Back in the early 90s, I knew this guy who worked for a newspaper on the south end of Nova Scotia. He'd travel around the area often, and if anyone has been down there the dual Trans-Canada was never extended that far and many of the highways are still the old winding double lane ones.
It was early in the morning and he was on his way down to one of the towns to deliver a stack of papers, when he came across a brilliant red 1933 Ford Deuce Coupe broken down on the side of the road, just before a bridge.
He stopped, as per the usual norm of being really friendly and helping those in need around here and asked the farmer who was tinkering under the hood what the problem was.
The farmer seemed pretty cheerful regardless of his plight, laughing at the fact he had been on his way to pick up the new fan belt for his Coupe when the old snapped. He had one on order at a local service shop, and it was waiting for him there.
Being the nice guy he is, and heading in that direction anyway, my friend offered to pick up the belt for him and help him put it on when he comes back.
My buddy got to the service station, and spoke to the service manager. But when he asked about the fan belt, he got some strange looks from the guy behind the desk.
He said he did have the belt, but it was really strange that he was asking for it. He told my buddy a story the shocked him pretty badly; the farmer and his Ford had driven off the bridge one night and him and his car had never been recovered. It had happened in the late 60's at that.
After recovering from the initial shock, my friend said he felt maybe that the farmer had been trying to tell him something, maybe e should take the belt and toss it in the river to ease the spirit, or something along those lines. The service manager did him one better, and showed him on a map were the old farm was located, now long since abandoned.
My friend decided he was going to take the belt there, and just check the place out.
The old farm was fairly peaceful, mostly just grown up and run down. My friend, from what you can guess is sort of a spiritual guy decided he'd hang the belt up on the porch door, and leave the area undisturbed.
Fast forward a few weeks later, my friend is once again delivering papers in the region. He had a mission that day though, he had read an article saying that during a tidal bore, someone had spotted in the water the old Ford rusting away. Some local fishermen had dredged the car out and after 20 odd years the missing farmer and his ford could finally be laid to rest.
Stopping in to speak to the service manager at the garage about it, he learned that it had been one of his mechanics that had done the inspection on the ford to try and determine what had caused the farmer to drive off the bridge (be it mechanical failure or along those lines).
The manager gave him one hell of a shock once again, as the twisted wreck of the Deuce gave up little evidence, other than the fact the fan belt was brand new.
Credited to Canadian Explorer
Originally uploaded on November 4th, 2013