Family Photos '66 Five wrecks in five weeks

Fall 1966

No one got hurt....


Photographs come with stories attached.  Even snapshots of long forgotten families, albums we find in estate sales and sell at the flea market get new stories from the artists and writers who use them in their work. This pleasant family shot, my mother, brother, and sister on the left.  Dad's sister, little Norma in the center next to Simon with their youngest, Jon behind.  I have apparently drifted off a bit in the center back, dad snapped the shutter. 

Shot in the back yard of my folks place in Spokane, the scene actually  got its start a couple days earlier in the middle of Bothell Highway in Lake City.  "All I saw was the underside of the car ahead when he slammed on his breaks,"  Simon told us later.  Car totaled. As I recall it had been a white '62 Bel-Air 2 door hardtop with red leather.   

Impatient standing around waiting for the cops and tow trucks to clear the mess in the street, Simon went on into a Chev dealership in front of which the accident happened and drove home in a brand new '67 maroon Impala.  Good looking car, big V-8 under the hood; Jon and I couldn't wait for the chance take it out on our own. 

New car and all, seemed like a fun plan to blast over the hill to visit my folks in Spokane that Saturday.

Big year for us three boys.  Jon and I graduated high school in June and flew out to adventure in Alaska.  Justin, a couple years older had moved out on his own when mom and dad took off for Spokane in September.  When the boat Jon and I worked in hit town, I moved in with Justin in the two room apartment over on Eastlake.  Both of us attended Seattle Pacific that year.  Fun times.

Throughout our adult life Justin and I got no end of enjoyment from retelling a story about Simon and Jon that threaded in and out of our lives that fall.  We called it five wrecks in five weeks.  There were five wrecks, but the span of time may have been a bit longer than five weeks, but the name sticks in my mind if no where else.

First wreck in the series happened to the brown bomber, a mid fifties Chev station wagon Norm used as a utility truck for cleaning and painting the apartment building where Justin and I were living.  The back loaded with cans of paint, Jon pulled out from their street onto Bothell Highway with the light, at 175th just in time to be hit by a dump truck who lost his breaks and couldn't stop. Sent the old station wagon spinning.  Paint can lids burst open, coating the interior with a variety of colors; kind of like one of the carnival attractions where a bit of color is splashed over a spinning record to create art.  Jon walked away unhurt with a great story that had us boys in stitches. 

Norms drove a sweet little 1958 Karmann Gia while we were in high school.  Easy to hot wire with a Speer-mint wrapper between the starter switch terminals behind the dashboard, Jon and I occasionally sneaked it out even before we had our licenses.  Amazing in a way we didn't manage to wreck it then, but I don't think we even scraped a finder.

Nevertheless, the car did need some body work,  and Phil arranged for a friend of his to fix a few dints and dings, including an unsightly folded in nose, and giver her spiffy over spray.  Sat in a body shop down by University Village for what seemed like the better part of a couple years. Occurs to me now Norm may have paid the guy to keep it off the street until Jon matured enough not to get us killed racing around in that thing.   When we got back from Alaska, the Karmann Gia was also back, showroom fresh in powder blue.

Heading north out of Lake City on Bothell Highway the speed limit went to forty five after the light at one forty fifth.  Alone in the car, Jon probably red lined it in third, dropped it into high gear at speed limit or more by the time he got down to a little grocery on the right, just past the grave yard.

Suddenly a Nallies Pickle truck lumbered slowly out from the store lot, blocking both lanes in its wide turn. No way to stop, Jon instinctively swerved to the left.  Almost made it too.  Sudden change of direction at that speed put the car into a four wheel slide, which could have been manageable except for a left turn lane divider island.  Cut her off like a line backer nailing a runner trying on an end around sweep.

Upended, the little car spun on its top for some distance before coming to rest.  Inside, Jon had managed to land between the seats, bathed in a shower of sparks from the roof scraping pavement.  Said he almost spilled the large Dick's Drive-in Coke he happened to be drinking at the time.

Some lady who witnessed the whole thing ran up and hugged the boy as he climbed out of the wreckage unharmed.  Looked like a wreck from which no one could walk away.

Before cell phones one had to just wait and worry at home when a loved one didn't appear at the expected time. That evening Norma had almost become frantic wondering why Jon was so late when the door bell rang.  There he stood, wry grin on his face holding a large chunk of auto body filler, pretty blue paint on one side that told the whole story.  The guy who fixed the car up and painted it hadn't pounded out any of the dents, just filled with great gobs of body putty and painted over.  In the crash the plastic filler splattered over the street like a smashed china cup. The boy thought that showing his mother one of the larger pieces of the debris might deflect her anger over wrecking her car to the guy who did the sleazy body work.  Everyone was just glad to see Jon still alive; the truck driver was sighted for pulling into traffic without looking.

So that's three, brown bomber smashed, Bel Air crumpled, Karman Gia rolled, enough already.  Not so much.  Hardy a week or two after the Spokane trip, Simon was cruising along over in Ballard somewhere in the new maroon Impala when another dump truck failed to stop at a light and smashed into the right side of the car.  Totaled.  I have no recollection of the car they got to replace that one, think it lasted several years.

That made four wrecks in a space of time spanning little more than the four weeks we used for the title of this story.  As I recall, Jon told us about the fifth crash some time later.  This one technically belonged to one of Jon's friends, but he was in the car and five wrecks in a short segment of time makes for a better story than four, so Justin and I always included it in with the cluster.

I remember the car better than the friend who drove it, mid fifties beater station wagon, similar to the brown bomber, think it was Plymouth.  Up in the back country hunting with a couple friends,  they were racing along old logging roads when the driver lost control and bumped off down a clear cut hillside.

"You know how when you are in a wreck and everything goes into slow motion," Jon recalled as he told us the story.  We didn't.  "well it seemed like we were standing still in the car and a huge black stump was slowly coming toward us, bouncing back and fourth as if the windshield were a movie screen."  Smash. Had to walk five miles out to phone home for a ride.  Car may still be buried in a slash pile somewhere up past Granite Falls.

Difference between oral tradition stories like this and a written account is the ending.  Telling the story one can leave off after the last smash, crack another beer while the laughter dies down and move on to the next bull shot tale. No need to delve into the boring parts of car wrecks like liability and insurance claims and the myriad of other details that turn the fun parts of life into drudgery. 

Writing it all out like this calls for some kind of conclusion.  Draw an example or spin the story in some way to make a point. All I can say is that  Simon and Jon were interesting characters, wild and crazy on one hand, quiet and conservative on the other.  Stuff happened to them that often made good stories, which is enough for me.