We were all asleep that summer night when we were awakened by the sound of a crash, an all too familiar, thus instantly recognizable, sound. Marilyn was home at the time, maybe on break or such, and she and I got out of bed to see what the damage was. A car was overturned in the ditch across the road from our house, and a person standing by the side. Although in the days before cell phones, other appeared and were gathered around the vehicle, which was lying against the bank and almost on its roof. I was watching from the living room window, while M. went outside and asked if anyone needed help. I heard someone call her by name and tell her everything was all right and for her to go back inside.
In very short order, a truck appeared and moving as quick as a flash, they attached a towline to the overturned car and pulled it down the bank and onto the pavement. The car was on its roof. They made no attempt to get it upright, but hauled it away on its roof. It would be a cliche to say the ungodly screeching sound could have awakened the dead, but no other soul, living or dead, appeared. It would also be a cliche to say the crew of guys engaged in this activity worked as a well-oiled machine, but indeed they did. Since it was about 3 in the morning, and they worked so unbelievably fast, no one else was involved, and there were no signs that an accident had ever occurred except for some dug-up turf on the side of the bank, and this mirror, which I retrieved the next day. I heard it was from a car, rented by a man visiting his very helpful family.
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