The Terror I Felt When I was Eight Years old

It was June of 1968. I was eight years old and was going to turn nine in September. I had finished third grade and was going to enter fourth grade when school resumed after Labor Day.

I had a friend I will call "Rod" at the end of the street. We would meet at about 10 a.m. and play in his front yard. Usually, our games consisted of doing things like assembling small houses that we built with sticks and leaves. Sometimes, we would be joined by other boys and would play with a ball in the street. There was only light traffic on my street and our parents were pretty unconcerned.

The neighbor across from my house (up the street) taught piano lessons to pick up supplemental income for her family. We would see cars come and go and I never paid much attention to those who parked there.

At lunch time, my mother would walk down the street to fetch me. It was a pattern, but I didn't pay much attention to the time when I was eight years old and I didn't always know when to expect mom. Plus, she wasn't the sort to call out. So, that particular day I had no idea she was walking down the street.

Mrs. Jones parked her car up the street and got out with her daughter. I think she was going in to pay the piano teacher for her lessons. Maybe she was in a hurry, or maybe she was just careless? I don't know. What I do know is that she failed to curb her car or set the brakes even though she parked on a downhill incline. These actions would have great implications for my mother and our family.

I later learned Mom was walking towards me down the street when she was struck by Mrs. Jones's Pontiac automobile as it rolled down the street. The engine was off and Mom did not hear the car coming. I try to imagine the coincidence of Mom just happening to be in the worst place possible when that Pontiac began rolling down the hill. If she had been there thirty seconds sooner or later she would not have been struck. However, timing is everything in life and my Mom was in the worst possible place.

The car struck her and pushed her underneath its frame. Her clothing must have attached itself to the undercarriage of the car. It proceeded to drag her for a short distance along the street. Than the car jumped a curb and headed downhill through bushes into a neighbor's front yard. When Mom came to rest she was lying next to a tree and the car was laying to her side.

Rod and I did not see my mother we simply saw a car roll down the road, jump the curb, and roll into my neighbor's front yard on the north side of the street. Being curious eight and nine year old boys we ran after the car. We followed it into the yard.

I cannot begin to describe my horror when I saw my mother laying on the ground. It was obvious her knee was badly dislocated. She was bleeding from her head and ear. The bottom part of her right ear had literally been torn off. Still, she was conscious and of sane mind. She told us to get help and get it quickly.

Rod was always a very precocious boy who even at a young age seemed to know what to do. He didn't say anything to me other than "wait here" and took off running. I was later told when he ran into his home his mother was on the phone. Rod knew the exigency of the situation and grabbed the phone out of his mother's hands and hung it up. He quickly explained and his mother called an ambulance.

The story fortunately had a happy ending. The ambulance took mom to the hospital and after a couple of weeks as an inpatient and treatment by two excellent surgeons, Mom made a recovery that restored her both cosmetically and physically. Until the day she died at age 98, she never needed a crutch or a brace to walk. The summer though was pretty chaotic as my father struggled to maintain his law practice, his campaign for the state legislature, and care for his two children. Grandma helped. My older sister took care of herself and helped with me. Somehow, we managed and even took care of Mom two weeks later when she got out of the hospital.

I was a very anxious kid during the next few years. I now understand that sort of thing, but at the time few others did.

Even writing about this today is not particularly easy. At the time, I was terrorized out of my mind.