Circa 1977, Danny and I were riding along with a few months old Brandon, and toddler, Stacy, in a 1977 (maybe a ’78) blue VW Rabbit.
Car seats for children were unheard of in those days. Stacy was standing up in the back seat when we were riding through town in Bowdon, GA. Danny was driving, and I was holding Brandon. Coming to a red traffic light, of course, Danny stopped the car
Suddenly a car slammed into the back of our little VW. (I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think it was one of the big Oldsmobiles sold in the ’70’s… but, in any event, it WAS a BIG car).
I held on to Brandon and heard Stacy yelp as she fell. Needless to say, she started screaming because it scared the daylights out of her as it did all of us. The impact pushed us through the red light (thank God no car was coming). THAT’S how hard we were hit.
The driver of the offending car jumped out and ran up to us to see if we were okay. He said he saw that the light was green and looked away, and didn’t see the light change and that we stopped. He didn’t brake at all before he hit us.
The damage done to our car, we learned later, was that it was a total loss because it had bent the frame of our Rabbit and that type damage couldn’t be repaired.
Because Stacy was standing up, and we knew that injuries sometimes don’t show up for hours or a day or two, we took her to Tanner Hospital Emergency Room to be checked out.
We were fairly certain Brandon was okay because I was holding him, and he was just as happy as he could be just curious about everything that was going on but not upset or crying in pain (always good signs! 🙏).
I was with her when the ER doctor asked her for her name, her birthday, her mom’s name her brother’s name etc etc. She answered them all flawlessly.
He laughed and said something to the effect of how smart she was and asked her purely as a joke, “Who is the President of the United States?”
Stacy didn’t miss a beat! She immediately shyly responded, “Jimmy Carter.” (Her sweet lil toddler Southern accent made it sound like, “Jimmy Cahtah.”)
Then, she burrowed her face in my chest with her fingers in her mouth. (She was SO adorable and cute!) The ER doctor and the nurse were absolutely flabbergasted.
We all melted, and the doctor told Stacy to get as many lollipops as she wanted on our way out and told me she was fine. He also gave me a paper of symptoms to look for if internal bruising appeared. Nothing unusual happened so we didn’t have to follow up for any problems.
We were very thankful and felt blessed! Angels were there with us all for sure!
BTW: The top I was wearing in the featured image, i had sewn myself from a Butterick Pattern.
