Plymouth car wreck

The summer following my junior year at West Side High School my pal, Lynn Neuenswander, and I dated two girls from Dayton---Alice Moser and Mary Lou Balls. After taking the gals home about midnight, I drove our Plymouth half a mile to an intersection at a T-corner. As I approached the corner, I tried the brakes but they did not slow us much. I was rather sleepy and did not hit the brakes again. So the car headed directly into the big ditch bank with a crash.

I was draped around the steering wheel, and Lynn who was asleep in the back seat was thrown forward over my head into the front door that had spring open, and then he bounced back near the left rear wheel outside the car. After I squeezed out from behind the steering wheel, I called to Lynn who lay moaning on the ground. He had a concussion and babbled words I couldn't understand, so I was really scared. I stowed him in the car and then sprinted non-stop back to the Ball's home. There I called home to let them know our disaster. After a couple of hours, Lynn's parents picked us up and took us home. After a couple of days Lynn recovered his senses.

The Plymouth was towed to White's garage in south Dayton, where it took a couple of months and $500 to repair. I earned all of the money to pay for the repair over the ensuing year. Our family was relegated to riding in our old 1935 Ford truck until the Plymouth was repaired.