break-ups? Breaking? Break-out? How about the latest break-through? Breakneck? Break a leg? Break a heart? Break the news? Break even? Break bread? Break wind? {Giggle} How about breaking and entering? You know, breakup is not the opposite of breakdown. A breakup could cause a breakdown.

When I was a child, we had an old Ford Falcon. It was a 196?, maybe a '62, and it was still running great in the mid 1980's. My twin brother and I loved 'that car.' I think Dad loved it to, but our older siblings didn't like it and mom hated it.

Mom always told Dad he should get rid of 'that car.' It was beat up, scratched up, and old. It was Grandpa's last car. Dad used to tell a story about him and Mom in the back seat of Old Falcon, at the old drive-in, and it had something to do with JR, our oldest brother. Dad always left bits out of that story and we couldn't figure it out. But he also said Daniel and I were born in the backseat and that it wasn't the first time Mom had been half naked in the backseat of 'that old car.'

There were a lot of stories about the 'Old Falcon.' Number one was how the Falcon would start on those cold Northern Illinois winter mornings when nothing else would. Then there's spring thaw, when all the country roads turn to mud. Cars, trucks, even 4 wheel drive would get stuck in that mud. The 'Falcon' never got stuck. Dad always had a big smile on his face when he drove around some 4 wheel drive pickup Ford stuck in the mud. Family pride, you know.

For Daniel and I, every scratch and dent had some mysterious tale. We were just little boys and to us the Falcon better than the Bat Mobile; better than a tank, a bomber, a submarine, or the Enterprise.

If you sat in the back seat you had to keep your feet up in the seat, cause the floor was rusted out. We would put on our seatbelts and lean over, and watch the road go by. You could drop dirt bombs or rotten fruit or Sis's doll right out on the road.

"What are you boys doin' to your sister?!"
"She keeps dropin' her doll on the floor, Dad."
"One of these days I'm gonna tie a rope onto that doll...and the other end around somebody's neck!"
Course he never did and he always went back for the doll.

One summer day Daniel and I rode with Dad into townâ€"the hardware store I think. Dad always had a truck of some kind and Mom's car or the family car, which was a big station wagon. But 9 times out of 10, Dad would grab 'the Falcon' to go to town and back. On the way home, and above the country music Dad loved to share with everyone along the way, we heard a loud SNAP. Daniel and I were born with severe hearing problems. A loud SNAP is as close as I can come to the sound. It seemed we felt it more than heard it. In truth, it felt like my skull cracked.

It also felt like 'the Falcon' was dead. There was no vibration from the motor, it was just coasting and Dad steered it off the road. Daniel and I looked down through the holes in the floorboard. 'The Falcon' had been wounded and was leaking a stream of black blood.

Dad slammed the gear shift into park and silenced with radio with his bare fist, then sat for a minute with his head on the steering wheel. With dad it was always best to give him a minute. Daniel and I never had any trouble with that. We were out of the car in a flash and followed the trail of oil up the highway. We kept expecting to encounter some evil being who had shot 'the Falcon'

We all know about how much oil a car will hold, but in my memory and to two little adventuresome boysâ€"well, Exxon never split this much oil. Breakdown? Dad showed us a big hole in the side of the motor But 'this car; was one of our heroes and a local legend. We just saw it as one more story.

Dad called Mom from a house down the highway and she was there a few minutes later, but something was wrong. Mom sometimes wore Dad's clothesâ€"working with the cows or bailing hay, she'd wear his hat out in the rain or grab his coat to run out in the cold. She even wore his long johns for PJ's. But Mom never drove Dad's truck. That scared us.

Dad went to the truck and grabbed his 20 gauge from the gun rack. He walked up the 'the Falcon' and unloaded both barrels into the radiator and windshield. Breakdown is what Daniel and I did next. It took awhile to get over that. I never remember visiting my grandparent's graves but Dad used to take up to the junk yard to visit 'the Falcon.' It was the perfect graveyard for the 'old car'â€"the junk yard was the old drive-in movie theater.