1966 a Year of Nightmares and Dreams

1966 a Year of Nightmares and Dreams

1966 was a challenging year for me from January onward.

 In January I was busy working 7 days a week at two jobs at WXYZ-TV located across 10 Mile Road from my college where I was in my senior year of my BS in Architecture degree.

 We had a freak 12 inch snowstorm.  Only the first day did I miss work not driving the 14 miles from my parents' home to WXYZ in Southfield.

 Here is a Google map of my route 7 days a week from early 1964 until January of 1966

The day after the 12 inch snowfall my route was very erratic as I drove on 8, 7, 6 mile back and forth in between stalled cars, snow drifts and other obstructions in my path.

 BUT......Wandering Alan usually ends up getting where he is going.

 A week or two later I had been staying over night on Friday night staying at my fiance's parents' home sleeping in a little telephone room and I drove up Southfield to the Northwestern Hwy interchange and during that S bend my car hit a patch of ice, spun 360 degrees, knocking me out in the process when my head hit the glass of the drivers' side window, at least a few times causing my car to roll and bounce finally hitting a light pole at about 15 to 20 ft in the air before it came to rest upside down with all 6 support posts sheer and me waded up and squashed into the passenger floor well unconscious.

 Two young Southfield Police witness the accident in action while they were traveling southbound on Northwestern Hwy.  Somehow the got through the cloverleaf interchange to the site of my car and rescued me using a set of JAWS FOR LIFE.

 I know nothing first hand only through what my parents told me later after I woke up in the Hospital that evening.

 This what my car looked like when I saw it the last time a week later.

I was carried away.  I did not walk away.  By Friday that week I returned home, minus my car and my two jobs because I no longer had a car to get me there.

The WXYZ-TV News Editor visited me in the hospital, Bill Fyffe, no relations to Barney.  He said I could keep my jobs.  But I chose to tell him no because I no longer had any way to drive the 28 miles back and forth 7 days a week every morning.

That is NIGHTMARE ONE for 1966

There are more to come just from the next 6 months in 1966.

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