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A potpourri of stories about various family members or events
A Fender Bender in South Bend
On about June 29, 1985, my family (Marcia, Tim, Carrie, and me) drove a U-Haul pulling our car out of our driveway in Albany. We closed our chapter of five years in this community in Minnesota. We headed toward Stewartville, MN, to spend the night with Becky's family. We then headed toward Indiana and arrived at Apartment A-20 in a 9-plex among 11 other similar units at University Village, the married student housing in the Notre Dame municipality. At this point, I don't recall if we arrived on July 1 or July 2, but likely the former.
Ready to head to Indiana
After unpacking and getting settled in, I made my way over to the Mathematics Department on the University of Notre Dame campus. I was a first-year student in their Ph.D. program. I joined a German class (late) with a fellow American mathematics student (the only American in his incoming class in 1984). In the fall and spring, I took four of the five choices of introductory courses. We got involved with a church and the 108 (=9x12) families in the University Village.
A view of University Village
ND Library with Christian mural, including Jesus with arms at the top. From the football field, his arms align with the goal posts
In either the 85-86 winter or one of the next two (if I were a betting person, it would be the 86-87 winter), we drove back from church while it was snowing. Typically, winter in the South Bend area (which includes the Notre Dame municipality) was on again, off again. Often, as I wrote letters to family in MN, I would start with "Greetings from the land of many winters". We would have some really nice days between some colder or snowy days. This day, driving back to our apartment seemed like a typical winter day on which it just happened to be snowing.
As we left downtown South Bend and started heading due north on US 31, the region west of the highway was more open, and I noticed how the wind seemed to have picked up and was carrying snow with it. I slowed down, as did many others. I could see a signal light coming up in the next tenth of a mile, and all of a sudden, the wind changed in velocity, and its carrying capacity created a "whiteout". We couldn't see anything. I had happened to have noticed that the light had just turned yellow before the whiteout came, and I knew there were cars in front of me. I slowly tapped the brakes and continued to slow down. I could then see the car in front of me, and I came to a stop behind the cars in front of me, and the whiteout was over for us.
It was not over for the cars behind us, I suddenly realized when I felt the car leap forward and the rear window on our Mazda station wagon shattered. Glass went flying over Tim and Carrie and into the front seat. Despite all of us having our seat belts fastened, Marcia and I could feel the whiplash. The two of us quickly looked back at our kids and saw that they were startled (as were we), but did not appear harmed. There were no cuts from the glass, and upon asking about their heads or necks, they didn't have any issues. I believe Carrie was still in a car seat, but I don't think Tim was. Then Marcia and I checked with each other and found that we were both stiff in the neck, but functional. At this point, the driver of the car delivering the impact, and I got out and talked.
The other driver and occupants seemed to be OK, and he asked about us, and he talked about the whiteout. I knew how bad it was for me when the whiteout came, and I felt fortunate that I had been able to prepare for the stop. This other driver had no idea that there were cars ahead of him stopped at a signal light. It was also fortunate that my car barely connected with the car in front of me, if at all, upon getting hit. In the absence of cell phones, I don't know how the police found out, but it wasn't long before officers were on the scene and making a report. The driver impacting me gave me his insurance information and readily admitted to fault, though clearly the weather was a strong mitigating factor.
Both of our cars were functional to drive. The main damage was that the tailgate was damaged, and the window was shot, which we actually started noticing since it let in cold air. We drove home and reevaluated each other again, and Marcia and I both felt neck pain and stiffness, but we weren't sure how bad it was. At least neither of us felt that we needed to go to the ER, though in hindsight that may have been a good idea. Perhaps also, I had no idea how insurance worked in this context since it was my first accident involving another car.
The next day, the insurance agent for the other driver called and wanted to meet us and view the car. (Now, I am guessing, one just takes photos and sends them in.) He asked us about our health and we honestly told him that we still felt stiff and sore in the neck, but thought that this would disappear in time. He made a decision on the car that it needed to be totaled. I told him that was our only car, and it drove fine, but just needed a new tailgate. He told us the value of the car that he could write us a check for, but then also told us that we could keep the car and do what we wished. He probably felt sorry for this poor graduate student. He also made an offer on our medical situation and asked if we were ready to agree to that. We talked about the pros and cons of waiting a few more days. I know that we did wait a few more days, but perhaps the offer decreased because of that, but I don't recall now. I just remember being really impressed by the agent. I think the company was called Nationwide.
We put some plastic over the window location after removing the glass and cleaning things up. The next weekend, I made a trip to a few junkyards and I found a brown tailgate that perfectly matched the gray on the rest of the car. I installed it that weekend (and then later caught up on my studies). We just called it our two-tone car, and we were happy with how all the aspects of the accident turned out.
Published 2025-09-02.
If you find any error(s) in the text, please let me know. Thanks. Contact me with errors or comments using hibbardac@gmail. [Back to the top] [About the author, Al]
Memories from grades 1-12listing of family stories by me Getting Milk