Ivan Moffat
El Reno, Oklahoma
THE SUNDAY WE NEVER ARRIVED AT CHURCH
I think it is one of the ironies of life that some of our most harrowing experiences, with the passing of time, can become some of the most amusing, in retrospect. Perhaps this is one way that God balances the plusses and minuses in our lives.
I was eleven years old that spring of 1937. It had been raining this Sunday morning and the dirt roads would be slick but we did not worry about that as we prepared to go to church.
One of my brothers, with his wife, came by in their Model-A Ford coupe. I jumped in with them while another brother drove our 1928 Buick. Mama was in the front seat with my brother while Daddy rode in the back seat. They were about a quarter of a mile behind us but on down the road when we looked back, they were not behind us any longer. My brother stopped the car and we waited a bit but when they did not appear, we started to back up. Then we saw them! The Buick had slid off the road and overturned in the ditch.
The car had turned over on the passenger side so my brother Oscar, my Mama and Daddy were trying to upright themselves and try to get out. Soon, my brother rolled down the window on the driver's side and, standing on the steering wheel, he managed to pull himself out of the overturned car. He pulled Daddy to safety and it was then that they decided they had a real problem.
Mama was still in the car. And Mama was five feet tall and weighed 260 pounds. So it was no small problem facing them. Mama, in the meantime, had managed to get on her feet. She was standing on the window on the passenger side with her head barely visible coming out the window on the driver's side. She was a lesson in patience as she waited for Daddy and her boys to decide how to get her out of this predicament.
Bracing themselves the best they could, they managed, by pulling and tugging, to get Mama through that window. But the task was not accomplished--they still had to get Mama to the ground. By that time, we had been joined by a neighbor, who stood by me. My eleven-year-old mind was churning and suddenly I came up with the perfect solution. In dramatic fashion, I flung my arms open wide and yelled, "Jump, Mama, I'll catch you!" But our neighbor, afraid Mama might, in the uncertainty of the moment, take me seriously, yelled back, "No Bertha, don't jump!"
Well, we all did the obvious. My two brothers, with Daddy's help, took Mama's arms and eased her off the car, with our neighbor and me helping as she slid down. Needless to say, Mama had to forget all about her modesty that day.
Well, we all missed church that Sunday. Besides all of us being a muddy mess, by the time we got Mama on the ground, Church was over anyway. But you know, God was with us that day--Mama and Daddy and my brother were unhurt. And the only difference in this Sunday and any other Sabbath Day, this day our blessing came in a muddy road ditch-instead of Church.
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This was something that my dad never told us about growing up... I wonder why? Could it be he was driving, hummmm ...
Thanks Uncle Ivan, and please keep sending in these precious memories, please???
For those that don't know, Oklahoma means Red Man. Well, it should mean RED CLAY, cause there is tons of it ... around where this happened, and where we live now!!! RED GREASY CLAY.... when it's wet, YUCK!!
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