Whenever I write about events that can't be rationally explained, it's inevitable some readers will respond with compelling stories of their own.
These "GodWink" experiences, as author Squire Rushnell refers to in his book (and I call "GodNods"), often qualify as evidence of just how mysteriously spiritual this existence can be. So it is with Virginia McAllister and her grown son, Lonnie, both of Fayetteville.
Now 93, McAllister recalls well that chilling night 61 years ago along a narrow dirt road in Oklahoma. It seems like only yesterday. So does Lonnie, 67, who was 6 when their family's inexplicable GodNod occurred.
The year was 1954. Virginia, Lonnie, daughter Janet, and husband A.D. "Mack" McAllister Jr., a prominent Fayetteville attorney and former city attorney, were driving from Fayetteville to Virginia's hometown of Blossom, Texas. They headed out of town in the afternoon southward along Highway 59 into Oklahoma.
Approaching the community of Antlers, Mack turned left onto a remote, 12-mile-long cut-across passage he'd been told about. The shortcut was said to trim considerable time off their trip. Lonnie and Janet were in the back seat as darkness descended.
Virginia said her husband suddenly noticed their car's gas gauge was squarely on E. By then, it was pitch-black outside literally in the middle of nowhere. They never saw another car on the narrow road, both sides of which were covered in nothing but brush and thick forest.
Worries began in the darkness. They wondered if they'd have to spend the night in the car should the gasoline give out. Would anyone else happen along? They hadn't seen a single car. Did anyone even use this eerie road seemingly to nowhere?
They were on the verge of panic in this uncomfortable setting when they rounded a curve and happened across the dilapidated and badly overgrown service station on their left. It had a single gasoline pump.
"I remember that strange old station had vines and brush growing on and around it," said Lonnie. "We all wondered why any business would be located way out in the middle of nowhere. And why it would be open well after dark?"
"We were just so relieved to find a gas station in a place where it seemed nothing should be," added Virginia, who now lives at Butterfield Trail Village. "And it was reassuring to see a man inside. There wasn't a house, or anything else to be seen out there the whole time."
Lonnie, a typical 6-year-old, accompanied his late father into the tiny station. "I remember very well how remote and covered with trees and bushes that little station was," he said. "I even asked my parents if there might be bears along that spooky road."
He recalled the store was lighted by a single bare bulb that dropped from the ceiling. "I also remember it had a pull string hanging down," he said.
All gassed up, the McAllisters drew a deep mutual breath of relief and continued to Blossom. Upon returning to Fayetteville over this shortcut, the McAllisters agreed they'd stop and again thank the man who'd been their unlikely savior a few nights earlier.
They looked, and scratched their heads when they couldn't find the place after carefully searching the roadside. They didn't even see a space beside the narrow road that could have accommodated even a small business, or anyone to ask about it.
"The station was there only at the time we so badly needed it," said Virginia.
On subsequent journeys to Texas from Fayetteville over the years, the McAllisters continued to search in vain for any sign of the single-pump station with one bare bulb. Each time, they still didn't find the slightest indication it ever existed. There wasn't anything to be seen from the car except thick woods and brush along this 12-mile stretch without a name or number. "We wondered together each time why that strange road was even there," said Lonnie, a retired financier.
The family discussed that strange evening among themselves in the ensuing years, said Virginia. "But we all decided not to talk about it otherwise because we thought others would think we were crazy or fantasizing. But this story is true, I can assure you." With Mack McAllister's credibility and earned standing in Fayetteville, I can only imagine how he must have felt after that experience.
Virginia, who remains alert and active after losing Mack in 2001, also was a prominent member of the community. She owned and managed the former ladies' clothing shop, Matilda's, located for decades on the town square beside the Bank of Fayetteville. Mack and Virginia were married 59 years.
Their daughter Janet, who passed away in 2011 at age 66, was married to highly regarded Fayetteville pharmacist Carl Collier.
"I knew I wanted to relate our experience with the gas station that wasn't there while Lonnie and I are still alive to tell it together," said Virginia. "Which is why we're talking with you about it. I wish we'd done this when Janet and Mack were alive. Like me, Lonnie clearly remembers everything that happened to us that night."
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 07/05/2015