When my parents hosted my youngest sister’s engagement party, they did so in one of the common rooms at the retirement complex where they lived. After the dinner, some of us were chatting in the hall when we heard a soft, insistent beeping, almost immediately followed by a nurse and two CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistants) tearing down the hall towards the restroom across from us.

Once the shouting and the tumult died, my oldest sister exited with a very sheepish look on her face.

Turns out each bathroom stall was equipped with an alarm cord in case someone fainted or became ill while on the john. She had accidentally tucked it into the back of her pantyhose and then started to walk away.

She still hasn’t lived that down.

This was the late 1960s, and Lyndon B Johnson was president.

There was a fad at the time of kids about my age opening the doors of cars that were stopped in traffic and getting into them.

I had a very strict mother at home who wanted me to grow up to be a good Christian Lady, never mind that I was a mousy little Jewish girl, so I took every opportunity to cut loose when I was away from home.

By which I mean, I was all over this fad like cute on a bunny. I was playing through the streets with my friends, darting into cars, sitting in strange men’s laps, then just darting away, giggling the whole time.

Well, my friend and I saw a really nice looking car, and we decided to give the owner a little girl surprise, so we ran up to it, each opened a door, and plopped ourselves in.

And I found myself sitting in the lap of Vice President Hubert Humphrey. My friend wound up in the lap of what was probably his protective detail.

Mr Humphrey took it remarkably well. He raised an eyebrow at me, then said:

Vice President Hubert Humphrey: “My daughter’s old enough she could be your mother. Don’t you have something better to do?”

Me: *Cheekily.* “No, sir, school’s out for the day, so I’ve not got anything better to do.”

Vice President Hubert Humphrey: *With a great deal of resignation in his voice.* “I suppose, then, it’s a good thing you’ve nothing better to do: My protective detail’s going to want you to answer a few questions.”

At that point, a rather muscular man opened the door and manhandled me out of Mr Humphrey’s lap.

My friend and I were detained at a police office for HOURS while we were questioned about why we were doing that, and how we got past the ‘cordon’ (Apparently, ‘what cordon’ was absolutely the wrong answer.)

When I was finally sent home for the night, I was worse than late for dinner.

My oldest brother was a very large man. I’m not saying he was Andre the Giant, but he was definitely bigger than the average bear. He was also blessed with a swarthy complexion, a hook nose, and RBF (Resting B**** Face). A normally calm and law-abiding person, he simply looked like someone NOBODY wanted to meet in a dark alley.

(He was useful for scaring bad dates, among other things.)

Back in the 1970s (right after a famous mob figure vanished without a trace from a parking lot in the northern suburbs), [Brother] worked for a distribution company in Detroit. One day after work, he decided to stop at a bar in an unfamiliar part of town. As he stood there, quietly sipping his beer, a stranger came up and asked him if he would like to make twenty-five bucks.

Brother: “What do I have to do?”

Stranger: “There’s a guy gonna come in here in a few minutes, see? And he’ll walk over to that table, and we’re gonna have a talk, see? Keep an eye on us, and when I point to you, I want you to look at him and nod your head.”

Brother: “That’s it?”

Stranger: “That’s it.”

The stranger went back to his table. A man walked in, they talked for a bit, and then they looked at my brother, who nodded at them. The man suddenly pushed himself away from the table and rapidly left the bar.

My brother said it was the easiest twenty-five bucks he ever made.

When I was young, women didn’t get to have their own bank accounts. I was fortunate that my family didn’t draw money from my account; many of my friends, when they tried to work to save up to buy something, had all of their money confiscated by their parents.

Anyway, I was a bit of a gearhead growing up. I was into cars, and I wanted a Jaguar. I wanted a Jag badly.

Now, it was extremely difficult back then to get a British car in the United States, and many people in Detroit especially acted like I was a traitor to Ford, GM, and the other American car manufacturers for wanting a British car.

For five years, I worked my a** off doing any odd jobs I could, especially helping at a mechanic’s shop when I could, to buy myself a Jag. (Although, back then, most mechanics were leery of letting a woman do gearhead work where the customers could see us. They often made me be a secretary.)

By the time I got my entrance papers for college, I had my Jag. My high school boyfriend was very jealous of my car. We were going on a date together, probably our last date before I left for college. (He’d gotten an internship with a mechanic.) He kept begging me to let him drive my car.

Finally, I gave in and let him drive it. We stopped on the side of the road and started to switch places, but while I was heading toward the passenger side, he leaped into the driver’s side and stole my car!

Along with everything in my purse.

Like most young women back then, I kept some change in my shoes in case I got robbed so I could use a pay phone — which I did, to call my dad. Technically, the car was in his name, and I knew that the police wouldn’t believe me that it was my car.

He came and picked me up, and we went to the police station to make a report. They recovered my car from the driveway of my boyfriend’s parents’ house. The police gave him a stern talking-to but refused to actually charge him with a crime.

Needless to say, we broke up that day.

This happened in the 1950s. My grandfather Al was an abusive jacka** but was also an excellent auto mechanic. When other mechanics couldn’t figure out the problem, they’d tell their customers to take their car to Al. He’d fix the problem, but he’d yell at the customer for not doing the required maintenance or some other infraction.

One day, a woman pulled up to the garage. The car battery kept dying. She’d had the battery, alternator, and countless other parts replaced by other mechanics to no avail.

Grandpa walked around the back of the car, opened the trunk, twisted the metal bracket holding the trunk light in place, and then closed the trunk.

Grandpa: “Problem fixed, no charge.”

The woman burst into tears.

Back in those days, the trunk light turned off and on via a mercury switch — a little glass vial with wires and a blob of mercury. When you opened the trunk, the vial tilted and the mercury contacted the wires, creating an electrical connection and turning the light on. The bracket holding the vial was bent, so the light was always on, draining the battery.