My Mom and Girl Scout leader lined up empty string bean and cream style corn cans. There were lines of cans behind each tire and line in front too.  She started the car and drove it backwards and forward over them, inspected her handy work, stacked up the bent cans, lined up a new batch, and did it again.
Most of the cans moved before the tire got them so they came out in a long crunch: not right. Mom needed that straight down squish. The job took a lot more cans than she was led to believe it would.
We girls glued felt eyes and mouths on the bent up things making them look like old  faces. These were FREE to make. They were Christmas ornaments for us to give to our parents.
My Mom, of course was not surprised to open hers. I don’t remember my Dad’s face when he opened his but I do remember the loud conversation he had with Mom when he woke up the day after the Can Smashing  to find our Ford had FOUR FLAT TIRES!
That was one of the very few times I heard raised voices between my parents. Another opportunity for loudness came the same time the next year. Mom steamed my Dad’s set of 75 records over boiling water and bent the edges. Vases. He no longer listened to them anyway. We learned the principles of flower arranging by sticking dried milk weed pods and other weeds in a central clump of clay. Dad had planned to listen to those again some day and I want to know if any parent delighted by unwrapping old faces?  nancymauerman.