I loved my Valiant. It was an amazing car. Drove it to Mexico a bunch of times, drove it all over. I think it had something like 180K miles on it when I traded it in on my first new car ever — and it was still running strong — though the bench seat was worn out on the driver’s side — you could see right through to the springs in a few places.

Ministerial Road (RI 110) is a very pretty two lane country road which goes from Perryville through the Great Swamp to Kingston. It was 1978, a Saturday morning, we were en route to my soccer game in Kingston. A driver coming into the only four way intersection on the road suffered a heart attack and died – he then proceeded to blow through the stop sign and t-bone our brown Plymouth Valiant. My sister and I were sitting in the back seat – it was a different age, we never wore seat belts in the back – and we were thrown around like ping pong balls. At the moment of impact time seemed to stop – I remember flying through the air, in slow motion, grabbing onto my sister as she floated past and hanging on to her as the car skidded, spun, and finally came to rest in a ditch by the side of the road.