It was 1962, June 4, to be specific, when I was discharged from the Marines at Camp Pendleton, CA. My discharge came just after I returned from a year’s service in Asia. Prior to the Asian deployment I’d had been stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA., for two years. During those years I often spent weekends in Lakewood, CA., a suburb of Long Beach, with my cousin, Marjorie Dahl, and her husband Jasper. With discharge in hand I took the familiar bus ride to Dahls.
To make the journey to my home in South Dakota I bought in 1954 Austin Healey…a convertible, sports car. When I reached the States after my overseas deployment I separated from my buddy, Ed Vens. Ed had a year left of his enlistment and was assigned to duty at Treasure Island which was in the San Francisco Bay. Before we’ separated we’d made plans to visit the Seattle Worlds Fair. It was the long way home but I drove to San Francisco to meet Ed and, after visiting my aunt and uncle Anna & John Anderson in Richmond, we drove to Seattle and the Fair. Initially we followed the coast through the redwoods and then went inland up the interstate.
From the Fair we went to Port Angeles, WA., to stay with my cousin, Leslie Negstad and his wife, Esther. Leslie took us fishing for salmon on the Straits of Juan De Fuca. Leslie rented a boat, attached his old two and half horse Johnson Motor, and we were off. The winds were calm but there were huge ocean swells so deep that at the bottom we couldn’t see land. Ocean freighters would pass us going to and from port. Meanwhile we chugged along, trolling with our little motor. Leslie caught a big salmon…15lbs. plus and I caught a 5 pounder, which was the largest fish I had ever caught.
Leslie suggested that his sixteen year old son, Paul, go with me to S.D. Ed headed back to duty in California and Paul and I headed east, with Paul planning to spend the summer with me on the farm. David, my farmer brother, had been called to active duty with his National Guard unit. He and his bride, Jonetta, were at Fort Carson, Co. So, for the summer of ’62 I was the farmer and when David returned in August, I moved with my parents to a house in Sinai. I stayed there, going to Augustana College, Sioux Falls, in September.
Paul and I planned to drive night and day the sixteen hundred miles from Port Angeles to Sinai. It didn’t go exactly as planned. We were doing well when late in the day we blew a tire at Drummond, Montana. We then discovered the spare tire was useless. Drummond is a small town and the service station didn’t carry a tire that fit my Austin Healey. The station ordered one from Helena saying it would arrive in the morning. This was prior to the advent of credit cards so travel was dependent on cash, and I didn’t have much, enough for the tire and gas to get us home. To save money Paul and I sat up all night is a truck stop café. In the morning the tire arrived, was mounted and we were on our way again.
We entered South Dakota on Highway 212, through a corner of Wyoming. Crossing the Black Hills, we drove through Belle Fourche at night and it was raining very hard. The rain continued as we drove east through the high plains. West of Faith, South Dakota, the highway was flooded. Stopping the car I watched the muddy water flowing over the road and wondered if the road might be washed out. As I was wondering, a pick-up truck passed me and drove through the water to the other side.
“Aha” I thought “the road is intact” so I started across. However, I hadn’t gauged the depth of the flood and soon the headlights of my low slung car were underwater. All I could see in the dark was muddy water streaming past. Worrying about being washed downstream I began steering the direction from which the water was flowing. Then a huge flash of lightening lit up the countryside and I could see I was about to drive into the ditch. Correcting my course I made it safely to the other side.
Arriving in Faith I pulled into a gas station and opened the hood of the car. The engine was covered with debris from the flood water. The mystery is why the engine ran, essentially under water and the electrical system did not short out? Had the engine died on that flooded highway????? Water had even come in under the doors so the floorboards were flooded. That was enough adventure!
The rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived at the farm in the morning to a warm reunion. It was the first time I’d been home in twenty-two months.
