I used to own a very small factory where we manufactured custom built restaurant furniture. In the spring of 1965 we built the furniture for the big Galley West Restaurant at Marineland in Palos Verdes, which is just south of Los Angeles. I told my wife that I wanted her to see it as I was very proud of the job, and it was a beautiful setting.

Our younger son, Richard, played the French horn, and was going to Estes Park in Colorado to play in what was called the Blue Jeans Music Festival (later known as the Colorado Philharmonic) near the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park. We decided to go to California by way of Estes park, the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam. We dropped Richard at Estes Park, then proceeded from there. Eventually, we arrived at Marineland. We had a very enjoyable lunch and my wife was able to see our work which had a very intricate detail that we had been able to master from the architect's drawings.

After lunch we started up the Santa Monica Freeway as we were heading for home. Our car was a gorgeous 1963 Oldsmobile 98. People used to stop me to tell me how beautiful it was. I was in about the fourth or fifth lane from the right. Suddenly, all the lanes to my right came to a stop. I stopped and here came a bedraggled little pigeon flopping across in front of me. Unfortunately the truck driver behind me didn't get stopped...Kerwomp.

People in the cars to my right waved to us, the truck driver and me, to drive over to the right side where we could pull onto the shoulder. I got out and looked at the damage. I was about to tell the driver that the damage was minimal and to forget it. Fortunately, a California State Patrolman came up at just that moment. He insisted that we trade names, addresses, and names of insurance companies. The damages were considerable, over $400, which was quite a lot in 1965. Thank you, Mr. Patrolman. Also, I had a lot of respect for those California drivers.

About a year later, I was heading south on old Highway 99 with a layout that I had made for a restaurant in West Olympia. It was a beautiful day, there was a Strauss waltz on the radio. Everything was right with the world. At that time, I-5 didn't go all the away into Seattle. 99 connected to I-5 at Midway. 99, not being a freeway, I came to a stoplight at south 154th. I stopped for the signal, but the driver of the semi behind me didn't, again...Kerwomp. The impact threw my car at the car ahead of me with such force that it stuffed both the driver and his passenger under the dash of their car. It totaled my beautiful Oldsmobile. I swear that when the State Patrolman found that I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, he was disappointed that I wasn't injured.

My next rear ender was with my next car, a 1968 Buick Electra. I was southbound on I-5 heading toward the freeway bridge. Suddenly, all traffic in my lane stopped. I stopped, but the little girl driving a Chevrolet station wagon didn't...Kerwomp again.

The damage from that accident was barely repaired when I was heading north on 15th Avenue West. I was approaching the Ballard Bridge as our factory was in Ballard which is in the northwest section of Seattle. As I neared the bridge, I heard tires squealing about four cars behind me. There was a big cloud of dust around that car. The next thing I knew that car was in the lane to my right. Good, he's going to make a right turn, and that's the last we will see of him. Wrong. At the last possible second before he would have been closed off by a concrete barrier, he pulled in directly behind me. There was no way that I wanted to have him behind me. I sped up and passed at least a dozen cars. Just before the end of the bridge there is an off-ramp to the right. This leads down to a signal at the bottom where I would turn left to head for my factory. Naturally, the light was red. As I sat waiting for the signal to change, I was anxiously watching in the rear view mirror to see if one of those cars that I had passed would come down the ramp. No such luck, the car I was trying to avoid came into sight coming off the bridge. I told myself, "You've had it". Sure enough the car came down and sure enough...Kerwomp.

In the police car, the little fellow told me that he was going to reimburse me for the deductible on my insurance out of his unemployment. After he left, the policeman said that I would never see him again. I was just as certain that I had seen the last of him.

About three weeks later a little man came into the office and asked if I recognized him. In the meantime, he had shaved off his beard, and I had completely dismissed him from my mind any way. He told me who he was and gave me $15 on account. He did this once or twice more. At that point we were quite busy and could use a sweeper and a "gofer" so I gave him a job so he could at least earn the balance of his debt. I figured that even though the little fellow was lacking in judgment, he certainly had surprising integrity. His duties as "gofer" did not extend to driving one of our trucks.

Over the intervening 25 of so years I have forgotten the fifth rear ender. It must have not been as dramatic. All I remember for sure is that my next rear ender would be my sixth in six years.

My next car was a ‘69 Chrysler Imperial. I was driving on I-5 and exited at the 110th street exit, southbound. The route to the factory required a right turn at the end of the off-ramp. Naturally, there was a red light at the intersection. After waiting for the traffic to clear, there were no more cars. Just as I started to move, another car came speeding through the signal. I stopped but the big rockery truck behind me didn't...Kerwomp. Fortunately, he hadn't attained enough speed to do any damage. That was in the days when a bumper was actually made to preclude damage when it was hit. This truck was driven by a rockery contractor who had rebuilt our yard after a tanker truck had overturned, killed our paper boy and inundated our yard with diesel oil. But that is another story.

I was extremely fortunate in not being injured in any of these accidents. There was never an instance of whiplash, which seems to be so common in rear end accidents. I credit the fact that in every instance I was in a heavy car. This meant there was a lot of scrap iron around me. I'm a firm believer in the safety of being surrounded by a lot of scrap iron.

It is probably needless to say that for many years I spent more time looking in my rear view mirror than in looking ahead through my windshield. All these accidents happened between the years 1965 and 1970. There was never one before nor since. I'm rapping on wood.