AT THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME

Many years ago, in a neighborhood middle class working people full of good friendly neighbors with many children, there were many small family-owned stores on the main street, a beauty salon, convenience store, woman's hat store, soda fountain with ice cream store, Rudy's local saloon, and an electric motor repair store all just in one block. Some folks worked in factories, and some had their own businesses. Going east on that main street from our block was a bridge over railroad tracks, on the left-hand side was a gas station, and a Harley Davidson Motorcycle dealership and more small shops.

On the weekends, since my family had no car, my mother would take my brother and me and we would walk to the Kroger supermarket for the family weekly groceries for the coming week. Kroger’s was located about four blocks away in the same direction as the Harley Davidson motorcycle store. We would take a two wheeled foldable grocery cart that either my brother or I would pull to bring home the groceries. After an hour of shopping and filling the grocery cart full of groceries for walk back home. Money for example twenty dollars in those days would buy plenty of groceries for a family of four for the week ahead in those days. On Saturdays, many people would stop by the popular Harley Davidson dealership to look at all the models of motorcycles, go on test drives or purchase a motorcycle.

There was one Saturday I would never forget after shopping at Kroger’s with my mom. Simultaneously as my mom shopped, a twelve-year-old boy went to the corner store next to the beauty salon to buy some candy and a soda. During the same time, a man wanted to test drive a motorcycle he wanted to purchase it as his first motorcycle. The boy purchased his candy and soda and was going home. Meanwhile, the man started his test drive of his motorcycle about three hundred feet from the corner store where the boy was getting ready to walk out the door of the store. The motorcycle was too powerful for the man who had little experience as he gave it to much gas and fell off backwards from the motorcycle, but the motorcycle stayed erect and kept going down the street rider less. As the motorcycle was getting closer to the store where the boy was as he walked out of the store. The motorcycle veered to the left, crossed over the lane, hit the curb hard, bounced up in the air, and hit the boy head-on, causing his head to strike the brick corner of the building. The great force of the motorcycle that hit the boy split the boys head wide open, causing his brains and blood to be splattered all over the sidewalk. The boy died instantly, he never knew what hit him, as his candy and soda lay scattered on the sidewalk.

As we approached that corner returning home, there were several police cars and fire engines present. The two firemen were hosing down the sidewalk washing the brain matter and blood down the sewer. I remember feeling scared and sad as the neighbors told my family about what happened to the boy that day. I didn’t know the boy but felt sorry for that family’s loss of a young child. All the children in the neighborhood were very careful when going to the store after that day. That was the strangest accident I have ever heard of or seen. A simple trip to the store to purchase some candy and a soda ended in the poor boy’s death.