Chapter 18

     My friend and I had been to football practice and decided to run by Wendy’s for their triple cheeseburger, fries, and a Frosty.

     I had worked during the summer remodeling a house, helping to turn a two-story house into a three-apartment house. I had saved up a bit and it was two weeks before school started, football practice had begun, and the summer was about over.

     I flirted with the girl in the drive-through and got a date set for the next day.  My friend wanted a date too, so I asked her if she had a friend.  She introduced her friend to my friend, and we all decided to meet up the next day and go see the movie, “Grease” that was just coming out.

     The next day, my friend hurt himself at football practice and had to bail out of the date.  I went by Wendy’s to explain, but the gal I was to go out with had burned herself at work and couldn’t go out either.  I asked her if her friend still wanted to go and we ended up going out to the movie that night, August 21, 1978.

     We went out several times that week, last chance before school and all.  By the third date or so, I had come to realize that she was the first girl in my dream, “The Room”.  She was intelligent, fun to be with, and absolutely beautiful.  A true dream girl.  

     We dated for a year - the first girl in my dream, “The Room”.  We dated for a year but then she wanted to break up.  So, we went on one last date August 21, 1979, dating a year and a day.

     My hope was to move out on my own when I turned eighteen.  I also wanted to fix up houses and sell them or keep them as rentals for income.  So, I started looking around at the housing market. 

     I found two houses for sale, $10,000 for one and $10,500 for the other.  The seller wanted $1,000 down and $100 per month for each.  I met with the realtor to look at them but as I was only seventeen, I could not make an offer.  If I could have, I would have bought both on the spot.  One to live in and the other to rent. 

     I did leave highly encouraged that when I turned eighteen, I would be able to purchase a “starter home”.  Now I knew how much to start saving for.

     My Volkswagen square-back had been having some brake problems and on my way home I had a wreck.  I was going down a hill traveling East on Chestnut Expressway crossing Campbell and when I hit the brakes to stop at the light, which was yellow, my pedal went all the way to the floor with no results. 

     There was a van sitting on the cross-street to my right and a hill was on the other side of the light.  I was about to downshift to try to slow my car but then looking at the hill I decided to go for it, and I gassed it to try and make the light before it changed.

     Another car was on the other side of the van which could not see me, and when the light turned green, he hit the gas and shot out from behind the van.  My right fender caught the front of his car and the next thing I knew, I was standing on the street corner looking at the wreck. 

     My first thought was, “How did I just wreck a car and walk over here without anyone noticing”.  I looked down at my hands making and unmaking fists over and over coming to understand that I was not in my body.

     I looked over at my car and saw myself slumping over the steering wheel.  It looked to me that I had just died.  Just then a light behind me started to emit a warm glow and I started to turn around to look.

     Then I stopped and thought, I can always go that way but I may not be able to come back.  I didn’t feel like I was done in this life, and I decided to see if I could do something to stay.  I looked back at my body wondering if I could somehow get back into it and wake myself.  

     I stepped off the curb heading toward my car and just shot through the air waking up back in my body.  Everyone had been leaning over looking at me and they screamed when I woke up.  I got out of the car by slamming myself against the door to get it open.  I stepped out, fell to the ground, felt the back of my head and seeing blood on my hand, I passed out.

     I woke up in the hospital while they were sewing my head back together and Shirley and her sister were there looking on.  The doctor completed my stitches and released me from the hospital.

     A few days later, I went to look at my car and to get my stuff out of it.  It was like it had been ripped in half.  There was nothing left of the right side all the way back to the back wheel except for the passenger seat hanging on by its back left bolt.  When the car tore apart, it had pulled the top down, which is where I had hit my head.  It looked amazing that anyone could have survived the wreck.

     The owner of the car that I had hit which had shot out from behind the van, came by my house to check up on me.  He was very apologetic and stated that he had gunned his car the second the light turned without looking, doing the racecar start.  He also stated, that they had thought I was dead", when they had come to check on me while I was slumping over the steering wheel.  

     I thanked him and told him all was okay as we had survived.  I did not tell him about my out-of-body experience as I felt they might put me in the funny farm for even thinking such a thing.  

     It would be a couple of years before I told anyone.