This is a true story that
happened just this way to the best of my memory.
I am fast approaching 62 years old and I have
recently returned home after going to the
funeral of my oldest surviving brother. I am the
youngest out of 10 children in my family and my
Mother and Father have passed. There are only 3
of us boys left out of 8 boys and 2 girls. This
information has basically nothing to do with my
story but recently my mind has turned to ancient
memories of things from yesterday and
bam.....there was this memory as vivid as ever
and really wanting to be brought out again.
One other thing I need to say is that as far as
I know to this point in my life this occurrence
is the only time in my life that I have
experienced any kind of precognitive or
extrasensory abilities.
Many years ago in 1955, when I was 3 years old,
my family moved from rural mountainous West
Virginia to industrialized Cleveland, Ohio so my
father and older brothers could find work in the
factories and machine shops that were very
numerous in those days. Being simple folk, when
my family took a vacation, they did not even
consider getting a hotel/motel room somewhere
like the beach but instead they would head back
toward where they came from, back to Hinton,
Summers County, WV where our kin folk would move
the kids over and make room in the beds for
everyone. These times grew to be some of the
best memories of my youth. Spending time with
cousins on endless summer days fishing in local
rivers and playing games after dark was so much
fun.
Back then was before the interstate system was
in place and the trip from Cleveland, Ohio to
Hinton, WV was a grueling 13 to 15 hours ordeal
along two-lane roads through small towns and
through some larger cities on the way. One of
the cities we had to go through was Charleston,
WV, the capital city of West Virginia. A lot of
the times there was so many people going that it
was a multi-car caravan and of course the
smaller children were stuck with Mom, me being
the smallest of the lot. On this particular
occasion we had two cars in the bunch with my
oldest brother driving the lead car and back
then the front seats were made for three people
so his wife was in the middle seat in front. My
Mother made up the third person in front, in the
back there were one of my slightly older
brothers, my sister that was born just before me
in the family and then myself. In the second car
following us was another older brother who was
driving it and my Father.
We had been going all day and being young at the
time, around 6-7 years old, I don't remember a
lot of the trip but I remember the next 15
minutes like it was 5 minutes ago. It was just
at dusk and we were just starting to approach
the outskirts of Charleston, WV. In the
gathering gloom, the clouds were also gathering
and it had started to sprinkle rain. I remember
the drops hitting the windshield (you know how
as a kid you would stand up and look out the
front over the seat.....and YES it was way
before child seat laws and seat belts)I would
see the drops of rain hit and travel up the
glass in the wind. Very suddenly, I don't know
how, I started to cry just behind my Mother's
head and I started saying to my Mother, "Stop
the car, let me out, let me go back with Dad. We
are going to wreck!" Well, naturally, as mothers
do she shushed me and said that we couldn't stop
and to just shut up. The farther up the road we
went the more I cried and the louder I cried. I
remember the feeling of doom and dread hanging
over me as though I could reach out and touch
it. It was there, it had come for me, I knew it.
By this time I was virtually in hysterics,
screaming and crying and yelling to "STOP THIS
CAR AND LET ME OUT!!"
It finally reached a point where my oldest
brother and my Mother decided that they had to
do something so they checked the roadway behind
us....seeing only the car that my Dad was in,
they stopped in the middle of the road. It was
literally pouring rain when Mom opened the door
and I jumped out and I ran back to the car my
other brother and Dad was in. My Dad saw me
coming and of course opened the door and scooped
me up from the highway soaking wet, closed the
door and off we went again. He said, "Son, what
are you doing coming through the rain to come
back here?". "Dad, " I said, "they are going to
get into a wreck in that car."
Now, of course, no one pays any attention to a
little kid, right? They just pick up and go
on...I mean, after all, they have to get to
Hinton to start their vacation. Yea, right.
Well, not five minutes later as they were going
across a railroad crossing a vehicle coming from
the opposite direction, driven by a man that was
drunker than hell, plowed head-on into that lead
car. My Mother caught the most injuries which
show that that was the side of the vehicle that
received the most damage (who had occupied the
position directly behind her until just 5
minutes before that?? ME!!!). Everyone survived
thank goodness but Mom suffered for the rest of
her life from those bone breaks she got from
that accident.
No other severe injuries happened but I
sincerely believe that if I had not gotten out
of that vehicle I would either have been the
most severely injured or most likely killed in
that accident. How else could I interpret it?
How would you interpret it if it happened to
you?
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