 by Jason A. Mohr |
I've been rather lucky throughout my life so far: never broken a
single bone; never had one stitch. I've also been fortunate when it comes
to automobile accidents. To this day, I've only been in one and I walked away from
it with only a small scab on my chest. I always thought that this was because
it was just a minor fender-bender and that I was a gumby-like, indestructive five-year-old,
but this wasn't quite the case.
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Recently I found out the true details of this accident. It
involved a car that I had no idea we ever owned. I remember the Ford Fairlane,
white with a blue stripe, named "Fred," and a peach (or was it tan?) Ford Mustang that
I thought was the victim of this accident, but I had no
idea that there was another vehicle in our lives.
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"If it had occurred in the mustang you would have been dead for sure," said Jer, my dad.
"It was a Rambler, a '64," he added. "A tan Rambler American, straight six, three speed.
I bought it for fifty bucks from a couple of gals that worked at Lockheed with
your grandfather. I popped the head, took
it over to King Auto, and had 'em regrind it. I gave it a brake job and performed
a few other minor repairs, spending a total of about two hundred bucks. It was built
with eighth-inch steel, got twenty miles to the gallon, and was like sittin' in a
nice theater. Your mom and I called it 'Rudy,' but you called it 'Venus'."
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Now that name I remember. Though my parents and I agreed on calling the Fairlane
"Fred," our opinions forked when it came to the Rambler. I named it "Venus"
after one of the only stars I could see in the evening sky before my bedtime.
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"I slowed down and stopped to make a left turn on a road that didn't have its own
left turn lane," said Mare, my mom, "and a man, who later said that he was
paying attention to a police officer who was ticketing a curbed driver, ran
straight into the back of us." |
For some reason, I can remember exactly what I was observing immediately before
the collision. It was as if everything was in slow-motion. Afterwards, I can
only recall that this was the first time I had seen so many flares up close.
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"The car was totalled," said Jer. "I was driving home from work when I saw what I
believed to be a '64 Ford Falcon, the same color as Rhudy, demolished in the middle
of the street. But actually it was Rudy with about three feet of its rear
smashed in. You two were nowhere to be seen. I stopped and asked
the officer where the passengers of this vehicle were and he directed me to a nearby
house where you two were awaiting an ambulance."
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"My glasses ended up on what was left of the dash behind the backseat," said Mare,
"and my neck was pretty sore thereafter. You, unrestrained by a seatbelt, since this was
before cars were required to be manufactured with backseat seatbelts, bounced
into the back of the front seat that housed a small flip-out ashtray
and thus acquired your mini chest scab."
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To this day, my father considers Rudy the Rambler the best car he and my mom ever
owned. I consider it Venus. 
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