Merry Christmas to all of my Byington Cousins

I thought that today I would share a story from Ardell's oral history.

We all know that years ago it was always very snowy in Lava in the winter. The steep hills would get very slick. Ardell tells a story about taking his mother (grandma Sarah) home from a short trip. She thinks that they had been to Pocatello. Grandma Sarah's house was up on one of those steep hills in Lava. Ardell says that in the wintertime they disconnected their brakes because using them just caused them to slide out of control.

As they were getting ready to go up the hill to take Grandma Sarah home. Ardell says, "We would start from the bridge and get up speed to make it up the hill. This particular time--I don't know what had happened that got my mother excited, but she reached over to grab the steering wheel."

Fay (Ardell's wife) had all that she could do to keep Grandma Sarah's hands off of the steering wheel.

Ardell says,"Through the excitement and everything we couldn't make it up the hill. We started spinning. Of course, we didn't have any brakes to help us and all that we could do was slide back down the hill really fast. My mother was scared plum to death. The next attempt we made was to go up the hill the other way and back to her house. Finally, we made it."