In the autumn of 1968, Mrs. Kooken drove her son, Larry Kooken, me, and five other seventh graders to Herington, Kansas, for a football game between the Herington Tigers and the Abilene Cowboys. We were packed shoulder to shoulder in her brand-new, beautiful Ford Thunderbird.

I even had one of the guys sitting on my lap in the middle of the back seat. Of course, in those days, no one worried about safety, let alone putting on their seat belts.

On our way back to Abilene that misty night, things went awry. Mrs. Kooken wasn’t very familiar with the route, and the darkness made it even more difficult to navigate. I’d say we were traveling around 55 mph, maybe more. She quickly became disoriented and took a wrong turn onto a paved county road with a sharp curve and a drop-off of several feet on the right side.

She was shocked to see the sharp curve suddenly appear out of nowhere in her headlights. The speeding Thunderbird went straight off the ledge, sending us airborne over the drop-off, only to be stopped by a stout hedge tree.

Mrs. Kooken suffered multiple broken bones. Upon impact, the kid on my lap absorbed the full force of my body plowing into his back. Essentially, he was my airbag, which, unfortunately for him, resulted in a severe back injury.

One boy sustained a broken leg, and another a fractured arm. Because of my human airbag, I escaped with only a sprained ankle and some bruises. ❦

“ Several years later, I would

have another run-in with

a hedge tree! ”

STAY TUNED!