55 Slow Down, You Might Get Run Over

Working at the Door Factory at Laurelwood was hazardous in more ways them one.  The factory had many powerful wood shaping machines and trim saws for shaping the doors.  There was also the lacquering of the panels, which means that fume hoods and various masks with filters had to be used.  If you were not careful you could easily lose a finger or even worse your hand.  Such as the time that Donna Morrison lost part of her finger in a saw.

The closest I ever came to getting hurt was the time I shorted out the glue machine, which really shook me up, but it was no match compared to the first year that I worked the evening shift in the Door Factory.

Don Ringering and I had just gotten off shift at nine o’clock and were leaving the factory having just punched out.  The shortest way up to the Boy’s Dorm was via the loading bay and by a Semi that was parked there with the trailer sticking out to the very edge of the roadway.  The road came very close to the factory as it ran through the Campus.

We both took off running as fast as we could, to see who could be the first one to the dorm.  Don got a head start and off he went past the Semi, across the road, and on up the hill to the dorm, with me not twenty feet behind, running flat out.  The night was pitch black and as I crossed the road, I suddenly smacked into something that stopped me dead in my tracks, and not figuratively.

I realized moments later that I had actually run into the side of a car that was driving by.  I was extremely lucky to only get my arms and hands bruised and fortunate that my leading leg was not broken as the car left quite a lump on my shinbone, which caused me to limp for a few days afterwards.  Don and I could just as easily been hit square on, instead of just getting missed.

A few weeks later I was talking to a friend that I knew at Laurelwood, and after comparing notes she believed it was she who I had run into.  At the time she felt something hit her car, but saw nothing, so went on.  All I can say again is that it must have been an angel.