The first time I almost died in 1967
This story revolves around
getting my friend pregnant.
| Notice I didn't
say
"girlfriend", because she really was just a friend. We had met a
few years earlier and started hanging around together. We were
both 17. She used to sneak into my bedroom at night, which was on the
ground floor of an apartment building on Morris Street, just around the
corner from Charleston High School. For a long time we just slept
together, but at 17, you KNOW that wont last forever right? |
One late Fall of
1967, the weather was warm and mom wanted to take a drive. Just a
drive. So she got her best friend Pauline and I got my friend
that I had been sleeping with but not having sex. Off we went
with the top down. Mom and Pauline in the front and my friend and me in
the back. We drove and drove. I was wondering when we would turn
back as we wound-up half way into Ohio. On we drove, right into
Michigan. I don't remember where we stopped. Probably in a little
town 50 miles South of Detroit where we had relatives by
marriage. Anyway, mom decides to do something that I had never
seen her do in all the long trips we took together: Get a motel
room for the night. OK, I'm a bit tired anyway so...
Mom and Pauline slept in one bed and my friend and I slept in the
other. Of course "slept" is the wrong word, for that night it
happened: I got her pregnant. Can you imagine having sex 8
feet away from your mother in the next bed? Needless to say, we
were as quiet as we could possibly be under the circumstances. I
always wondered if mom actually knew what was going on, but if she did,
she never said anything....
|
| Both her mother
and my mother put pressure on me to marry the
girl. This is something I had no intention of doing. After
all, I was a kid with no skills and no way to support myself, much less
a family. After a lot of crying and yelling from my mother and
hers, I decided to go along with the program and see what happened
next. The first thing I must do is get a job. But where? |
OHIO
| Everyone in my
adult
circle knew of a couple of companies just outside of Cleveland Ohio who
made storm doors and windows. They were always advertising in the local
papers for unskilled help, so I was advised of this and decided to give
that a shot. The first thing I have to do is get there for an
application, and at this time, my best friend Johnny Schoonover had
also got HIS girlfriend pregnant, and we decided to take my car in the
dead of winter and head for northern Ohio the following day.
Being used to traveling a lot with my mom, and knowing how she liked to
get up at 4 am to start our trips, that's what me and Johnny did
also. But being so excited about the trip, we didn't sleep at all
that night. We stayed up talking about our plans and at 4am, we
took off in the snow. But first, about my car..... |
About 6 months earlier,
I had purchased a 55 Chevy from a gas station in Kanawha City. I
think it was called "Frosty's". The car for some strange reason
had a black vinyl top and the car was unfinished. That is, it
just needed a paint job because it was in Primer. So I took it to
Mac's Body Shop on Morris street, just a couple blocks from my house
and had it painted bright red. I knew Mac and so he gave me a
really good deal, maybe $300. I didn't pay a lot for the
car to start with because I had little money, and why the owner sold it
to me at that low price I cant remember. I just know he was running out
of room at the gas station and needed to move it. The car had a
BEAUTIFUL 409 engine with all the chrome trimmings, and the interior
was really sharp, so it was the perfect hot rod for a 17 year old kid
who just happened to fall into the deal. So this is the car that
Johnny and I and another kid (who's name I have forgotten) headed
towards Cleveland at 4am on a snowy morning after staying up all night
without sleep.... |
The trip that
night was uneventful. We arrived at the factory
around 8am and walked in to the office. The man in charge gave us a
form to fill out and after we handed it back, he said "You're
hired". It was just that simple. That man must have
really been desperate for employees. So now it's around 9am and
we're heading back. All 3 of us were in the front seat, and now the sun
was out and shining bright against the snow. SO bright that I had
to squint my eyes from the glare. We went about 10 miles when all
of a sudden, I hear this ear piercing scream! It was coming from
both my buddies and they were trying to grab the wheel.
You
see.... I had fallen asleep, and we were heading straight towards a low
water bridge abutment at 70 miles per hour! We managed to get the
wheel turned just enough to prevent a head-on crash, but the rear of
the car caught the bridge. This threw us across the highway to
the opposite side of the bridge. We hit THAT so hard that it
tossed us back to the first side. After hitting THAT, it once again
threw us back to the opposite side once more, but we weren't finished
yet. That impact AGAIN tossed us over the 2 lanes one more time,
but now we had run out of bridge and heading down the deepest widest
Median I had ever seen. Down we flew through the snow till we hit
bottom. My cool 55 Chevy is now a wreck, with both sides crushed
and probably a bent frame from the first impact. I don't know how
a wrecker was called but one showed up and towed us to a junk
yard. So there we were. No money between us to get back home and
no car. I made a deal with the owner of the junkyard to sell him
my car for enough money to get the 3 of us back home. ( he wanted
that 409 engine, as it wasn't touched) To this day I don't
remember HOW we got home, but I must assume it was on a
Greyhound. You would think that I would have remembered,
but I don't. Strange. |
BACK HOME AGAIN
Now we're back home in
Charleston and we have a job waiting for us in 2 days. I need a
car.
Somehow, somewhere I found a piece of crap 55 Plymouth for
$300.
NOW WHAT?
| Johnny and I
head out
again, at the same time of 4am. Everything was going
well until about 10 miles South of Canton Ohio. That's when the
generator went out in the old car. The headlights started dimming
to the point that we couldn't see the road, so we pulled into a
gas station and got a full charge on the battery because we didn't
have enough money to purchase a new one, and as I recall, the station
didn't have one anyway. The Interstate's hadn't come though
Charleston yet, but there were sections in Ohio and that's what we were
on. As we entered the Canton area, the 4 lane road was all lit up
with bright street lights, so I decided to turn the headlights off in
oder to save power. We got over halfway through Canton when all
of a sudden, red lights. (cops had red lights back then) We were
pulled over for driving without lights. I explained what happened
and that I wasn't doing it for fun, but trying to save the battery. The
cop didn't care. We had to follow him back to the police station where
he fined us right then and there. He took most of the money we
had left, but off we went again..... |
PUT THE WINDOWS DOWN!
| As we continued
our
journey with about 40 miles to go, I started feeling strange.
Eventually I realized that I was smelling exhaust fumes. I told
Johnny, "You smell that? " It's Exhaust fumes!" So we
rolled down the windows to allow fresh air in. But remember, it's
winter and the temperature is 29 degrees. We started freezing,
sometimes sticking our heads out into the cold air. At last we
arrived at a fleabag motel.... |
TURN OFF THAT DAMNED TV!
| When we arrived
at the motel, I was sick. I mean really sick. I
lay in bed getting sicker and sicker, and what was on the black &
white TV? One of the weirdest movies ever made: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. That
movie is strange even if you are well, but try watching it when you're
dying! |
As I lay there getting
sicker by the hour, the only thing I see is the TV playing this
crazy movie.
Even the music was weird, as I started hallucinating
Fingers, fingers everywhere, and these kids wearing those "hand hats",
were starting to get to me.
| By now I thought
death was near, and I told Johnny
"call me an ambulance, I think I'm dying". So he did, and I don't
remember the medics at all, or the trip to the hospital. I seemed
to have come-to there in a hallway laying on a gurney up against a
wall. |
SO WHAT HAPPENED THEN?
| So there I am on
a
gurney in the hallway of the hospital. Why was I there?
Because the hospital was completely full of Hong Kong flu
patients! So naturally they assumed I had the flu. This outbreak
was the third influenza pandemic to occur in the 20th century!
All I know is that I was dying. I remember giving the doctor
information so he could call my mother in Charleston. After he
called, I was informed my mom was on her way. Now, it's about 3am
and so she'll arrive around 6:30 or 7. This she did. I managed to
get into her car and back we went to WV. By the time we arrived
in Charleston, I was feeling better. And over the next 4 or 5 hours, I
was good as new. It wasn't until years later, looking back on
what happened that I realized I didn't have the flu at all. I had
carbon monoxide poisoning! |
Epilogue
I am now too old
to
remember why this story ended the way it did, because I never went
back, and I never saw my friend Johnny again. I don't know if he
took the job, or came back. I don't know what happened to the
car, which was in my name. I never heard from Johnny again.
He never tried to contact me again as far as I know, and there was no
way for me to locate him. My life would soon change in a big way,
and I forgot all about this affair. It wasn't until 50 years
later that I decided to try to find Johnny, but it was too late. He had
passed away about 7 years earlier. And the sad thing is that he
had been living not too far from me around Eleanor or Buffalo WV.
I did get to talk to his sister, and she knew nothing about our
experience. Too bad. I really would have liked to talk to him.
Meanwhile, although it doesn't play on TV very often, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. still
both creeps me out in one way, and reminds me of the event that Johnny
and I went through in another. |
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