40StudeDude
04-30-2004, 10:16 PM
Square Midwest Corners
The corner was a nasty one…a Midwest square corner…only this one was on a major hiway…Hiway 30…and it was nothing more than a narrow two-lane back then…and went right thru town…the small town of Dunlap, Iowa…don’t laff…that is it’s real name, named after George W. Dunlap, a CNW Railroad official. John I. Blair was a railroad magnet that purchased land in the Boyer Valley from the government, then sold portions of it to the railroad…he platted the town of Dunlap on June 26, 1867 as it was close to where the new railroad was going through the Boyer Valley. Dunlap was a small town...when we went thru it in 1965, probably no more than a population of 1000 or so (and probably no larger today). The crash totaled the Chrysler I was riding in.
For the second time in my life, it almost ended at the hands of another…not just a friend but a very close friend…my future brother-in-law. Remember that old saying: “accidents occur within 35 miles of home”…we were half that -- seventeen miles from home when the crash occurred. My future bro-in-law, Bob, owned a Chrysler, a 1960, Teal in color and very nice…he’d traded his Dad’s ’56 Chrysler in on it. The sixty had just been repainted becuz Bob didn’t like the stock two-tone that was on it…besides, a small fender-bender clinched the repaint deal…not Bob’s fault, but it needed replacing…and the hood straightened…Bob wasn’t hurt, but the car was…shoulda known then and there, the Chrysler was jinxed…Bob’s luck with Chrysler’s is almost legendary…but he didn’t agree, he loved that car, had it repainted. Fresh out of the body shop he offered to drive back home since I was sick.
And I was sick…probably for better than two weeks…the trip home had been scheduled for quite a while and we’d both taken time off from work…the occasion was a huge family reunion in our hometown. Bob had been dating my sister for quite a while and was almost a family member already, so he was more than welcome at the reunion. Besides, it’d been a few weeks since he’d seen Arlene…she’d been at Continental Airlines Hostess school in Omaha and Chicago…and it’d been more than a few weeks since I’d been home…couldn’t let a little thing like pneumonia keep me from going home….I had buddies to go see, pal around with, tell each other stories and drink beer.
We’d left early in the morning on that spring day…it wasn’t that long a drive, but Bob wanted to get home…spend time with his family, too. We hit Dunlap shortly after seven…guess that should be Dunlap hit us shortly after seven!
Hiway 30 has always been a major east/west hiway for more years than I can remember, long before they built Interstates and the only major hiway thru our hometown and across Iowa. Heading east, the concrete two-lane curves south to meet the town of Dunlap, and of course, Hiway 30 always went directly thru the heart of small towns…every one of them from Chicago to Omaha…actually, all the way from Atlantic City, NJ on the east to Astoria, Oregon on the west…it was known as The Lincoln Highway. Dunlap was no exception…instead of by-passing the town on the north side, the hiway crew actually made the roadway hook up with the Main Street and ran the hiway right thru the heart of the town. As the hiway came in from the west, up the hill, past the huge Catholic Church, around a left-hand corner and head north…slow for the down side of the hill, up again, past Main Street and head down the long hill…at the bottom of the hill Hiway 30 took an immediate hard right and ran east again…it was a square cornered right and it’d certainly get you if you weren’t paying attention. On the south side of the hiway was an open, concrete framed drainage ditch/area, about 6 feet deep, and at the bottom, a huge culvert…the whole thing was large enuff to swallow a car. Just beyond that was a small truk stop/restaurant/gas station. On the north side of Hiway 30, a bit to the east of the drainage area, was a gravel county road, running southeast and dead-ending at Hiway 30.
On this particular morning the sun was up and blazing…Bob slowed for the turn…about the time he got half-way thru the corner, the sun blinded him and he reached for the sun-visor… and that’s all the farther we got.
The minister driving the family four-door Falcon, was in a hurry…naw, he wasn’t coming to the accident…he was the accident. Seems his mother had passed away the nite before and he was hurrying to Missouri from east of Sioux City, Iowa.
The sun had blinded him as well, as he drove southeast the sun glared directly into his windshield…he missed seeing the stop sign, didn’t see Hiway 30, and he didn’t even see Bob trying to make the corner…Bam! Hit the driver’s side rear of the Chrysler going about 50 mph…Bob corrected but the front end came around, we did a 180…and the drainage ditch swallowed the Chrysler…we ended up pointing the opposite direction we were going…the concrete framed ditch did major damage to the front end, hood and the passenger’s side of the Chrysler. Shortly before we’d gotten across the Iowa/Nebraska border, I’d slipped into the back seat becuz I wasn’t feeling well again…I was asleep on the back seat…then I wasn’t on the seat anymore, I was on the floor of the car and unconscious… Bob forced the door open and yelled, asking if I was OK…I wasn’t…my head was bleeding profusely…he ran to restaurant, yelled for them to call an ambulance and the Hiway Patrol. Then he went to check on the minister and his wife, neither were hurt but it certainly totaled their Falcon.
I awoke in the ambulance, siren screaming, I’m sure we were running at least 184 mph for the hospital…the attendant held a compress to my head and asked me if I knew where I was. Huh? Where am I and why does my head hurt? What’s happened? He asked again. No, I couldn’t remember a thing – had no idea if I had a name or how old I was, didn’t even know where we were, coming from…or going to. I do remember my head hurt like someone had whacked me with a huge tire iron.
The next morning I again awoke…this time I knew it was a hospital, the stark white walls and the medicine smell gave it away. My head still hurt…the older woman sitting next to the bed said she was my Mother…told me I'd been in a car accident and that it took seventeen stitches to close the gash made by the back seat window crank….but I still had no idea who I was, where I was or even what happened to land me in a hospital bed. I spent three days in that stark white room recuperating from the concussion. Since I didn’t remember much about who I was, all I could remember was a rear window crank incident just a few years prior, when I was also asleep in the back seat of my car…a ’57 Chevy, a buddy and I were coming home from a friends college party, but that’s all I could remember. So now I’m thinkin’ them window cranks have it in for me for some reason! My memory came back, slowly…and a parade of friends in and out of the hospital room helped. While there, they pumped a lot of penicillin into me in an effort to cure my pneumonia…it worked. Needless to say, I missed the family reunion…but Bob didn’t.
The minister’s insurance took care of everything…even paid me for four weeks of work although I missed only a week. The insurance ante’d up for Bob too, he got another Chrysler after the wreck…think it was a demo, an almost new hardtop and paid him for four weeks of “missed” work. He kept that Chrysler for several years and when he moved to Denver shortly after I did, loaded it up with his belongings…that car was one of our cruisin’ 16th Street rides…not long after we both got settled in Denver, he took my sister out for a Sunday afternoon drive in the mountains…in Clear Creek Canyon, about 35 miles from home. On another two-lane, that Chrysler got totaled. Nailed by a drunk that couldn’t make a tight corner…the Chrysler ended up hard against solid moutain rock, both sides of the car destroyed. Neither Bob nor my sis were hurt, but it totaled Bob’s Chrysler one more time …after that accident, I always said Chrysler’s had it in for Bob. The insurance ante’d up again and this time he didn't buy a Chrysler, he bought a new Plymouth.
Copyright 04-04 Aden Rush/R.A. Jetter
Up next: "The Coal Man" and "The Trinity Paradox"
The corner was a nasty one…a Midwest square corner…only this one was on a major hiway…Hiway 30…and it was nothing more than a narrow two-lane back then…and went right thru town…the small town of Dunlap, Iowa…don’t laff…that is it’s real name, named after George W. Dunlap, a CNW Railroad official. John I. Blair was a railroad magnet that purchased land in the Boyer Valley from the government, then sold portions of it to the railroad…he platted the town of Dunlap on June 26, 1867 as it was close to where the new railroad was going through the Boyer Valley. Dunlap was a small town...when we went thru it in 1965, probably no more than a population of 1000 or so (and probably no larger today). The crash totaled the Chrysler I was riding in.
For the second time in my life, it almost ended at the hands of another…not just a friend but a very close friend…my future brother-in-law. Remember that old saying: “accidents occur within 35 miles of home”…we were half that -- seventeen miles from home when the crash occurred. My future bro-in-law, Bob, owned a Chrysler, a 1960, Teal in color and very nice…he’d traded his Dad’s ’56 Chrysler in on it. The sixty had just been repainted becuz Bob didn’t like the stock two-tone that was on it…besides, a small fender-bender clinched the repaint deal…not Bob’s fault, but it needed replacing…and the hood straightened…Bob wasn’t hurt, but the car was…shoulda known then and there, the Chrysler was jinxed…Bob’s luck with Chrysler’s is almost legendary…but he didn’t agree, he loved that car, had it repainted. Fresh out of the body shop he offered to drive back home since I was sick.
And I was sick…probably for better than two weeks…the trip home had been scheduled for quite a while and we’d both taken time off from work…the occasion was a huge family reunion in our hometown. Bob had been dating my sister for quite a while and was almost a family member already, so he was more than welcome at the reunion. Besides, it’d been a few weeks since he’d seen Arlene…she’d been at Continental Airlines Hostess school in Omaha and Chicago…and it’d been more than a few weeks since I’d been home…couldn’t let a little thing like pneumonia keep me from going home….I had buddies to go see, pal around with, tell each other stories and drink beer.
We’d left early in the morning on that spring day…it wasn’t that long a drive, but Bob wanted to get home…spend time with his family, too. We hit Dunlap shortly after seven…guess that should be Dunlap hit us shortly after seven!
Hiway 30 has always been a major east/west hiway for more years than I can remember, long before they built Interstates and the only major hiway thru our hometown and across Iowa. Heading east, the concrete two-lane curves south to meet the town of Dunlap, and of course, Hiway 30 always went directly thru the heart of small towns…every one of them from Chicago to Omaha…actually, all the way from Atlantic City, NJ on the east to Astoria, Oregon on the west…it was known as The Lincoln Highway. Dunlap was no exception…instead of by-passing the town on the north side, the hiway crew actually made the roadway hook up with the Main Street and ran the hiway right thru the heart of the town. As the hiway came in from the west, up the hill, past the huge Catholic Church, around a left-hand corner and head north…slow for the down side of the hill, up again, past Main Street and head down the long hill…at the bottom of the hill Hiway 30 took an immediate hard right and ran east again…it was a square cornered right and it’d certainly get you if you weren’t paying attention. On the south side of the hiway was an open, concrete framed drainage ditch/area, about 6 feet deep, and at the bottom, a huge culvert…the whole thing was large enuff to swallow a car. Just beyond that was a small truk stop/restaurant/gas station. On the north side of Hiway 30, a bit to the east of the drainage area, was a gravel county road, running southeast and dead-ending at Hiway 30.
On this particular morning the sun was up and blazing…Bob slowed for the turn…about the time he got half-way thru the corner, the sun blinded him and he reached for the sun-visor… and that’s all the farther we got.
The minister driving the family four-door Falcon, was in a hurry…naw, he wasn’t coming to the accident…he was the accident. Seems his mother had passed away the nite before and he was hurrying to Missouri from east of Sioux City, Iowa.
The sun had blinded him as well, as he drove southeast the sun glared directly into his windshield…he missed seeing the stop sign, didn’t see Hiway 30, and he didn’t even see Bob trying to make the corner…Bam! Hit the driver’s side rear of the Chrysler going about 50 mph…Bob corrected but the front end came around, we did a 180…and the drainage ditch swallowed the Chrysler…we ended up pointing the opposite direction we were going…the concrete framed ditch did major damage to the front end, hood and the passenger’s side of the Chrysler. Shortly before we’d gotten across the Iowa/Nebraska border, I’d slipped into the back seat becuz I wasn’t feeling well again…I was asleep on the back seat…then I wasn’t on the seat anymore, I was on the floor of the car and unconscious… Bob forced the door open and yelled, asking if I was OK…I wasn’t…my head was bleeding profusely…he ran to restaurant, yelled for them to call an ambulance and the Hiway Patrol. Then he went to check on the minister and his wife, neither were hurt but it certainly totaled their Falcon.
I awoke in the ambulance, siren screaming, I’m sure we were running at least 184 mph for the hospital…the attendant held a compress to my head and asked me if I knew where I was. Huh? Where am I and why does my head hurt? What’s happened? He asked again. No, I couldn’t remember a thing – had no idea if I had a name or how old I was, didn’t even know where we were, coming from…or going to. I do remember my head hurt like someone had whacked me with a huge tire iron.
The next morning I again awoke…this time I knew it was a hospital, the stark white walls and the medicine smell gave it away. My head still hurt…the older woman sitting next to the bed said she was my Mother…told me I'd been in a car accident and that it took seventeen stitches to close the gash made by the back seat window crank….but I still had no idea who I was, where I was or even what happened to land me in a hospital bed. I spent three days in that stark white room recuperating from the concussion. Since I didn’t remember much about who I was, all I could remember was a rear window crank incident just a few years prior, when I was also asleep in the back seat of my car…a ’57 Chevy, a buddy and I were coming home from a friends college party, but that’s all I could remember. So now I’m thinkin’ them window cranks have it in for me for some reason! My memory came back, slowly…and a parade of friends in and out of the hospital room helped. While there, they pumped a lot of penicillin into me in an effort to cure my pneumonia…it worked. Needless to say, I missed the family reunion…but Bob didn’t.
The minister’s insurance took care of everything…even paid me for four weeks of work although I missed only a week. The insurance ante’d up for Bob too, he got another Chrysler after the wreck…think it was a demo, an almost new hardtop and paid him for four weeks of “missed” work. He kept that Chrysler for several years and when he moved to Denver shortly after I did, loaded it up with his belongings…that car was one of our cruisin’ 16th Street rides…not long after we both got settled in Denver, he took my sister out for a Sunday afternoon drive in the mountains…in Clear Creek Canyon, about 35 miles from home. On another two-lane, that Chrysler got totaled. Nailed by a drunk that couldn’t make a tight corner…the Chrysler ended up hard against solid moutain rock, both sides of the car destroyed. Neither Bob nor my sis were hurt, but it totaled Bob’s Chrysler one more time …after that accident, I always said Chrysler’s had it in for Bob. The insurance ante’d up again and this time he didn't buy a Chrysler, he bought a new Plymouth.
Copyright 04-04 Aden Rush/R.A. Jetter
Up next: "The Coal Man" and "The Trinity Paradox"