A Day in Little Rock: Collision & Coincidence

Dad was sworn in on January 10, 1949, becoming Arkansas’ 34th governor at 36.

But Mother was first lady at 28. Wow! My brother, Sandy, was 7, and I was “tail-end Charlie,” as they said in the war, at a venerable 3.

But we didn’t move into the mansion for a year. Mother was busy finishing it — overseeing its miraculous rise from the rubble of the old “Blind School.” So, meantime, we lived at 220 Ridgeway.

I don’t remember much — things are disjointed as any dream, flashes of impressions among dark blanks of space that lie buried somewhere in the basement of my brain. But a few moments pressed down hard enough, like President Truman’s visit — his long silver train, guards, soldiers, black limousines and crowds — and I remember well his coming to our house and my shadow boxing with him. There were more poignant things, like my grandfather (helping us move) leaving his pickup and running in the rain; and painful things like a rabid cat bite and all those shots; but the most memorable moment came, as it frequently does, from the shockingly unexpected.

On this particular day I was visiting my dear friend, Billy Rice, a future classmate at Hall High, class of ‘63. He was the son of some very nice folks living across the street. Like a sharp-toothed pup that had slipped the fence, I was running loose, but I only remember darting between two parked cars, then seeing something black and menacing, hitting it hard and sliding under its back wheels. Then the thing and I parted as I rolled down Ridgeway and it made a screeching sound. (I can still see its red brake lights — the only bright color I recall.) Recollection fades to dark but blinks open again — a stranger going house-to-house ringing doorbells is carrying me. Bill Putnam was a soon-to-be ace in Korea whose wingman was the future astronaut, Wally Shirrar. Bill would say later that nothing in combat scared him as much as banging into little me, worse than running into any big MiG-15 over the Yalu! Jeepers!

Mom said, “Put him down, honey,” (she was worried about Bill), “he’ll be fine.”

Trouble was I couldn’t walk. Perhaps you can guess the rest: doctors, X-rays, two broken legs, casts that itched and coat hangers that scratched until soon I was fine enough to run around in the mansion and play that first day with my new chum, Billy Koch, in February 1950.

A few years ago I saw an accident. A man got out of his smashed-up car, bleeding and shaking. It wasn’t his fault, and, introducing myself, I told him, “I’ll be your witness!”

He hesitated and smiled. “Well,” he said, “they’ll sure have to believe you because I ran over you on Ridgeway.”

That night I called Bill Putnam at home, and we had a big laugh about it all.