Thursday November 14, 2019 Another No Accident in 1983.

I had to be in Thief River Falls, before the unemployment office closed; I had just got laid off from the toy factory and needed to sign up for unemployment compensation that I hoped would see me through the winter. It didn’t make sense to have to drive 130 miles round trip to sign-up for unemployment--when I hardly had the gas money, but this was northwest Minnesota in 1983, and living in this ‘remote’ region of Minnesota had an Alaskan ring to it with the severity of its winters, many of its same wild animals, and the similarity to its rugged population, including bush pilot-types that, in the winter, regularly landed on skis in small rural farm fields, then took off, sometimes barely above the trees, lakes and rivers to gain altitude, whose small planes have crashed, and few pilots and passengers survived as two Minnesotans did near here on November 7, 1983.

It had been quite the week, an unbelievable series of terror, mind-numbing pain and successful deceit of which, at one point, I only played a small part. Although I wrote down events that I personally experienced and knew happened, there are more chapters to the story I learned, that may never see print.

Okay, so maybe I was preoccupied that day on my way to Thief River, or I was feeling the after effects of ‘a few beers’ before I left, (Hey -- it was after noon) but I never imagined I wouldn’t get to TRF that day, nor meet virtual strangers who would play such an integral part in my life as friends and neighbors for 36 years, and as a result, one of whom would become as close to me as a brother.

I was driving my 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40, that I had bought new a few months after I had purchased my farm from an uncle. I had owned a 1968 MGB convertible until then, a sporty little vehicle that I doubted would get me into the farm and out of it all year around, so the four-wheel drive Toyota just made sense; I gave up fun for utility and never looked back. The Land Cruiser had played a huge part in my life in August of 1972, when it’s high clearance and tough suspension enabled my father to get me to the Dryden, Ontario, Area Hospital, from a remote lake shore in time to save my life. It had become, clearly, my all-time favorite vehicle.

In about the middle of November of ‘83 however, the gravel roads were snow packed, the county finally getting snow a week after the airplane crash. I decided to drive the back roads to cut off the miles I’d have to drive to get to the highway. A mile and a quarter south of County Road 8, two county roads intersect at a tee. The main road was a north/south road and beyond the intersection to its south, the road was slightly crowned in the center, as I recall. Owing to the fact the Land Cruiser had a short wheel base like that of a Jeep, its loss of stability on that smooth snow-packed surface -- and likely the speed I was traveling, 30-40 mph, (maybe faster), caused it to fishtail just a little; the right rear of the truck breaking traction. I steered right to counteract its motion, bringing it back to straight for a few seconds, when it started to slide again oppositely; the left rear breaking, I steered left to counteract, the front tires trying to grip gravel although I wasn’t in four-wheel drive. Why I didn’t use the transfer case shift lever then, I don’t know, all this happening in ten or fifteen seconds, but I imagined if I’d go out of control, I’d likely slide into the shallow ditch on the east side of the road, where I would simply steer into the field, pull the transfer case lever into four-wheel drive, turn around, and drive up the ditch grade onto the road on my way toward Thief River Falls. Afterall, I’d been driving that truck for eleven years. Easy-peasy.

But that’s not the way it went.

The Toyota swerved east into the ditch, the front wheels veering sharp left to the bottom, the bumper nosing into the ground; inertia pulling the body right, the drivers side rear wheel leaving the ground, causing the vehicle to twist and roll at least two or three times, tinted rear windows buckled shattering into kernels of safety glass as I watched my hands gripping the bottom of the steering wheel in the process, spraying all the truck’s assorted contents: a heavy 15-inch spare tire and rim, two steel tool boxes, hardware, winter clothes, miscellaneous auto parts, a shovel, ax, hammers, log chains, rope, and mail I had just picked up; and me, its seatbelt-less driver, following the debris through its ‘exploded-open’ steel back doors and fiberglass roof impaled by the handyman jack, dispersing the smaller, lighter parts sparkling as diamonds farther down the ditch grade before the vehicle, finally heaving to a stop, landed on its passenger-side; the hood and fenders bent, the windshield framework crushed.

I opened my eyes looking up at the gray sky. I felt calm; not panic. I knew from an earlier experience, I might be in shock. I laid on my back on the roadside. I could hear the Toyota running somewhere. My face felt wet. I wasn’t in pain; I didn’t try to move, letting things settle, waiting for something else to happen and not knowing what. I could breathe alright. I said my name aloud and what day it was and where I was and what, I thought happened. And then I wondered if I could move; I wasn’t sure that I should even try. I didn’t want to find out that I couldn’t or that something didn’t work or that if I did try to move I could make things worse.

The truck’s engine stopped.

I decided I’d try fingers and toes first, going through some made-up checklist of operable appendages, then leading up to the ability to arise on my elbows, roll to a hip, push myself from the ground to my knees, and finally stand. But the first matter of business was to go through the finger checks and arm movement part, to see what this wet was on my face. It was snow; not blood. Just snow melting on my cheeks ... just snow. It wasn’t blood. Just snow. Whew! I was optimistic, maybe overly so, but I’d take all the good news I could get at that point.

I guess I wasn’t hurt. Everything seemed to work. (Well, I didn’t test everything) Yeah, I was knocked out a minute or less, I don’t know, and was thrown from my vehicle, about 10-15 feet away at that point, that didn’t crush me in the process. All my stuff was scattered down on the road and adjoining field; the five-gallon jerrican torn from the spare tire carrier on the back, stood upright on the field, appearing as though someone had set it there. The wind was taking my mail and other papers and scattering them, so I had to use a tarp or blanket, nearby, to hold them in a pile.

All I was thinking about was how I was going to get all my stuff back home; how many trips it was going to take because I wasn’t going to ask for help from anyone. I had developed a hermit existence living on the farm, other from working seasonally at the toy factory, and had added an insular chip on my shoulder to protect me from intrusion by nosey-types. I didn’t need anybody.

Unknown to me, Jerry Solom was welding in his shop that afternoon; the old shop he had started out in, before building the bigger shop of present day. He said he saw the Toyota coming down the road from the north and knew it was me, as he had brazed a broken waterpump head for me one time. We lived only one mile apart, north/south, across a neighbor’s field. I had lived on the farm by myself for a little over a year by that time, having moved onto it, from Roseau, in September of 1982. My only contacts since then had been the Johnson boys, Elmer and Curtis, two bachelor brothers who visited often, and who had known my aunt and uncle from whom I bought the farm, all their lives; I didn’t mind them, they were fun alright guys.

Elmer, a Battle of the Bulge WWII vet, would encourage me to get to know people. “They don’t know you!” he’d say in our lively discussions. And he was right, I never went out of my way to be friendly. I didn’t attend church or regulary eat at the cafe, and even then just sat by myself, reading the newspaper, looking away from people rather than toward them, leaving quickly, not greeting anybody.

But I did business in town. Leland Lee allowed me to charge at his store when I was down on my luck; I hadn’t asked him to do it, but I think my family affiliations in the community helped a little, so he extended me credit. Jerry and I may have crossed paths there too.

Charlie Bergstrom too, allowed me to pay a bill over time when he and his sons were operating their electrical wiring business from across the highway from Lee’s Store. I had sent a partial payment check with a note explaining the reason, “My current financial situation is stretched tighter than a gnat’s ass over a rain barrel ...”

He said he really laughed over that one and taped the letter on the wall. I got the bill paid.

But there was no one close by my accident scene I’d call; turned out I didn’t have to.

Jerry said when he looked up from his welding, he saw the truck on its side in the ditch and someone he thought was covering my body with a blanket. Taking off his welding helmet, he hurriedly jumped in his little stationwagon by the shop door and sped toward the accident, a quarter mile west of his shop. In the meantime, Lloyd Dunham, who lived on the northwest corner of the intersection, heard the accident and came running from his auto repair shop. Almost breathless and totally amazed I was standing by the Toyota, he practically shouted, “YOU COULD’VE BEEN KILLED!!” something I was very much aware of myself, and, as was my sarcastic nature at the time, rebuffed, “NO SHIT!”

He ignored my comment, looking at the tangled mess of the turned-over truck in the ditch about sixty yards from his shop and all the stuff scattered about, when Jerry drove up, relieved, he said later, that I wasn’t that body he thought he saw someone covering. As I recall he said, “YOU SHOULD’VE BEEN KILLED!!” and I answered, angrily, “SORRY TO ******* DISAPPOINT YOU!” Yeah, maybe I was still in shock ...

Lloyd went back to his shop and called David Oslund to ask him to drive a tractor over. David lives east of Jerry’s shop, a mile away. He arrived on the scene shortly, another one of those amazed individuals who couldn’t believe I wasn’t killed, much less apparently unhurt. He said he’d pull the truck back onto its wheels and back home for me, if that’s what I wanted him to do. I couldn’t say, no. I’d lost my chip on my shoulder somewhere, between Lloyd and Jerry who were gathering up what they could of my junk in some boxes that Lloyd carried there.

I thanked David and Lloyd for all their help, and later Jerry, who drove the boxes of stuff over, and who noted the ‘59 GMC pickup, that I bought from the Johnson boys, sitting on blocks. He asked me if it ran and I told him, it did. I said I hoped the wheels off the Toyota bolted up to it, as they were Chevy rims; he figured they would. Then, thinking a moment, he offered to help me get the old red step-side pickup with its dash level with dozens of beer bottle caps, and the drivers side door wired to the steering post because it wouldn’t open and shut, on the road again if I helped him insulate the walls of his shop.

And thus began my long brotherly relationship with Jerry Solom. Thanks Jerry.