Oops

We were going to spend the day at our paternal grandmother’s house, along with our cousins.  We were staying at our maternal grandmother’s farm at the edge of town, so she picked up my in-town cousins first.  Then here she was, pulling into the driveway in her big old tan and cream Oldsmobile 98. I sat in the front with Grandma and all the boys sprawled across the back seat.  I was the oldest at about ten, and my brother and cousins ranged from about eight years old down to five. 

Lillian Carolyn Shaw Baker Adams (1913 - 2016) on the front steps of her mother's trailer at around the same time as this story

When we were all packed in, Grandma headed out of the driveway onto Hoffer Street, then south on U.S. 31.  We passed the Chrysler transmission plant to the west, then turned east on Lincoln Road past the Delco plant and almost immediately south on Albright Road.  This was one of the many “back ways” that were taken between the grandmas. 

Now, all that area is actually part of the city of Kokomo and houses are everywhere.  But back then as we got away from the Chrysler and Delco plants, we were pretty much out in the country.  About a mile and a half down the road was the cemetery where some of my ancestors are buried, and where my maternal grandmother would take us once a week while we were there, to water the flowers on the graves. 

But before that, a little less than a mile from where we entered Albright Road, we passed over Kokomo Creek.  It went under the road and you could see it on either side.  It was about that time that someone asked to play with the Etch-A-Sketch – memory is not serving as to which one of us.  It belonged to me and my brother, but it was one of the things we had brought for everyone to use.

No one could find it.  Before long, we heard a clunk sound, and Grandma remembered having set it on the roof of the car as we were all getting in.  She stopped the car and got out to look, but the Etch-A-Sketch had likely fallen off the road and into the creek, never to be seen again.

What boggles my mind is how did that thing stay on the roof of the car all that time?  Almost three miles, a portion of which was a divided highway!  Oops!