Interstate 35 runs north to south, straight through the heart of Oklahoma.
And right there along that stretch sits Marietta. Small place. Blink, and you might miss it. But for my dad, Marietta was holding on to something near and dear to him—it was the place where his baby blue Chevy C10 Stepside gave up the ghost.
That Chevy was a pretty truck. When the paint caught the sun just right, it threw back a shimmer like the sky itself had leaned down to kiss the metal.
The motor blew on my dad’s trip to Meridian, Mississippi, to pick me up in 1988. I had been living there with Ginger, a dear woman who served as my surrogate mother for a season. The truck stayed broken down, stranded like a faithful dog that just couldn’t walk anymore.
Our home was 212 miles away in Enid. How my dad made it back from Marietta, I couldn’t tell you. He never made a story of it, and I never asked.
That truck… it sat there. Not for days. Not for weeks. For months. My dad didn’t have the money to fix it or the means to haul it.
That’s poverty for you. It doesn’t always look like empty cupboards, which we also had. Sometimes it looks like a beautiful truck, sittin’ idle in a little town off I-35, waiting on a tomorrow that might never come.
Eventually, tomorrow did come. Not from a big payday, not by a miracle, but from my dad’s friend.
Frank was a short, black man. He worked as an electrician, someone who carried himself like a man who knew his work and knew his worth.
One day, Dad announced we were going to Marietta. We piled into Frank’s work van with a flat-bed trailer behind us and set off east, then dipped south. Now, this wasn’t a family cruiser, no bench seats, and cupholders. This was a work van, stripped down to the bone, made for hauling tools, supplies, parts, and ladders, not kids. My seat? A five-gallon bucket rolling around in the back, the narrow plastic rim digging into my bare legs, leaving me with matching red marks.
That was the ride to Marietta. No frills, no comforts. Just a van full of tools, a busted truck waiting on us, and a father and son leaning into the road ahead.
Along the way, we made our stops. First, a job. To Frank, work was muscle memory—efficient and quiet. But one stop wasn’t about work. Somewhere between Marietta and nowhere in particular, he pulled his van up in front of a trailer. The siding dulled by the sun, a couple of cinder blocks propping up the steps.
“C’mon,” he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. So we did. We stepped out of the van—me standing up from my five-gallon bucket—and followed him and my dad inside.
The air hit me first. Stale smoke and sweet perfume, like two smells wrestling for the same space. A little fan in the corner buzzed but didn’t do much against the heat. The white woman who greeted us was warm and friendly. She seemed to be expecting Frank. She smiled widely and offered us a seat on a sagging couch.
We sat there making small talk, my dad nodding, while Frank carried himself like this was his second living room. I didn’t understand it then. Adults have lives inside their lives, stories inside their stories. What I did know was this: it wasn’t all about work and a wife at home for Frank.
Mistress? That was the vibe I was getting. Yes: grown-ups have errands a kid isn’t supposed to name. And on that ride, we carried more than tools and wire. We carried secrets, too.
After our short visit with Frank’s mistress, we jumped in the van and continued south. When we arrived in Marietta, we found the truck parked behind a gas station that also served as an auto repair shop. Frank and Dad got out, unloading chains, straps, and ramps from the van. They circled the trailer, planning the lift. Step by step, inch by inch, the Chevy was coaxed onto the trailer, wheels rolling slowly up the ramps, the suspension groaning in protest.
We climbed back into the van for the long ride north. Back on my five-gallon bucket I went. It was maybe thirty minutes or an hour into the long stretch of highway that we found ourselves speeding downhill, oblivious to our looming near-death experience ahead. That’s right. I didn’t know I was about to cheat death.
Unfortunately, Frank met a bad patch of road near Turner Falls, an unexpected bump that caused him to lose control of the van.
On the right-hand side, through the van door window, I saw it: the trailer with Dad’s truck on it was—somehow—side by side with us, like it was going to pass us. My stomach dropped.
Combining this bad patch of road with a steep decline spelled disaster.
The van spun around and around. Time slowed. I could hear chains rattling on the trailer, Frank shouting something that didn’t make it past the roar of the wind. And then… the van slammed into the embankment with a bone-jarring smash. We were jolted around, rattled, and then…still. Silence except for the heartbeat pounding in my ears and Frank swearing.
Thank God we hadn’t gone over. One moment, you’re holding on for dear life; the next, the edge of a cliff gapped open beneath us. Shell-shocked, we stumbled out of the van, dazed and confused, inching closer to the edge, hesitant at first to look over the embankment. Our eyes became bigger than saucers at what we saw. A 100 or 200-foot drop that promised nothing but rock and sky.
I almost died, I thought to myself.
We stayed there for a long moment, just breathing, trying to make sense of what had happened. Dad and Frank checked the trailer and the truck—everything still secured, nothing had fallen off. Frank climbed back into the van, muttering under his breath about “losing control” and “never again.”
Slowly, Dad and I got back in. The van was shaken, but it still ran. We continued north, a lot slower this time, eyes glued to the road, my hands gripping the sides of the bucket. Nobody spoke much. The highway stretched ahead, long and quiet, and we were all thinking the same thing: we’d been lucky. Too lucky.
By the time we arrived in Enid, the sun was lower in the sky, and the adventure that had started as a road trip to Marietta felt like it had lasted a lifetime. That day stuck with me—the van and trailer spinning, the sheer drop at the cliff—and I never forgot how close I’d come to not seeing my next birthday.
Word Count: 1,141
Here are six “writing” takeaways from this chapter:
The Beginning
1. Lead with vivid simplicity
Good writing starts with clarity and energy. My opening—“Interstate 35 runs north to south, straight through the heart of Oklahoma”—is plain, concrete, and visual. It drops readers straight into place.
Try This: Start your memoir scene the same way. Use simple, direct sentences to establish setting and tone before explaining anything. Let readers see before they understand.
2. Let emotion ride on restraint
Instead of declaring feelings about poverty or hardship, I describe the broken Chevy and my father’s quiet perseverance. The emotion emerges naturally from the image.
Try This: Don’t tell readers how to feel—show them what it looked and sounded like. The emotion will find them on its own.
The Middle
3. Write from a child’s eye
The audience must feel like they’re in the writer’s shoes. I do this through sensory detail—“the narrow plastic rim digging into my bare legs”—and by filtering adult events through a child’s half-understanding.
Try This: When you recount childhood scenes, write from that limited point of view. Let your past self narrate what they noticed, not what your adult self now knows.
4. Keep clutter out of dialogue and description
The middle moves fast because every word earns its keep. I name smells (“stale smoke and sweet perfume”) and gestures precisely—no filler, no overexplaining.
Try This: Cut adverbs. Use adjectives sparingly. A memoir reads best when sentences are lean.
The End
5. Close the circle
Endings should echo the beginning without repeating it. My final image—arriving home under a sinking sun, changed by near-death—quietly fulfills the promise of the opening road.
Try This: End your chapters where they emotionally began, but with perspective gained. Let readers feel the return home in more ways than one.
6. End in understatement
Instead of moralizing, I end with reflection—“I never forgot how close I’d come to not seeing my next birthday.” It’s honest, human, and leaves space for readers to feel their own awe.
Try This: Memoir endings shouldn’t preach. Trust your readers to connect the dots. Authenticity—not commentary—creates resonance.
