Dumb Luck on a Country Road

I stoked the wood-burning stove. I fed the mouse-catcher (who has been eating a ton of food). I did yoga after a trying exchange of text messages with a friend. I started the car so that it could warm up. I considered putting more air in the tires; the winter chill reduces the air pressure, but then convinced myself to do it when I came home. Though I knew the main highway was clear, I wanted to have a slow drive through the country to see how beautiful the winter white had left things. By turning right instead of left, my entire day changed.

There are two hills and two blind corners to negotiate on the road that runs west. I eased out of the drive (since I'd shoveled it primarily for left-hand turns), and let the front wheel drive do the work on the slight incline. My car made it up and down the first hill without problem, and I noticed that the road grader had bladed half of the road, which had turned up some gravel (traction) in the lane going the opposite direction, but not in mine. The approach to the first ninety-degree turn is a slight downhill run, and I immediately started to pump the brakes and slow down; the western setting sun had done its work here, turning the road into an unblemished glaze of ice all the way into the turn. I'd gotten the car down to a manageable fifteen miles per hour when I began to turn the wheel... and got no resistance from the road; the car continued straight.

At my speed, and given that the outside lane had been plowed, in the worst-case scenario, I would have slid to a stop well before the bank on the other side. I never touched the brakes, for I knew that doing so would only prolong the slide. In most cases, probably ninety-nine times out of one hundred, there would have been no oncoming traffic. However, on this day, I slid into to the other lane, and right into the path of an approaching SUV.

I saw the surprise on the face of the female driver as she suddenly found a small black Honda in her path. My front wheels caught the plowed lane and I jerked the wheel to the right, missing her front bumper by inches, eyes diverted quickly to the side view mirror as I expected a tap on the hind quarter panel, which might have transferred enough of her momentum to cause an uncontrolled spin, but with no spin, I recognized that I was heading for the creek on my side of the road, and turned the wheel back to the left to stay out of the snow bank. My slowed pace made the vehicle easy to control, so I edged over the bridge and pulled to a stop in order to catch my breath. Two hands on the wheel, averted disaster, and a deep breath, until I looked in the side view mirror again.

The SUV had slid sideways into the ditch, which also happened to be the creek bank on the west side of the road. An image of kids in the truck flashed into my memory, so I opened my door and ran to the vehicle. The driver had rolled down her window enough to hear me coming, and when I approached, I recognized the look on her face as one I knew well, a strange balance of soma and adrenalin that paralyzed for a moment before instinct pushed a plan of rescue into action.

Many years ago, I was driving home on Christmas morning after a night of partying with friends. Because I was going to college in California, my best buds and I had started having an annual get together on Christmas eve where we'd put back a few beers (or shots of tequila) and get caught up on life. While driving home the next morning (not too far from where the incident I'm describing above takes place), I emerged over the top of a hill, at a speed only a few miles an hour over the fifty-five mile per hour limit, and found a small truck and trailer stopped in the middle of the road. Christmas morning. CHRISTMAS MORNING! Who is out on the roads--pulling a trailer, no less--on CHRISTMAS MORNING? "OH SHIT!" burst from my lips as I instantly recognized that there was no choice, because the choice between passing on the left into the oncoming lane was better than the culvert on the right. So, I squeezed into the left lane, and just as I did so, the truck and trailer began to execute a left turn, without signaling, I might add. The space between the edge of the road and the edge of the truck tightened, too tight, in fact, and my left front tire slipped off the asphalt and into the dirt, which jerked the car sideways. In the next three seconds, I'd crossed the highway out of control, into the ditch hood-first, sheered the axles, and packed a ton of Missouri mud into the exhaust system. Two hands remained on the wheel and I gasped for air when the car came to a stop (this was the exact look that I saw on the female driver of the SUV), and I thought, "Turn down the radio," and then sat there wondering what to do next. As it turns out, I was fine, despite a ruined Christmas. The driver of the truck with the trailer never stopped, it executed the left turn and kept moving right on down the road. F*&ker. Coincidence is a strange beast, even on a country road on Christmas morning, you might run into someone that you know. The very first car that passed was a gentleman that I'd graduated from high school with, and we were far from our school district. The one quote I remember best was from the officer that stopped to record the incident, who said, "Lucky you never hit the brakes, 'cause you woulda rolled it, son."

The woman in the white SUV said, "I have three kids in here," and we both knew that the forty-five degree angle of the truck might become a greater degree at any second. As I carefully pulled open the back door, a young boy of about four years old had a shocked look on his face, but he was listening to orders being handed out by both me and his mother. He unbuckled his seat belt so I wouldn't have to add weight to the precarious situation, and I grabbed him under the arms and lifted him onto the road. "Don't go too far," I said, "Stay right here." The daughter was next, slightly older and more nimble, she crawled from the far seat and I hoisted her to safety, as well. The eldest, a boy of twelve-ish, hopped out, not needing much assistance. Finally, we extracted the mom from the front seat, counted fingers and toes, then all took a deep breath.

The rest of the story is quite ordinary: the truck never continued its slide, the tow was uneventful, we shook hands, since we were neighbors that had never met, and everyone retired to the warmth of their homes; a story filed away to be told for the rest of our lives.

Like I said, coincidence, or just plain ole bad luck, can really shape a day. Here's to life, and health!

The Truth IS Stranger than Fiction

Most of you, my wonderful readers (smooch!), pretty much know that I'm so close to the end of a rewrite of my book that I can taste it. So close! For you newbies, welcome, I hope that you enjoy your stay with us for a long, long time (PS: There's usually plenty of wine to go around).

I bring up my book for one particular reason, the truth is stranger than fiction.

I don't write about it much here, but I'm a technology marketer in my real life, when my creative flow isn't focused on this blog or my book, then I'm concepting and developing strategy for companies. I was rereading a book last night that I'd read (and reviewed: What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20) earlier in the year because I have an idea and I needed to reread the book with that idea in mind; the template for how to accomplish the idea is in that book. I stray, sorry, in the book it says that there are always problems to solve around us--opportunities that exist--the difference between an entrepreneur and someone else, at this stage, is that the entrepreneur notices the opportunities.

There's no need to make ideas up, they exist all around us.

How does that relate to my book? Well, it might be a stretch, but here goes... I don't have to make things up, my eyes are open and I see my book--several books, for that matter--all around me, constantly. This blog is the easiest thing (and hopefully enjoyable for you) that I've ever done in my life. One post per day about whatever I see around me. Done! I'm going sideways again... back on track... well, last night life authored another twist.

My previous post, "Love Case for Intended Change," caused a stir in the world (I added an update to the end of the post, so go back and read it real quick). The comments that were posted were fantastic, thank you, but it's the ones that never made it to the blog that have really changed my world.

How much do I believe in true love? That's one question that I contemplated last night. Another? Do I really think that people can change or am I just that optimistic? I suppose that depends on how much change needs to be made. Do I often feel like I live alone on an island of understanding? Yes, most definitely and I wonder why I keep inviting people to the island that I have to kick off... but, that's what I was told at a young age... you have a "knowing" and very few around you will appreciate or understand it. In fact, they'll think you arrogant or pompous when you have to wield it.

I see things all around me because my eyes are open.

I've had three opportunities in my life for intense introspection and I've grasped on to all three of them. When I was in college (for 9 years), I made it my mission to ask myself all the questions that I could muster. That's one thing. Answering the question, however, is never enough. You have to take the next step and ask yourself, "Why is that my answer?" "Why?" is the most important question one can ever ask. Seriously, start with, "Why is _______ my favorite color?" and see what happens. After a long stint of employment, I had a year and a half to read, travel and write earlier in this decade. And now, I've been at it once more for about 20 months. It's wonderful and frustrating, but so good for me to know myself... and knowing myself seems to be highly connected to knowing what's going on around me.

So, when a friend asked me if we could go out for a few beers, I thought it odd, but not unlikely. In fact, my first thought was, "Cool, I'd like to spend more time with him because we are quite similar in the way we think. Life's challenges have made us think deeply. I'm glad that he reached out to me." And then my second thought kicked in and I actually asked him, "Can I invite friends to join us or do you have something private that you want to discuss?" Intuition spoke to me and said there was something that needed to be discussed; intuition was right.

There were many things that I realized during the conversation:

1. If he is like me, a deep thinker, then he doesn't like to be told what to do; he has to experience it on his own. Sooo true for me. So true. Any lecture about my learnings would fall on his deaf ears because a decision had already been made.
2. If nothing can be learned from shared information, then it's not my place to stand in the way of opportunity. It'd be horribly selfish to deny a man the ability to explore--the opportunity to learn what needs to be learned in his life.
3. Love is a powerful force. To me, Love is the religion. We have such unbelievable desire to find it, that we're willing to do things that we'd never do if we stepped back a little bit and observed our actions. I know it, I've done it and I've learned from it. Asking for something doesn't mean that what you ask for justifies the action you request.
   
4. There are those that keep following the same template over and over and over without learning from the experience. Heck, I just did that exact thing! So, I can't even exclude myself from this truth. Fortunately, I recognized it in a few months instead of a few years.
   

So, my words of caution can really be summed up to this, be wary of those that throw around words with reckless abandon when they know not what they really mean. I've been accused of "being in love with love," and I absolutely am. Being in love with love is living in the NOW. Except, being in love with love and being in the now make a dangerous combination; it's possible to run people down and keep right on truckin,' oblivious to what really happened around you or what caused the accident. You can be in love with love, but you have to remember, you still want to get to the destination, not just bumble along on the journey your whole life; there is a place that you're trying to get to that isn't in the NOW.

So, my friends and readers, I urge you to stop, get out of the truck, step back and ask yourself, "Why do I keep doing the exact same thing over and over?"

Remove the nouns from the equation, it's not about what things look like, it's not about whether the truck is red or white or what street it's driving down... the problem is driving wherever you want, whenever you want... going where you want to go and never stopping to ask if someone else is heading in the same direction or even wants to go in your direction. My question is, "Do you even know where you're going?" Before you know it, you're making a turn and someone says to go straight and WHAM, accident.

There's a HUGE lesson in that last sentence... and it isn't about the metal, rubber and plastic left on the road; it's about whether everyone is alright. My readers, pay attention to the road, understand your path and be wary of getting distracted by the scenery... you just might total more than your ride and the rides of others around you.