Many years ago, I had a VW Bug and decided to take a ride. I came across a very muddy road and was amazed how great that car got through it.
Later on, I noticed something hanging under the car. I did not know what it was; the car was running fine without it, so I threw it away.
I found out a few days later it was my horn! -Rosemary Banford Harris
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My horse and I tried to cross the little stream behind Kerber Farms Lumber. My horse went into the mud up to his chest - the mud was like quicksand.
I just slid off and hauled him out. I guess that's the worst - a mud-sucked horse. Not a pretty sight!
He scrambled, and it was a bit scary. A thousand-pound horse has a lot of strength and he was still difficult.
He was calm walking back home, where he had first a warm bath and then a cooler one. I led him back - I had to hose the saddle, too, then olive-oil it! -Janie Crossmon
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In a friend's driveway in Wilmington just this week! It was up to the chassis.
I had to ring AAA. They said the tow-truck driver could refuse to pull my car out of the mud if it was in too deep.
It was great that the right guy came out to assist. - Amelia Kinney
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I once saw the Dummerston town truck sink up past the wheels and tilt so far over that the driver could just step out of the cab onto the ground. There was a sign posted there that year. It had a poem on it.
It went something like this: “This road is impassable/not even jackassable/if you must travel​/bring your own gravel.” When we asked about the poem, the person who put up the sign told us it was first written in the 1950s. For the same spot. -Joyce Marcel
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I went over Putney Mountain in a 1997 VW Golf, but that was more fun than bad.
And then there are the people who go too slow and get stuck - meaning that I have to do complicated physics calculations to figure out how to get around them. But I've gotten used to that, too. -Thomas Nelson
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My friend and neighbor played a Hammond organ. He used a U-Haul and a Mercury Comet to move it.
We had a thaw, and his car and trailer sunk maybe 8 inches into the mud.
And then came a cold snap that froze the mud. His car and trailer became part of the Earth.
It was maybe a week before he was able to get them out. He had to have friends come and get his gear for the music jobs he had that week. -Jeff Potter (the musician, not your editor)
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In 1990, I was coming home from a gig at 3 a.m. in my old Toyota Corolla stuffed with musical equipment. I took a shortcut on a muddy dirt road that turned out to be a road that swallows cars.
My only option was to floor it and pray. It was like driving over a cliff - I was thrown violently about the car, but I made it through.
About a quarter mile after that happened, the car died. Somehow through all the jostling the fuel line separated from the tank.
More bad news: I had no tools.
But I did have an empty coffee cup.
I took the windshield washer system apart, using a length of hose as a siphon tube. I routed another hose from the washer through the air cleaner to the carburetor throat, held in place by the air-filter cover.
I siphoned gas from the tank, coffee cup by coffee cup, and filled the washer tank, which held about a quart and a half. To get home, I had to spoon-feed the carburetor, pulling on the washer lever every 10 seconds.
It took about four tanks to make the 20-mile trip home. -John Mlynick
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One year, I had been driving around in my old beater car, and when I got home that evening, I noticed that my back bumper was missing!
I retraced my travels the next day, and some nice person had propped my bumper up on a snow bank on Upper Dummerston Road. -Dot Lenhart
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One warm and beautiful day in early April in 1985 or 1986, I was bringing my daughter to her child-care provider. While driving up Town Farm Road in Putney, one minute we were moving - and the next, we were not.
The mud came up over the bottom of the doors. I rolled down the windows, got my daughter out of her car seat, and climbed out, walking the rest of the way.
I called the town highway dept. A town dump truck tried to pull me out, and it got stuck. Another dump truck came loaded with gravel and pulled the other one out, dumped the gravel, and then pulled me out backwards. -Liz Adams
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I moved to Vermont. -Gemma Seymour