Page 52 - The Holiday Issue San Diego Woman Magazine

AN EARLY PRESENT

By Sharon Hightower

EFORE THE FAMILY
Bgot big enough for a
station wagon, and long
before all the SUVs of today,
my dad would put one of
the benches that went to
our picnic table on the floor
in front of the back seat
of our sedan, a ’55 Ponti-
ac. The bench was almost
level with the back seat and
made a great sort of play-
pen. He’d toss in a blanket
or two along with a couple
of pillows, and that’s where
my younger brother and I
would stay during the drive-
in movie.
No seat belts, no car
seats – just lots of room to
romp around and later to
lay down to sleep. school I wrote a term paper of the highway notorious wife and child were being
I suppose it was dan- in support of seat belts. At for crashes. Her car was a taken by ambulance to a
gerous not to be belted in, the time, there were only rather flimsy former postal hospital in Vegas.
but I never worried about lap belts. There were no wagon. I couldn’t imagine it Like many Southern
it even though one of my shoulder harnesses. Now of in a fender-bender let alone Californians, I’ve made
earliest memories is being course cars have a combi- a rollover. the trip to Vegas countless
in a car accident. My mom nation lap belt and shoul- My son and a close times. Long before the
was driving, and as she der harness, and I’m sure friend immediately got Indian casinos, it was a
entered an intersection, she they’ve cut down on traffic into their car and headed very popular way to spend
was t-boned on the driver’s injuries and fatalities – I’m toward Vegas. My daughter a weekend reasonably inex-
side which is the side I was not sure how much, but it grabbed my grandson who pensively. And sometimes,
sitting on in the back seat. must be considerable. There is just 17 days younger than the drive home seemed to
I don’t remember what car is a catch, though. You have my granddaughter who was take forever, but this trip
it was, nor the damage that to use them for them to be involved in the crash, and was truly interminable. We
must have been done to effective. we took off after them. lived in Riverside County
it, but I do remember how And many holidays The witnesses told the at the time and thus left
afraid my mother had been. in the past I learned that police that the car went end the city fairly quickly and
Later, my siblings and lesson in real life. Before over end. We later discov- got on the highway, but the
I often bounced around in cell phones, my son got ered that his wife’s sister road seemed to stretch be-
the back of a pickup truck a call at home from the had been thrown from fore us endlessly. As we had
– again, completely unre- Highway Patrol telling him the vehicle. Miraculously, no cell phones, we couldn’t
strained. It was so much that his wife and daughter she sustained only minor communicate with the hos-
fun although I did get a were being transported to injuries. pital or with each other.
bit scared when the driver a hospital in Vegas. They’d At the time, though, At some point, we had
would take a corner a little been involved in a single we didn’t know how any of to stop. My grandson was
too fast, and we’d roll from car rollover accident on the passengers were doing. hungry, and my daughter
side to side. Baker Grade, a section We’d only been told that his needed to give him a bottle
Even so, when in high

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