I got my first full-time newspaper job when I was 23, and it paid next to nothing. In fact, if I broke it down by the hour, I made less than in the stopgap post-college job I’d held previously, setting up banquet tables in a hotel.
My car was a beat-up 1964 Rambler. The rear tires were getting bald, but I “couldn’t afford” new ones. That is, until the day I was driving to the county seat on a state highway in heavy rain, and those tires hydroplaned.
In a flash, water spray obscured the windshield, and I was in a spin,
