THE TRUCK WRECK: POST #38

The old highway that ran right through Herman Junction was a pretty popular course. One could take the old highway to the county line to the nearest liqiour store and was a lot less likely to run into a policeman than if he took the new highway. So, most people who wanted to buy liqiour came right through Herman Junction, sometimes both going and coming. Because of that there were a lot of wrecks on the old highway. I remember one night when a car wrecked smack dab in front of our house. There were two bridges in front of our house about 100 feet apart. One led up to Booie Woods house and the other was the bridge into our yard.

We were already in bed when we heard a terrible noise and people yelling and hollering right in front of the house. When we got out in the yard there was a fight going on and a car turned upside down in the ditch perfectly between those two bridges. Another car was sitting up on the highway and both cars were full of young men. One had been chasing the other when the first car lost control and into the ditch he went. No one was hurt and they were already out of the car and yelling and screaming at one another. I don't know if they ever exchanged blows or not because I was watching from behind the storm house and couldn't see everything clearly.

One wreck that I remember best did not involve drinking or chasing or anything like that. It just involved three boys being ignorant and having fun at the same time. My transportation was limited in those days and I either had to walk or catch a ride with somebody most of the time. Walton and Dalton Weaver didn't live far from us and they drove their Dad's truck to ball practice and to the games most of the time and would come by and pick me up. One time we had a batch of bad weather and school was not in session but Coach Pierce called us to ball practice anyway. The Weaver boys picked me up and then after practice they were going to drop me off at my house. There was snow and some ice on the road, especially on the edges. We met a car and had to get over on the shoulder to pass and as Walton started to pull back into the middle of the road the truck kind of slid sideways and that was fun! So, every time we came to a patch of snow and ice over on the side he would pull over there, give a little extra gas to pull back in the road and we would slide back and forth a little. You are ahead of me now and you know what happened don't you? One time he gave it a little extra power and that thing started sliding all over the place, slid just past a huge tree, down in the ditch, and turned over. We didn't like that much and in our efforts to climb out of there one of us stepped on the window of the side under us and broke that window out. We finally got out and as we walked on down the road to Herman Junction we kind of got tickled, especially as we developed our story about what had happened. We got my Dad's car and I took them home and thier Dad came and got the truck out. I don't know if either of our Dad's ever knew for sure what happened. When we all get to heaven we will tell them what the deal was.

But, things like this made Herman Junction pretty exciting at times. Ah, Yes, everything is OK at Herman Junction.