I can remember five near misses -- five times when through inattentive or incompetent driving I put my own and others' lives at risk. I give thanks that I avoided killing or mangling myself or the innocent victims of my failings. What wondrous life is this I lead -- how fortunate I have been!
The first: it was 1963. I was an inexperienced, overconfident driver, traveling westward, somewhere in southern Illinois. My first cross-country trip. A two-lane highway, a downpour, very wet pavement. I saw, or thought i saw, an oncoming car in my lane. There would have been plenty of time for him to pass and dive back, but I panicked and braked hard. My vehicle, an old Rambler, not a great handler in the best of times, swerved into the oncoming lane, then spun out of control and landed backward in a ditch on the right side of the road. We sat there, stunned, relieved, because I had been in the left oncoming lane long enough to have killed ourselves self and others. (Within a minute, a man pulled up in a truck, attached a chain to our car and winched us out. I'm perpetually grateful to this Samaritan.)
A second instance: an icy winter day in Boulder, early 1970s. Driving the old yellow Saab with my sister Phyllis (legally, sister-in-law) in the "death seat" east on Arapahoe, I hit a slick of black ice and made a bad situation worse by applying the brakes. The car spun out of control and eventually halted facing backwards in the oncoming lane. Once again, no one injured or even inconvenienced.
Another: driving across the USA alone in the clunky blue Camry, doing 80 in a 55 zone, I didn't quite fall asleep at the wheel but certainly lost focus, and didn't see a car stopped in the parking lane until I was just adjacent to it. If I had been a bit to the right or if there had been someone fixing a tire, I would have crippled myself and murdered an innocent. Here's another one, probably the most idiotic. Driving alone through Chicago in heavy traffic, on one of those horrible highways where there are eight lanes east and another eight west, I found myself in the third lane from the right and needed to exit right. Instead of playing it safe, and continuing on, I impulsively dove across two lanes and made it to the exit. Angry horns to the right of me, horns to the left of me. Why did I take such a risk? I don't know but I thank the drivers around me for being alert. What arrogance, what stupidity! The most recent event, and most inexcusable, happened just a few years ago. I was returning home from a very disturbing visit to the "memory care" facility. Somehow, in my grief, I ignored a prominent red light and sailed right through a busy intersection -- a gross violation of sense and law. But there was no crash and no police and I proceeded blithely on my way -- only, after a few moments, realizing with shock and horror that I had put my own life and that of others at completely unnecessary danger.
When people two hundred years from now look back on our "civilization" -- assuming that there will be people on this planet two hundred years from now, which is not a certainty -- they will wonder how was it possible that those people in our century were able to survive. Dashing 70 or 80 miles an hour in a tin can just six feet from a line of onrushing tin cans? Weaving among giant tandem trucks and buses and cement mixers -- and expecting to survive. What sort of brave or foolhardy individuals were these strange, death-defying people?
For myself, I'm astonished at the dumb luck that's allowed me to preserve my life and mobility to this advanced age. So far, that is. It's not over until it's over.
"Dumb" does not begin to describe this kind of luck. I sometimes get the feeling that this existence is an alternate universe and that my existence ceased in several others. I would give thanks, too, except that there is no one to give thanks to.
Posted by: Don Z. Block | April 24, 2021 at 07:58 AM
Quit while you're ahead.
Posted by: Moe Joost | April 20, 2021 at 10:09 AM