Tires and Gravel

November 1964 and I was 4 years old

Mom and I were traveling

By bus from Houston to Panama City

After visiting family for a week

Dad was stationed at Tyndall Air Force Base

And we were headed home

We were on a dark lonely stretch of highway

Close to the Louisiana/Texas border

Late late at night

On a starless moonless night

Mother was trying to get me to fall asleep

And be quiet

When I felt the bus slow down rapidly

Suddenly people In the front of the bus started to scream

And cry out in terror

I distinctly remember the sound of gravel

As it was thrown up under the bus

By the tires as we

Skidded off the highway

And suddenly felt a hard startling bump

And the sound of metal against metal

My tiny body was thrown from my seat

Seatbelts were not mandatory then

Getting wedged between my mother’s huge white travel bag

That she had opted for in place of a suitcase

And the seat in front of me

I could not move

I was crumpled up, but not crushed or injured

I could feel my mother’s hands grasping for me

Suddenly feeling her grab the back of

My romper and roughly pull me up and out

I was not hurt, but Mother’s face was bleeding from the forehead

She had been thrown against the window

Which was shattered and caving inward

Mother had been cut by falling glass

Head wounds bleed so profusely

The screams and moans coming from other passengers did not frighten me

But the blood on my mother’s face did

I did not understand the ramifications of what had happened

Someone was banging on our window trying to push it in so

We could get out.

Mother put her sweater over my head to protect me from the glass

As it collapsed inwards

She handed me to a man standing on some boxes outside

I was more terrified of a stranger danger than anything

I had been told to never let a stranger pick me up

Or touch me

And this man was a stranger

But mother was handing me to him

So I did not fuss

The man handed me off to another man and then

Helped Mother out through the window

People covered in blood and crying were all around me

A car had crossed over the line and hit the bus head-on

There were no survivors in the car

It was the first time I saw a dead person

I was four years old

The driver was a man was slumped back against his seat

His neck was broken and

His mouth was open like he was snoring

But I instinctively knew he was not snoring nor asleep

I didn’t understand what was happening

I was confused and scared

Another bus was dispatched to pick us all up

And drive us to Shreveport

This was before cell phones, so no family could be alerted

Until they got us safe and sound

My grandpa came and got us and then drove us to Florida

Mother was NOT getting on another bus

She did not require stitches

Being a small child, I did not even have a bruise

But to this day, whenever I hear the sound of tires on gravel

I tense up and my heart starts to race

And I flashback to that man snoring lifelessly

- Julie O'Hara

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