Driven by Faith

The first year I attended Berea College was 1985-1986. Due to internal stresses and other home issues, I didn’t return the following fall. In the summer of 1986, I bought my first car (1978 Monte Carlo) and was making payments. Since Berea College didn’t allow students to work outside Berea College’s student work program where campus jobs paid so little (~$1.20/hr.), I stayed home to work to pay for the car.

I have regrets both ways by not returning to Berea. Home life was depressing, but I horribly missed my twin sisters and little brother while I was at Berea. They were almost old enough to start elementary school. Because of our age differences (16 years between me and my youngest brother) and how often my younger sister and I watched them while our mother worked, they were like our own children, in a sense. The other regret was how badly I missed my close friends who were attending their sophomore year at Berea College. Deep down, I knew I should be there and was handicapping my future.

After getting the Monte Carlo, a buddy of mine, Mark Walls, who worked with me at Food World in Fort Payne, decided to travel with me to Berea College so I could visit my friends. At the time, I still had a driver’s permit (yes, I was LATE getting a license, but that’s a different story), so I needed someone with a license to ride with me.

When we arrived at Berea College, I found some of my friends and introduced Mark to them. We were waiting for my friend, Jame Ellis, to come to the dorm. Robert Cunningham told us he was coming, so we hid in the dorm room. On the floor was a mat with a lot of blankets. I think someone might’ve used this to sleep on. Mark lie down and flung the blanket over himself. He had long permed hair, but it was not concealed by the blanket.

I got on one bed and hid next to the large wardrobe-like closet while Robert turned off the lights. James opened the door and Robert shushed him and said, “Get inside. Shh. Quick.”

James hesitated at the door and flipped on the light. All he saw was Mark’s long hair and his mouth dropped.

“Shut the door!” Robert said. “It’s a surprise.”

Berea College was not a co-ed dorm, so James immediately thought Mark, due to his long hair, was a woman. He couldn’t hide his confusion.

James said, “What’s going on?”

“Close the door.”

That’s when I moved to where James could see me. Mark uncovered himself and sat up.

James shook his head and laughed. “For a minute there, I thought you were hiding a girl in our room.”

The next day we played some basketball and caught up. We decided to visit Mitch Tolle at his art studio close to Interstate 75. We parked in a spot beside the Convenience store. We got out and headed across the lot toward the studio when I heard a familiar voice call my name.

“Leonard!”

I turned and saw Becky, one of my dear friends. She hugged me and asked if that was my car. I nodded. She pointed at her Mustang. We asked one another how the other was doing. She said, “When you didn’t return to college, I dropped out and started working.”

I grieved. Becky and I had scheduled to take the same courses the previous fall so we could study together. I felt horrible and never realized my decision would affect others. It had and bothered me for years afterwards. We talked for several more minutes, but she had to get back to work at the Convenience store.

The next morning, Mark and I needed to return home. We both had to work the following day. I stopped and talked to another friend for about fifteen minutes. It was starting to snow, so we really couldn’t stay any longer. On the way home, the snow increased for a while. Lightning flashed in the sky while the snow fell. It was the first time I’d ever experienced that. But, as we rode, my heart grew heavier. As great as it was to see and talk to my friends, I missed them all the more. I wondered what might have been, had I not dropped out.

For several years after I dropped out of college, I remained torn. I was stuck in-between with menial jobs.

About a year later, I decided to return to Berea College in April, but I was driving an 1984 Buick Regal. On the other side of Knoxville, a driver with a Florida tag passed me and deliberately cut me off. Being a young driver, I never considered the driver was intentionally trying to cause a wreck. In hindsight, it seems most likely. I hit the brakes hard, avoided a collision, and the driver sped on. Afterwards, the brake light on my dashboard remained on. I tapped the brakes slightly, but the light never went off.

Luckily, when I got to Berea, the off ramp went uphill, and that’s when I realized my brakes were barely working at all. The steep ramp allowed me to gradually slow and stop. I didn’t know what to do. Since the dorm where I stayed at Berea College was on a hill, I parked the car in a spot that overlooked the tennis courts at the bottom of a wooded hill.

My friend, Jody Higgins, who graduated from Plainview High School with me and enrolled at Berea College the same time I did, had put brake fluid in his girlfriend’s car during our freshman year. So, I went to his room, told him what had happened, and asked if he could help. He said I needed to buy some brake fluid since the fluid might’ve leaked, but it wasn’t hard to fix.

James Ellis was with me, and we walked to a store down the street where I bought a bottle of brake fluid. We returned to the car, and I refilled the fluid. When I touched the brakes, the pedal still went to the floor. I returned to Jody’s room. He said that I needed to put the car in gear and tap the pedal several times to get the pressure back.

James and I returned to the car. The next lot over, a lot of college students were seated on their vehicles and talking. One student had a large 4 X 4 pickup truck. James got in the passenger side of the Buick. Since the car faced the steep, woody hillside, I put the car in reverse and backed away from the hill. I pressed the brake pedal and it went to the floor. I tapped it a few times, but nothing. I had the steering wheel cut at an angle and intended to put it into drive. Since the brakes failed completely, I couldn’t put the car in drive or park. Slowly the car turned and backed toward the wooded hillside.

I kept pressing the brake. Everything happened so fast. The back wheels hit the concrete stop, which didn’t slow the car at all. The tire bumped up and over.

James started praying out loud. I still remember his exact words. “Oh, God Jesus! Jesus! God help us!”

Apparently, God heard his prayers. Without explanation, the car stopped about twenty feet down the hill. How we missed the trees was due to my steering. I put the car in park and opened the door. On the right side of the car, a tree was inches away. On the left, the car was oddly suspended in a rough section with another tree a foot or more away. But nothing, absolutely NOTHING, wedged against the tires to stop the car.

James got out and kept saying, “Thank you, Jesus!”

I heartedly agreed.

Those students seated on their cars in the next parking lot gawked and gathered at the top of the hill. One student came down the hill and looked under the car. “How’d it stop?”

I shrugged.

He said, “It never touched a single tree.”

The guy who owned the large 4 X 4 told me that he could pull my car out. Five minutes later, he and everyone else were gone. I stood there embarrassed but thankful no damage was done to the car.

I didn’t know what to do or how I’d get the car out. What money I had was what little I had from cashing my paycheck before I came to Berea. Then, my former Head Resident, Edward Fitzgerald, came to me and looked at the car. He grinned and shook my hand. “I know a guy I can call. His son is a student in my dorm.” Ed explained to him I had been a student the previous year and was visiting.

Within twenty minutes, the mechanic arrived with his wrecker, hitched it to my car and pulled the car back onto the parking lot. Like James and I, he was shocked. He said, “I don’t know how it didn’t crash into those trees or end up down at the tennis courts.”

I asked what I owed him, and he shook his head. “My son goes here. What happened?”

I told him about the brake light and the car that had cut me off.

He said, “You master cylinder probably busted. I’ll call around in the morning and find you one.”

“What will that cost?”

He gave me an estimate, which I could afford, and was probably much cheaper than anyone else would’ve done. He handed me his business card. “Call me tomorrow around noon. I should have a part by then.”

Since I was on vacation, I wasn’t too pressed for time.

The following day, I called him. He had checked all the junkyards and part stores in Berea and hadn’t found a master cylinder for the Buick. He was going to check in Richmond the following day.

That evening, I went to the Convenience store and talked to Becky. I told her about the situation. The store was fairly quiet without many customers, but her coworker continued to interrupt us and picked at her. So I grabbed something to eat and drink and returned to campus. On the way back to campus, I happened to think about how to get home if the car couldn’t be repaired. The first exit going south to Fort Payne was uphill. I could drive up Sylvania Gap without needing to brake hard.

I talked to the mechanic the next morning. Still no luck.

He said, “I can’t understand why this part’s so hard to find. It’s a popular model. I’ll try Lexington and if they don’t have the part, we’ll figure out how to get you home. I’ll tow you back to Alabama if need be.”

The next morning, I awakened and told my friends goodbye. The car’s tank was nearly empty, so I stopped at the Convenience store and hoped to tell Becky goodbye, but she wasn’t at work. When I stopped at the pump, the brakes squealed loudly.

After I filled the tank and got on the Interstate, I was nervous. During this time, I had been teaching a weekly Bible class at Donnie and Penny Drain’s house. The latest topic had been on our faith. My trip home was about to be a test of my faith. I drove carefully. When I came to highly congested areas near Knoxville and Chattanooga, I stayed a safe 15-20 car lengths behind the other drivers. I watched traffic like a hawk. Thankfully, the Florida driver, who had cut me off on my way to Kentucky and caused me to brake hard enough to destroy the master cylinder, didn’t return for round two. No way I could’ve stopped for him a second time.

I made it to the first Fort Payne exit and was able to slow to a stop at the top of the ramp. I drove the Sylvania Gap and went to Cowart’s garage in Rainsville. He said it could have it fixed by the next day, so I called my mother and she came to pick me up.

The next day the car was repaired.

Looking back, I would never have attempted to make the 300 mile drive without having the brakes fixed, but then, I had little money and no one I could’ve called for help. No cellphones then, either. Still, to this day, I know my prayer and faith got me home.

Odd, these memories are bittersweet in so many ways.

Blessings to all of you!