Flashbacks

It is wonderfully strange how the mind can leap from one thing to another faster than Superman. As I fossilize, my mind regurgitates memories in streams of the bygone, triggered by the most unlikely events.

This morning I rolled north on 21 to Montrose and at the I-77 merge it became evident that somebody had been practicing for the Darwin Award -- traffic was backed up across the Medina Road bridge. I made a quick decision to go around (knowing it was a gamble and that just patiently staying in line would eventually get me through) and exited westbound, then went north on Crystal Lake to Granger and over to Cleveland-Massilon.

Just north of the Shade Road intersection my memory was triggered by the Flower Hutch building; that used to be the site of an orchard. Then I remembered how the State Highway Patrol used to sit there to clock cars coming over the hill from the north. Then I remembered Dad driving us north to pick up the Turnpike on the way to Harrow.

The thought of the Turnpike triggered memories of other roads -- Medina Road, old Route 18, with its roller-coaster hills. Then the sudden recollection that it was only after the Turnpike opened in 1955 that we used Old 21.

Late 1950's, Dad taking us north in the old 1955 Chrysler -- the car I would learn to drive in, and which we drove back and forth from Patch Rubber Company when we worked there together. That old blue Chrysler, that ended it's career in the Demolition Derby at Barberton Speedway in 1969.

Trips to Harrow, stopping at the roadside park on Route 51 west of Elmore. The summer of 1959, when I stayed with Uncle John and Aunt Mary Miklovic and they took me to see the Brittania on it's Canadian cruise at the inauguration of the Saint Lawrence Seaway (I was intrigued by the fact that the masts had to be hinged so the yacht could pass under some of the bridges).

All triggered by the careless driving of The Unknown Motorist.

Ah, Dad. You left us 5 years ago today. Before you left, though, you made a lot of memories.