The "Parachute Accident" Story

It was an ordinary day. My son Derek and I were heading to Park City Center to buy parachute pants. He is in Middle School and everyone has parachute pants. These are made of nylon and have lots of pockets and zippers on them. Something like the pants I had when I was in high school that had all kind of buckles on them. I had to have a pair of those also. We are taking the Vintage ‘63 Classic VW Bug with us today. I bought the car a few years ago and totally restored the car to its original condition. To do that I had to replace the running boards, floor pans, black vinyl seat covers, radio, hub caps and put new “real” chrome bumpers on the car. It was beautiful!! Took me over a year to buy everything it needed and do all the work myself. It was my daily driver so it got lots of use. My friend Jerry, who teaches metal shop at the same high school where I teach, helped me paint it the same original blue color. Perfect job. Lil’ Blue drew lots of stares. Well, today we will use it to buy the pants. We are lucky and find what Derek wants in the first store we hit. That was easy. Time to head home for supper. Mom will be so happy to see the new pants. We take a few shortcuts on our way home and have about a quarter mile to go when it happens. We are in the turning lane at an intersection waiting for oncoming cars to pass before we make our turn when out of the corner of my eye I see it coming. From the right comes a large fuel truck. Right through the red light and strikes Lil’ Blue on the passengers side. Pushes the car across the intersection and up a bank on the other side of the intersection. The car spins to a stop and everything is silent for a second. I look at Derek and he is still in his seat, but has hit his face on the steering wheel. He is bleeding from the mouth and has broken a tooth. I hit my head on the driver’s window and have pieces of glass embedded in the side of my head. Not too bad for being hit by a fuel truck! I turn around and see smoke starting to come in through the rear seat. THE CAR IS ON FIRE! We open the doors and quickly get out. In a few minutes we are being attended to by an ambulance crew. The local hospital is only a few blocks away and someone had called immediately. We were very lucky. I had installed new seat belts during the renovation of Lil’ Blue. We were a little sore the next day and stayed home from school, but returned the next day. Lil’ Blue was demolished and burnt. What a gorgeous car she was. Insurance did reimburse us for the classic car price. The only thing that escaped unscathed were the parachute pants. They went to school two days later! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.