Everybody has a story: Son gets Model A gut check

It was the fall of 1937. I would be a big 5-year-old boy in a couple of months. Our farm was on a hill about 3 miles from Battle Ground. The farmstead itself occupied a bench near the top.

My three older siblings were in school but I was at home on the farm, along with my toddler sister, Mom and Dad. There was no preschool or kindergarten in those days. If I was not otherwise occupied with my very own important stuff, my job was helping Dad on the farm, which I was very good at, if I do say so myself.

On this particular day, Dad had to go to town because he needed some piece of hardware from the Clark County Dairymen’s Co-op store, and joy of joys, I was going to go with him! At that age this was a very big deal for me because we didn’t have a lot of contact with other folks, and going to town was all new and exciting stuff.

Dad got out the family car, a Ford Model A sedan, and sent me down the hill to open the gate between the farmstead and the fields. I trotted down to the gate, held it open and waited patiently for Dad to drive through, when I would close the gate again.

Dad started driving down, then suddenly remembered something he had forgotten, so he stopped the car, left it idling and disappeared into the barn.

Before long the Model A started to roll — Dad hadn’t set the brake! That car was headed right square for me! I saw this all happening but I thought to myself, “Dad will come out and stop it, Dad will stop it, Dad will stop it,” as it came closer and closer. I repeated this mantra over and over, certain that Dad would save me.

I was still thinking that when the bumper of the car, now going maybe 1 or 2 mph, slammed me right in the gut, pushing me down and knocking the breath out of me. But thank God for high clearance and my small child body, for that car went clean over me with nothing else touching. It rolled out into the field and finally stopped.

Well! I lit out for the house squalling at the top of my now-refilled lungs. Mom and Dad came a-running and soon determined I was no worse for wear. But then, after everything calmed down, they decided that I would not be allowed to make this trip to town with Dad. That ruined my whole day!

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