Near Miss

I had to hold a piece in my hands. Yesterday's opportunity to touch the twisted metal added a vital, tangible link to a 52-year-old memory which left a lasting impression in my mind and a deep hole in the poleyard just two blocks from our school.

It was a December day in 1953. I was a first grader at Lincoln Elementary School in Sandpoint. When you're a first grader, getting to help out the teacher ranks right up there with being chosen as an American Idol. We had to take turns in Mrs. Kinney's class. On this day, it was my turn to act as row monitor, collecting the books and returning them to the bookcase.

The pride of standing before the row and waiting as each of my classmates passed their books forward was incomparable. I then headed toward the bookcase and waited in line for my turn to place my half dozen texts on the bottom shelf.

Just as I bent over, intending to make sure they were stacked neatly in their resting place, the loudest boom I'd ever heard shattered my concentration. The building shook. Windows cracked. We were whisked to our seats. The next few moments have evaporated from my memory bank. I don't know how we were organized, but I do know we were soon sitting on school buses headed home.

As our buses left Lincoln School, they rolled slowly through a network of cars filling the streets in all directions. Others had heard the boom. Soon, most of the town knew that a plane had crashed near Lincoln School. Nervous parents and curious townspeople had jumped in their cars and had driven to see what they could see.

We eventually reached home, which was just over a mile from the school. My mother was there to meet us. That's when we learned it was a jet. The pilot had tried to go as far from town as possible but went down in the poleyard. I heard gruesome stories about the scene for years, how deep the hole was when his plane hit so hard, body parts found, etc.

So, yesterday when I actually held pieces of metal, retrieved from the crash and recently brought to the museum in a cardboard box, I thought once more about how close this tragedy had come and its potential for being far more deadly if the pilot had crashed on our school.

Miraculously, he was the only one who died that day. Fortunately, for us Lincoln Elementary alums, we are here to tell about it more than 50 years later.

Definitely one of those events that unites those who were there and reminds us to appreciate life.