Two anniversaries

Among other things

Earlier this month, I celebrated two anniversaries.

The first was my birthday, May 8, which I share with former President Harry Truman, and on which I reached the big 80.

The second was the 57th anniversary of a Sunday, May 3, 1953 event that I've long regarded as a pivotal point. I still vividly recall what happened at the end of the Holter Dam bridge near Wolf Creek (between Great Falls and Helena). After attending church that morning, four other Air Force buddies and I decided to go sightseeing as it was a beautiful spring day.

As we approached the far end of the bridge, I signaled a left turn (by my arm as there weren't any flashers on my 1936 Plymouth sedan I'd purchased for $50 a few weeks earlier. Turn lights weren't required for a few more years). Most cars didn't have seat belts then either.

As we started to turn off the high way onto the Holter Dam road, our car was struck from behind by a car carrying four Bobcat football players. They explained that the brakes had failed. It was estimated their car was going about 80 miles per hour when it collided with us.

Across the highway, a man on a tractor was doing spring lowing and witnessed the crash. He immediately came over to see if he could help. He said my car had turned end over end twice and then rolled two more times down about a 30-foot bank, coming to rest upside down.

I remember the noisy tumbling and crying out, "God, please help us!" Suddenly, it stopped, and all was eerily quiet. I "called roll" and everyone answered. I picked my glasses up off the ceiling and the fellow who had been plowing started pulling us one by one through the windows. He said it reminded him of a circus act he had seen where several people emerged from a small car, one after another.

The doors never came open, so no one was ejected. We climbed back up to the highway to see what had happened to the people in the other car. Amazingly, no one was badly hurt, even though one fellow sailed though the windshield onto the highway. The only person hurt in my car was a back seat passenger. He had a broken arm.

I worked my way down to the bank to retrieve my Brownie camera from the car and started taking pictures. Scotty James, editor of the Montana Parade section of the Great Falls Tribune at that time, happened to come by and took pictures of the wreck. The photo of my car appeared in the Monday morning edition of the Tribune.

The incident really made me wonder why I had survived and to start searching seriously for what God was telling me. Some answers became apparent over the years, but the search goes on.

Anyway, that's the story of the second anniversary. As to the first anniversary, I don't remember a thing about it!