My college years. So many papers, if you majored in English. Lengthy ones, with deadlines, and they had to be typed. I was an okay, but not great typist, and any mistakes were not acceptable, as I recall. No strikeovers or erasures, so many times the page had to be discarded and you had to start over. Of course I never had enough time, and most often worked on the paper throughout the night.
One winter night, I was doing just that, finishing a lengthy assigned paper that as usual was due the next day. ELO was helping me by typing the pages as they rolled off my numb mind. We were in the kitchen when we heard the sirens, first from the firehouse and then from fire engines. They sounded close. So what else but to get in the car to find out where. We followed the glare in the sky to what was Coon Road. I think their farm was about the only habitation on that road at the time, a rather bleak and impoverished and deserted-looking array of farmhouse and outbuildings. We drove by and saw the house standing but one of the sheds was on fire---red flames shooting up in the air. A chicken coop, someone told us. We went home, finished the paper and the next day the newspaper carried the story that Bobby Coon's wife and children died in the fire. They were living in the chicken coop. Nobody seemed to know how many died, his wife and kids, maybe a total of 5 deaths.
The date was October 26, 1957. The deaths were Beverly Coon, age 22 and her 4 children, ages 3, 2. 1 and a baby. Robert Coon was burned, but escaped.
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