Sideswiped! Written November 26, 1957   About a year ago we had an automobile accident. It happened on a Saturday, because I remember I woke up earlier than usual.  Mother would have gone to Marysville for parts without me, but I woke up in time to go with her. On the way back, there is a 90° turn just out of Richwood.  This year, there was a cornfield on the inner side of the curve.  This cornfield blocked vision around the curve. Then just as we got to the curve a stake truck appeared, coming the other direction.  It seems whenever a car or truck comes around a curve, they always move to the center.  Therefore, we collided almost head-on. A STAKE TRUCK The truck glanced off, turned around, and went on its side.  The door on my side flew open, but I didn't fall out. If we had hit just slightly different, the wreck could have been much worse.  But we were only slightly injured, the truck driver not at all.   Background:  I wrote this essay for my fifth-grade English class.  It's the earliest non-childish composition of mine that I've discovered in the archives. Several months before the accident, in April 1956, I snapped this picture of the car that would later be involved.  That's my Kentucky cousin Freddy Thomas standing beside the 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air sport sedan.  I colorized the picture in October 2006. I made the drawing below in 2003. The collision, in which the left front wheel of the truck smashed into our car's left front fender, took place a couple of miles south of Richwood on Ohio Route 37, probably in October 1956. The tall corn, awaiting the harvest, had hidden our car and the truck from each other as we approached the banked curve at 50 miles per hour.  If the two drivers had been aware of the oncoming traffic, both would have been more careful to stay on their respective sides of the centerline. And if cars had been equipped with seatbelts back then, we wouldn't have sustained a scratch.  As it was, my only injury was a knee laceration.  We were lucky. For several summers afterward, we noticed that the field on the inside of the corner was no longer a cornfield.  Instead, the farmer planted lower-lying crops like alfalfa or soybeans. There had been accidents in this area before, of course.  The Richwood Gazette of March 1, 1917, reported a “rather unusual” one which took place the previous Monday, February 26. Dr. L.L. Roebuck was driving south from Richwood on what was then a narrow country road.  “Near Claibourne cemetery, he caught up with a large wagon loaded with hay.  He was unable to make the driver hear his signals, and not wishing to be delayed, attempted to pass the wagon at the side of the road.  Just as he was going around the wagon, he noticed that the load was about to topple over upon his machine.  In trying to avoid the falling hay, he steered the car into a telephone pole, the impact breaking off the pole and causing it to fall on the automobile.” LOOK OUT, THE SKY IS FALLING! NO, THE HAY IS FALLING! NO, THE POLE IS FALLING! A A U G H ! According to the Gazette, the doctor was not hurt but his vehicle was badly dented.  “The driving mechanism of the automobile was not damaged and was driven on to Columbus, where Dr. Roebuck hoped to have it repaired without unnecessary delay.  While in Columbus, he decided to trade the damaged machine for a new one, and the new car was driven to Richwood Monday night.”