Here is a real-life news story about a travel mishap that sounds as if it were straight out of urban legend. Perhaps real legends spring from such incidents.
Just before Christmas 1986, Pat and Kenneth Zimmer of Eugene, Oregon, and their five children were driving home on Interstate Route 5 after spending the holiday in California. Mr. Zimmer was at the wheel of their van, while his wife slept in back. At Red Bluff, California, he stopped for a hamburger. Unknown to him, his wife got out a few minutes later to go to the restroom. He got back in and drove away, leaving her with the sight of the disappearing van and just 23 cents in her purse. When the family arrived home, one of the kids asked where Mom was. With the help of California state police, Mrs. Zimmer got on a bus and arrived home the next day.
In reporting the story, the Eugene Register-Guard
published a front-page photograph of the reunited Zimmers and their van.
I guess history repeats itself, because there is a popular apocryphal story about a very similar incident. In this story, which was circulating long before this real-life incident, a man is riding nude or half-dressed in a trailer while his wife drives the car towing it. When she stops, the man steps out momentarily—a fact that the wife is unaware of. She drives off, and he is stranded by the roadside. The police or a truck driver assist him in getting home.
The only difference between these stories is that in the real story, names, dates, and places are given. The apocryphal, story is—well—apocryphal.