The car lay upside down, off the road at a notorious corner between Largy and Fintra. I was lying inside, on the roof, looking out the back window. I could see the moonlight over the bay through the rushes. I was totally disorientated. One moment we were driving along, excitedly chatting nonsense as usual, then, suddenly, there was dark and total silence.
The car was heading for the ditch on the right. Seamus managed to pull back and then we veered to the left, then back to the right again. I had a flashback of a day out when Frank Boyle had brought Seamus and I to the bumping cars in Bundoran. It seemed, slow motion like, to take ages before we hit and soared, tumbling a few times before coming to a rest. No one spoke.
It was a wintry night. There had been heavy hail showers accompanied by thunder and lightning. Two minutes earlier the car had skidded coming down Bavin, but that hadn’t slowed us down. We were running late, on our way to see a movie in Killybegs. Seamus McGinley, who was just 16, had borrowed his mother Nora’s car, a small yellow 2 door Fiat 128. Francie Doogan and I piled in. There were no seatbelts or headrests back then. Safety was something you placed solely in the hands of the driver and anyways, whiplash hadn’t been invented yet.
We were going to see ‘Two-Minute Warning’ starring Charlton Heston. This was 1978. The movie had been released a couple of years earlier but had taken the scenic road to Donegal. In the days before VHS video rentals, DVDs, downloads, streaming and Netflix, there was only one way to see a movie. The Ritz in Killybegs was a small old cinema, lined with red, well worn, velvet seats. The seats didn’t have cup holders back then. The only touch of luxury were built in ashtrays. As children, it was a magical place. You were guided to your seat by an old man bearing a torch. He seemed to dance it unnecessarily along the floor. In the dark you’d hear the clatter of the projector and see the movie being transported along a widening beam of moving dust above your head. Before each film there was a short Looney Toons cartoon. In the days of black and white TV, Elmer Fudd, in glorious colour, never looked better than on that big screen. “You’re no shewiff! You’re that scwewy wabbit!”. Foghorn Leghorn was never funnier, “I say, I say, as senior rooster ’round here, it’s my duty, and my pleasure, to instruct junior roosters in the ancient art of roostery”. Sylvester the Cat sprayed it best with “Sufferin’ succotash!”
The highlight for us was the interval during the main event when the ladies came around, their trays lit, selling cigarettes and ice cream.
I didn’t learn to drive until quite late. I had left home for college at 18 and the need, or chance to learn hadn’t arisen until then. Now that the house was fast filling with kids, the need was pressing. My first day out, a Saturday morning in March, the instructor stopped at the Bullock Park  at the top of Lurgybrack. He told me to get into the driver’s seat. Although nervous at first, I quickly took to it like the proverbial duck on an Irish summer’s day. Within 20 minutes I was driving through Convoy. Somehow, along the way, I had managed to join in the local St. Patrick’s Day parade. I was still trying to figure out the mysteries of maneuvering the gear stick but the task was made more difficult with bagpipes playing ‘O’Sullivan’s March’ in my ear.
It reminded me of a St. Patrick’s parade in Killybegs when Fr. Eddie was a judge. Sitting in the dignitaries area which consisted of a row of plastic seats on the back of Gallagher’s fish lorry, the judges watched patiently as the floats passed by to the beat of the various marching bands from Inver and Kilcar. Eddie spotted Bernard McHugh coming down the street. Bernard was on his wonderfully decorated bicycle, which had multiple lights attached, a stereo sound system, speakers, a speedometer and more mirrors than Cunningham’s hardware.
Leaning forward, “Are you a float McHugh?” Fr. Eddie asked, with a wry smile.
Years earlier at the Bullock Park, I was thumbing a lift to college. It was late on a Monday morning and I had already missed the first two lectures. A black Ford RS2000 skidded to a sudden stop beside me, blue gravel scattering everywhere. I hesitantly opened the front door, half expecting to see a young boy racer at the wheel. Instead, I was greeted by a tall middle aged attractive blonde lady, dressed top to toe in tight black leather. The car interior, looking dark and dangerous, matched the driver. Once I was in, she took off at high speed. With my life flashing slowly in front of my eyes, I wondered what I had let myself in for. There was no doubt this lady could drive. Rosemary Smith, once one of the world’s top rally drivers had stunned the motoring world in 1965 by beating not just the other women’s teams, but the men’s as well, to win Holland’s famous Tulip Rally, in her Hillman Imp. I was in safe hands.
“Boobles” Seamus roared. “Get off my bloody head”. Seamus was stuck with his head under the steering wheel. Francie was sitting on his head, halfway out the windscreen.
Despite their contortion act, they eventually disentangled themselves and worked their way out, slamming the door on my head as I reached for freedom. “Let me out” I shouted. Panic set in fairly quick. What if the car went on fire? What if another car came around and did the same somersault and landed on us?. What if Francie comes back in and sits on my head?
I have been lucky enough to survive a few accidents. Thumbing to college was a regular pastime back in the day. It was the cheapest form of travel, the Ryanair of it’s time. For any young ones reading, it involved wiggling your thumb at passing motorists and hope they’d take pity on you. Once in you’d ask about the weather and if the road was busy with hitch hikers, nothing too personal. Small talk was a basic requirement to pay for the ride. Some days it was great and you wouldn’t be standing too long. Some days, I wasn’t that lucky. One Saturday morning I was stuck on the Donegal road out of Ballybofey. While I stood thumbing two men came along with ladders and paint. They proceed to paint a small house beside me. They completed the job before I got a lift six hours later. The smug look on their faces as they passed me, feet now firmly frozen in one spot, stayed with me for many years.
On Monday mornings, going to college, I regularly got a lift with Brian Byrne from Malinbeg. Brian was a breadman who did an early run to Donegal to replenish his stock. It was a pleasure travelling with him. Brian was a jovial man and the morning Monday morning trip which brought me halfway to college was always a joy. Outside Donegal, I got a lift with an ESB van who also picked up Tony Hodgeman from Killybegs, also heading to the RTC in Letterkenny. It was a frosty morning. The ditches crisp and hard. The sun was low. There were long frozen white trails in the fields where it had yet to heat.  As we came down McGroary’s Bray, at speed, with three of us squeezed up front, it became obvious that the large Duffy’s Express lorry drunkenly swaying all over the road, was out of control. Our driver had no option but to ditch his van. We climbed out, the yellow ESB van now lying on it’s side in the frozen field, and up on the road. I stood there dazed, glad to be unhurt. “Get in” Tony shouted, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me to the roadside.. Another small Hiace van came flying past. It was going about 30mph which would have been safe for the frosty conditions had it not been travelling totally sideways. He hit the ditch and the driver came out through the windscreen. In total five vehicles went off the road as we stood there. The Coillte forest which ran the length of the road had cast a shadow and preserved the frost, making the road treacherous.
Seamus, Francie and I stood among the long rushes looking at what was left of Nora’s car lying upside down in the moonlight. How would we explain this?. There were no mobile phones to call for help. Seamus decided we’d flip it back out onto the road. We both looked at him worriedly. We knew something had flipped and it wasn’t the car. We convinced him to leave it and head back home. We got back on the road and started thumbing. The first car along was Gerry ‘Kung Fu’ Kennedy from Meenaneary. He was driving a large Granada. We were never as happy to get a lift. We sat quiet and didn’t mention what had happened. We agreed we wouldn’t say anything. In the dim light of the car I noticed my hands were bleeding. Small cuts all over, probably from the shattered windscreen. We compared cuts and argued over who had the biggest on the journey back home.
I walked in the door at home and blurted ot what had just happened. I didn’t sleep that night.
My Dad went to see the car the next day. By now, someone had ‘flipped’ it from the ditch and brought it to Killybegs. Nora McGinley’s car was a write-off. Dad wondered how we all got out alive. The movie was long over. We never did get to see the ‘Two-Minute Warning’ or heed its message. Sometimes in life you’ve got to read between the lines. Failure to do so may lead to an earlier than expected ending. In the wise words of Porky Pig on The Looney Tunes, you may end up saying,
“Th-Th-The, Th-Th-The, Th-Th… That’s all, folks!”