Facts are stubborn things

Boy, that was some amazing story a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it, when that plane crash-landed in the Hudson River and nobody got hurt.

It reminded me of a story about my family, one I’ve told many times. It seems my dad was supposed to fly out of New York one time, way back before I was born, but he gave up his seat on the plane and decided to take a later flight.

Then that plane – the one he was supposed to be on – crashed shortly after takeoff into the East River, and everybody died. Had he been on the plane, I would have never been born.

(Anybody who just said to themselves “Too bad he didn’t get on” will have to answer to God for that!)

I’ve relayed this story many times. My daughter once told her Girl Scout Troup about it. It comforts me in times of trouble, when I’m feeling worthless, and makes me think that maybe I’m here for a reason. Fate had intervened long ago to make sure that I would come into the world.

So I went to see my dad Saturday, and I brought that story up – and he just looked at me. I said, don’t you remember, you were supposed to get on a plane that crashed?

Oh yes, he said. He told me the plane took off and got up in the air, but soon after one of the engines caught fire, and the pilot had to make an emergency landing and they all got off the plane, including him.

“Got off the plane?” I said. “No, no, you never got on. It crashed into the East River.”

He said, “It didn’t crash. And it was in Hawaii. I was coming back home after World War II.”

This stunned me. Wait, I said, are you sure? After all, he is 81, and maybe the memory is starting to fade. He said, “I’ve been to New York twice in my life, and both times I drove back.”

Ok, this didn’t make any sense. That story was part of my autobiography. And now I’m hearing that it isn’t true?

So I asked my dad if he knew somebody who had supposed to have been on a plane that crashed into the East River. He said nope, had never heard of it. Later on that day, I asked my brother if he recalled anything about that story. He said he hadn’t.

Well, where in the world did it come from? Did I dream it? I did some research, and sure enough, in 1959, a plane DID crash into the East River, killing almost all of the passengers on board. But it was flying into New York, not out. My dad did admit that he flew INTO New York once, to help his brother move back to Georgia. But he couldn’t remember the year, and he has no recollection of almost getting on a plane that crashed. Surely that would stick in your memory.

And it’s not like my dad’s mind is going. On that same visit he told me of his father taking off a dog (that’s what they did in the country back then) when he was a boy, dropping it off almost 15 miles from home, and three days later the dog trotted back up into the yard. My grandfather apparently decided that since the dog had gone through so much to get back home, this time he’d let him stay.

But that story happened more than 70 years ago. If my dad recalled that, he’d recall a near-death experience. And yet, somehow that story got in my brain, and has lived there all these years, and now I feel like a little bit of a fraud. Maybe fate didn’t intervene to save me.

Although, there was one time when I was a teenager, and I was riding in a car with a friend, and we were behind a truck from an electric utility company. Suddenly, one of those gigantic wooden spools that they wrap wire around broke free from the truck, and came bouncing down the road, headed straight toward us. At the last minute, it took a big hop and went right over the top of his car, sparing our lives. Fate or God or something had again intervened to save me, or so it seems.

If I ever find out THAT didn’t really happen, then I just give up.