In 1975, Gary, my kid's Dad and I had a
1972 Green Lemans 2 door coupe. It was by far my favorite car that
we ever owned...It looked just like the one pictured below. Ok, so I
am a girl...a woman and I know nothing about car engines but I can
tell you that this one had a lot of “get up and go” and I suppose
I thought I was pretty hot stuff cruising town in it. It had a green
vinyl landau roof.
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By Crwpitman - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34959491
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Gary worked for his Father, Howard and
Uncle, Harold at Tietz's Family Restaurant in Imlay City. We only
had one car so if I needed to go some where during the day, he would
come home after the morning breakfast rush and we would load up the
kids and I would take him back to work.
Gary's Uncle and Aunt, Harold and
Mary, had two boys; Roy was 2 years older and Jason was 2 years
younger than our son, Shawn. All the boys were very close pals when
they were growing up and Mary and I were close friends too. I would
baby sit for her kids and she would babysit for mine. I can not
remember what Mary was doing for the day but I was watching all the
boys. I piled all the kids in the car and off we went. Jason was
strapped into his car seat, he was a one year old. Shawn would stand
on the hump and Roy would stand on the passengers side in the back
seat. (I cringe when I think of this today) I was just making a
quick trip to my Dad's store one mile away and then to the restaurant a mile further down the road before
returning home so the boys could play.
Dad's store was a challenge with three
boys. He had the bulk candy counter which the kids could easily slip into. You could not see them unless you went behind the counter to look for them. It did not take them long to figure out how they could fill their little faces of 10 different kinds of candy at once. If I turned my back on them for a second, they made a beeline to the candy counter. We had to work
really hard to keep them away from that area of the store. And if
that was not bad enough, he also had the usual full rack of candy
bars conveniently located at the front of the store next to the cash
registers. Since it was a Ben Franklin Store, he had toys too!
Every trip to the store started out
with “Mom, can we have.....” the moment we walked into the door.
Dad and I had a routine. If it was OK with me, he would offer the
kids some candy but he always asked me first. We had this little eye trick we would do. He would look at me, if I nodded yes, then he
offered. If for some reason, we did not make eye contact he would
say, Jan, “Have the kids been good today?” If I said no, then
there would be no candy. After a 20 or 30
minute visit with Grandpa, we piled back into the car with a small bag of candy in hand for a trip to
the restaurant.
When we got there, I would park on the
west side of the restaurant. The boys could not get out of the car
fast enough! We would go in the back service entry and I would be
yelling at them the whole length of the hall, “OK boys, no running!”
It was the same routine every time we went. They would be
laughing and the employees always knew we had arrived. They would be
dodging kids. The kids had their favorite
food. They loved pickles the best. They would get them off the prep
table by the handfuls. Next was french fries, of course.... and then they would go just
outside of the kitchen to the soda fountain for pop. Their OWN pop
with ice and a straw!
The employees always greeted us warmly.
I often wondered why because for the next 30 minutes or so chaos
would ensue in the kitchen. As they did their prep work for the next
meal rush, they knew they would be dodging kids playing in the
kitchen. I usually pulled up a stool in the corner to watch the
activity and often Uncle Harold would join me. In those days, I
smoked and so did Harold so it was a good excuse for a break. Their
Dad did a pretty good job of trying to keep them in line. After
about 30 minutes, he would give me the “look” and I knew it was
time to leave.
We piled back into the car, Jason in
his car seat and Shawn and Roy at their positions in the back seat,
with paper cups full of pop and ice. I was just going 2 mile to get home so I did not put on my seat belt or Roy and Shawn's. I
negotiate a left onto old M-21 driving a ¼ mile west to Almont Ave
where I put my blinker on and stopped to waited for the traffic coming towards me to clear so I could turn left. I probably had the
radio blaring. I never looked in my rear view mirror again. I did
not see it coming....
There were three cars coming towards us
in the east bound lanes, when a full size pickup truck traveling at
the speed limit rear ended me. Everything went into slow motion. I
could see my son's pop and ice as it flew out of the cup and drenched
the inside of the car. I am hanging onto the steering wheel and
standing on the brake pedal when I see the first eastbound car go by
me on my right. We are spinning and suddenly I am looking eastbound
back at the restaurant which I had just left with a second car about
ready to hit me from behind. The driver of the second car did a
great job of avoiding us by entering Almont Ave. As we continued to
spin, I see that Roy has hit the back of the front seat so hard that
the back of the seat collapsed forward sending him tumbling like a
rag doll onto the floor of the front seat under the glove box with my
son Shawn following right behind him. My chest was driven into the
steering column which collapses and my knees are smashed hard on the
dash. I looked up and see the third cars as the driver reacts in
time and narrowly miss us. We come to a stop in the east bound lane
headed westbound. I am in shock. I had never been in an accident
before and I think...this was a bad one!
The kids start to try to untangle them
selves from one another. I ask them if they are all right...They say
they think so. They remain pretty calm and are not crying. I look
in the back seat at Jason who is safely in his child safety seat.
Aside from the fact that he has shattered glass from the back window
all over him, he has not moved at all. Snug as a bug and even smiles
at me as if to say, “that was fun, can we do it again?” I try to
open my door and it won't open, so I sit there not sure what to do
next. One of the drivers of the eastbound cars come to ask me if we
are OK. I tell him I think that we are. Before I knew it the police
are there and my husband. News travels fast in a small town.
He looked at me in the window and said
“ Did you have your blinker on?” At first I think, is that what
he said? I looked at him in almost disbelief...Really, is that your
first thought? “Did I have my blinker on?” What about “are
you and the kids alright, is anyone hurt?” I glared at him and said
“Yes, of course I did!”
Once the fire department got there,
they were able to get us out of the car. None of us was hurt other
than a few bruises and a couple of personal disappointments! .... My
favorite car, which we had only owned for six months, was totaled.
God was watching over us that day!
From that day forward, I have
faithfully used my seat belt, all children are buckled in before the
car moves and all adults are strongly encouraged no matter how short
or long the trip is. I learned that in moments of extreme stress,
people's words and actions are not always what you think they should
be. While I know that I can not control other, I made a “mental
note to self” that day so that when I am on the other side of this
coin, I chose my responses carefully so as not to hurt someone with a
careless response. I also learned that a car (even your favorite) is
just that...a car and can always be replaced. I can not imagine how I
would have felt if Shawn or Roy had been ejected from that car and
they easily could have and they would have been killed and my life
would have forever been changed.
Please remember to always buckle up!
Jan
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