Stranded in Dodge Omni

In 1980, my parents bought a new Dodge Omni car from Salt River Motors. They bought it as a brand-new car. By then, Kent, Kris, and Kelly had graduated from high school and left home (or at least had their own transportation). 

Even though the Omni only had five seats, we would travel in it with the six of us who were still home. Cade, Cory, and Keri sat in the backseat (Keri in the middle), and I rode in the front with Mom and Dad (I used to get very car sick when I rode in the backseat) sitting on the emergency brake between the front seats. 

Dodge Omni like the one we owned
(picture source: Wikipedia)

Shortly after they bought the car, we made a trip to Ogden Utah to visit Grandma and Grandpa Livingston. On the way home from this trip, when we got just outside of Randolf Utah, the car died along the side of the road. Dad could not get it to go again. I do not remember (or perhaps do not know) what was wrong with the car. We were about an hour and 40 minutes from home. It was around 7 or 8 p.m.

Dad walked to a nearby farmhouse and called Joel Newswander (the car dealer) to tell him our new car died. Joel agreed to drive from Afton Wyoming to pick us up and take us home. 

While we waited for an hour and a half for Joel to arrive to pick us up, the owners of the farmhouse invited us into their house to get out of the cold. I remember sitting in their living room while the adults talked. 

The wife of the family shared how when she was a little girl in Vietnam, the city in which she lived with her family was bombed. Many of the houses around where she lived caught on fire due to the bombing. Outside her house, the fire hydrant was knocked over so that the water was streaming into the air. The lady said her mom put her under the water of the fire hydrant to keep her safe from the fires and told her to wait for her to come back. 

Joel came and picked us up in a station wagon. I remember riding in the back of the station wagon lying down with Cade, Cory, and Keri. Joel took us home to the ranch. The next day, he sent a wrecker truck to pick up the Omni and take it back to Afton for repair.