A real Man of God Malice in Wonderland a real man of god

RIVER

OF

TEARS

PRESTONSBURG

1993
Thirty-five years is time enough for a rookie police officer to reach retirement, for crew cuts to make a comeback, for a student in grade school to start and finish a strip-mining career in the hills of Eastern Kentucky.

But is it time enough to lay the dead to rest?

Floyd County residents might discover the answer to that question today when -- finally -- they gather as a community to memorialize the victims of a bus accident that occurred 35 years ago.

The commemorative service marks the anniversary of the nation's deadliest school-bus crash.

Thirty-five years ago this morning, Bus No. 27 swerved off old U.S. 23 and plunged into the swollen Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River near Prestonsburg, carrying 26 children and the driver to their deaths.

This is the first time Floyd residents have not just let the day slip by unnoticed. If you think 35 years is a strange interval at which to observe an anniversary for the first time, you should know it has taken this long for many Floyd Countians to find the heart to relive the tragedy.

"Really, it should have been done sooner, I guess," says Virginia S. Goble, who lost three children in the wreck. "But the grief was just too intense."

Neely George, a member of the committee that organized the service, says acknowledging the anniversary has required no fewer than "35 years of healing."

Missing the children
Even now, the tragedy seems so close. Too close. "It seems like just a few days ago," says James E. Carey, who lost his only son in the accident.

Donald Dillon, a survivor who cheated the river that day to become a coal miner, says, "It really don't seem that long.

"It don't seem like I'm as old as I am."

Dillon, a retired tipple mechanic, is losing much of his hair. John Adams, who was a rookie state trooper when he arrived at the scene, is a graying car salesman drawing retirement from the state.

And Petty Thompson, a retired food-service representative who left his potato chip truck parked along the road for a week while he assisted tirelessly in the rescue effort, says he doesn't hear as well as he used to.

Those who died in the river never will know the ravages of time, however. Some didn't even outgrow their baby fat.

"You still think about it," Carey said, "and you still miss the children. Although they wouldn't be children now, you still think of them like that."

Virginia Goble's husband, James B. Goble, 81, sits in a vinyl rocking chair beneath framed black-and-white photos of the three children he lost: James Edward, 12; John Spencer, 11; and Anna Laura, 9.

He remembers watching John Spencer, who had lost part of an arm in a fall, gently pick bees off summer clover with the hook that had replaced his hand.

But his most vivid memory of James Edward is of being the first to spot the boy floating on the brown river.

"Pleasant thoughts were going through my head," Goble says, "because I had finally found my son."

"I see my boy," Goble told another rescue worker.

"How can you recognize him from this distance?" the other man asked.

"From the clothes he's wearing," Goble said softly, already beginning to move their boat toward the form on the water.

69-day search
Nobody knows why the bus swerved across the road and over the steep river bank.

Adams was the first state trooper to reach the scene, riding his '57 Chevy cruiser hard from the Pikeville post. "That probably was the fastest I've ever driven a police car," he said.

Rescue workers already were on the scene. The bus was submerged in the river, which had risen 20 feet after two weeks of rain.

The only hope left for parents whose children went down with the bus was that their bodies would be found. When the battered bus was hauled out of the water more than two days after the wreck, volunteers found only 15 bodies inside.

It took another 69 days before the last child was found. One body made it as far as Auxier, six or seven miles away. The recovery effort continued night and day, with Rev. Dan Heintzelman using a public address system atop his jeep to keep onlookers abreast of developments.

Goble worked 58 days on the river, taking time out from recovering bodies only to attend his children's funerals. He and his wife were one of three families to lose all of their children.

Petty Thompson's son, Kenneth, would have been on the bus had he not awakened with a sore throat that morning and stayed home from school. Today, Kenneth Thompson sells Fords, Lincolns and Mercurys at a dealership in Portsmouth, Ohio.

The crowds along the river bank slowly dwindled as more and more bodies were found. But the number of onlookers would increase each weekend as residents of nearby towns chose to spend their days off from work watching.

Once, a barge churned up a body, a foot bobbing to the surface of the water. Floyd County Judge-Executive John M. Stumbo, then a member of the school board, noticed the black shoe still was laced.

The healing process
The bus wreck defined Floyd County. Through the dark aftermath shone a sense of community stronger than any seen before or since, Heintzelman said.

"The whole community came together -- both political parties, all the churches," he said.

Born in the ensuing chaos was the Floyd rescue squad, the first of its kind in the area and a model for other volunteer outfits that followed.

Graham Burchett, a driving force behind the recovery effort, did not even take time out to attend funerals for his two nieces. "Too busy working on the river, " he said.

About 10 years after the wreck, Burchett and the rescue squad proposed putting up a memorial at the accident site, but parents balked. They did not want a constant reminder. The little things are enough: The rise and fall of the river. Drives past the scene.

Dillon tries not to think about the accident, he says.

Until this year, attempts to memorialize victims of the accident were futile. "Why did you wait 35 years?" Heintzelman asked organizers. But he knew the answer.

"I guess maybe up to 10 years ago, when somebody talked to me about the bus tragedy, it choked me up," he said.

Heintzelman broke even as he spoke last week.

"We cannot wipe it out of our minds," he said.

George, who helped organize today's service, said, "We see this as part of the healing process."

It will "bring the memories back," Dillon said. "But I guess that's for the best sometimes."

OF

LULLABIES

AND

BABY'S

BLUE

EYES
LEXINGTON

1994
I was staring at the top of your head when the obstetrician strolled in, placed his palm flat against your crown of shiny, matted hair and kept you from coming into this world.

''Don't push,'' he told your mommy.

''Blow it away,'' he said as another contraction began.

That night: Except for your soft face and thick, dark hair, the thing I remember most is the doctor's hand. The same hand he had used to comb his hair, brush his teeth, take out the garbage, scratch his head, knock back a drink. Now he was using it to alter the course of history, to stop the rush of time the way Superman stops a speeding bullet.

What did you miss in those lost moments? How many waves crashed ashore, how many raindrops fell?

All this I wonder as I stand at the kitchen window, five months later. Time slips away. Winter is pallid and bare.

I hold you up so you can peer out. How far can a baby see?

The first time I ever heard God sigh was in Room 289, Labor & Delivery.

''Sounds like the wind,'' your mommy said.

The sound track of your birth odyssey was a rushing noise. Now the fetal heart monitor was making it. The machine had lost its tenuous bead on your tiny rhythm section; you were tossing and turning too much.

Your mommy and I had heard the same whooshing sound the night before as the storm of the summer approached. Sitting at the dinner table, we had listened to the wind outside as your mommy -- nine months pregnant with you -- winced, pausing over her red beans and rice.

That seemed a long time ago now. Here it was, seventeen hours later -- and nothing. Storm damage on the noon news. We watched on a cheap Zenith: Streets, brimming with rainwater, had become rivers; trees, shorn of branches, had become telephone poles. And you -- had you heard something in that wind calling your name? Your mommy's labor pains seemed to have blown over with the storm.

''Nothin' on,'' she said, using the remote to turn off the television. Not much later, the doctor zapped us, too.

''Baby's head's gone north,'' he said. ''Let's cancel and let you go home.''

It seemed the wait never would end. But here we are today, you and I, holding each other tight for lost time, Sunday afternoons and the warmth of your cheek on mine. We don't embrace our youth until it comes back to us in adulthood, tickling our neck and reminding us just what a miracle life is.

We got a different room when we returned to the hospital seven hours later. Time crawled -- enough for a baseball game. Extra innings. Braves over the Reds in 10.

Around midnight, my palms started to sweat. Complications, the nurse told us; you could be in danger. Something about merconium. The doctor would be ready to suction out your tiny nose, mouth and throat before you drew your first breath.

Just one problem: Nobody knew where he was.

The nurses began to scramble. There were OB/GYN sightings: Somebody had spotted the doctor in the building earlier, hadn't they? Where was he now? Had he fallen asleep on the couch in the doctor's lounge? Had he been called away to deal with some life-and-death situation in his own family?

The top of your head was visible. I had a knot in my stomach and the copper taste of anxiety on my tongue.

And that's when it happened: The doctor sauntered in, put his hand flat against your head and held you back.

The nurse's hands began to shake. I couldn't breath too well as I watched her, trembling, try to fit the end on a tube that could save your life.

''Relax'' the doctor told her.

This can't be happening, I thought. The question of whether you would be a boy or girl was lost in the worry: Would you be at all? Everything I saw seemed to be in slow motion.

The room was going gray.

Gray.

Then: Someone was saying something.

''It's a girl.''

The world came flooding back. Colors filled my eyes. I looked at your face, at your toes. The doctor laughed; the television still was on, and David Letterman had just pulled his hair out.

I laughed, too, surprised at how easily and loudly it came. My eyes met the doctor's, and he lowered his head quickly as if somewhere over my shoulder he had happened to glance down the horrible, wonderful maw of eternity.

Maybe we all had. Just a few moments before, at 12:31 a.m. Saturday, June 20, 1992, I had seen the future. It is wonderful, I tell you. And frightening. And filled with talking animals and mutant heroes and the fragile wish to fly like a bird . . .

I brought you home on Father's Day, something to wear around my neck. Now you lay your head on my shoulder, so gentle on my face. The things I wonder: Who will you be? What will you do? No lullaby is soft enough, no lifetime long enough. Will your eyes still be blue when you break your first heart? And will that heart be mine?