Column: Downhill From There

Not much was happening in our neighborhood that day. Early afternoon, the occasional pleasant breeze, but with a few darker clouds forming in the distance. My brother, Brad, had just applied a coat of Testors metallic blue paint to his model car, a 1959 Thunderbird, and parked it delicately on a newspaper-covered card table inside the screen porch.

We grabbed our bikes and rode around looking to see who might be playing outside. We lived at the bottom of a hill and were developing strong legs from laboring uphill on our bikes, pedaling straight up the rising incline until we had to either walk our bikes or persist with a switchback technique.

Sometimes we would see who could throw a tennis ball farthest up the hill, then as it picked up speed rolling and bouncing downhill, we had to field it cleanly.

Whenever a heavy downpour would overpower the storm drains, sending torrential sheets of rain cascading down the hill, it would pool briefly at the bottom, where we waded in, laid back in the bathtub depth and happily submerged ourselves to our necks. In winter we launched our sleds down the frozen, slick pavement. I told my dad about the older boys who stood on their sleds and held on by a steering rope as they rocketed down. He said they did that because they were �stupid.�

No rain had fallen that day. A few kids had joined up with us, and we all straddled our bikes, one tennis shoe anchoring us on the street, waiting for someone to have an idea where to go and what to do next.

Across the street, Willard�s grill smoked as he laid steaks on it, and the aroma soon wafted our way on charcoal clouds. At that moment, the gentle bells from the State College a few blocks away chimed like a lullaby, drifting softly through the trees. It was 4 o�clock.

The neighbors� car up the hill began backing slowly out of the driveway. But as it rolled onto the street, the driver didn�t stop to shift into gear and drive forward up the hill, didn�t even slow down. Then, open-mouthed, we saw the strangest thing. Nobody was driving the car.

We�d heard about the Headless Horseman. Now we had to watch out for Headless Horsepower, because it was rolling downhill and picking up speed. I held my breath as it made straight for Willard�s grill and his wife Mildred�s gorgeous rose garden.

But there would be no petal to the metal for her roses today. The steering wheel was turning by itself, and this ghost-guided Buick angled away from their house at the last second, careened backwards on down the hill, swerved again, jumped the curb and made the most awful sound I�d ever heard as it shot through the next neighbors� yard, crashing, smashing and splintering wood as it shattered their picture window. Came to rest halfway inside the living room. Rocked a couple times and settled, one wheel still turning slowly.

Later on we would hear, �Oh, well. It�s good that no one was hurt,� and �I guess accidents happen� and �Well, that�s why we have insurance� and �Before long, everything will all look as good as new again.� But that would all come later. For now I drank a Mildes cream soda from the deposit bottle. The neighborhood kids gathered round, sharing a family-size bag of Chesty�s potato chips, the brand Bozo plugged on his local TV show, and you could hear a lot of crunching. Kind of like the crunch of chrome and steel and buckling wood. You could hear murmuring and muttering and sighing. But mostly crunching.