By Douglas V. Gibbs
It is raining in Southern California. After twelve years of pushing pencils in an office that included four of those years working as a loan counselor at a credit union, and thirteen years in the construction industry, my current day job is a big rig driver. Specifically, I drive what's called a "transfer," and deliver sand and gravel materials. I received my commercial driver's license in the year 2000, in order to move up in the construction company at the time so that I may move up from the level of ground laborer, to operator. I needed the Class A license so that I may transport the heavy equipment I began operating at the time.
Since my line of business still has a connection to the construction industry, rain tends to push off jobs, which equates into short days, and sometimes even a few days without work. This morning, after a single run to a local job site, my day was over. I made a couple repairs to my truck at the yard, turned in my paperwork, and headed home in my little commuter car.
The car I drive is not an American sedan (to answer a liberal commenter's question), and the fun five-speed manual transmission is actually quite typical of the kind of conveyance I like to drive. In my life I have owned a dozen or so vehicles, and only three of them have been automatic transmissions - and except for my 1971 Olds Cutless Supreme (my first car), the automatics have been my wife's primary vehicles. She can drive a stick, but prefers not to.
While driving home I did as I normally do on rainy days. I drove in the center lane of the three lanes available. When it is raining that lane tends to be the one with the least chance of having standing water on it because it is usually the high point of the freeway lanes.
Today, my precautions were a moot point.
At about the third-of-the-way point, I hit some water. I could feel it in my steering wheel. The water jerked at the wheel, and sent me into a counter-clockwise spin.
On California freeways, the traffic tends to travel in packs when it isn't bumper to bumper. The gaggle of cars ahead of me were a good quarter mile up. The herd of vehicles behind me were slightly closer. No cars were in my immediate vicinity, so when the car began to spin, nobody had to swerve out of the way.
As I spun, I pulled my feet in, and began turning away from the spin. I could hear myself saying, "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God," but I did not will myself to speak. As the car spun I saw the k-rail pass my vision, then the group of traffic behind me, then the dirt shoulder beyond the slow lane, then the traffic in front of me. . . in that order, over and over, at least six times.
The traffic behind me seemed to be increasing their distance. I assume they all slowed down, watching my predicament, anxious to see how it was all going to turn out.
I over-corrected when I was working to pull myself out of the spin, and moments before I nearly slammed into the k-rail I began to straighten out, only to find the car losing control and begin a new spin. . . in the opposite direction.
As the car began spinning clockwise. . . K-rail, traffic in front of me, dirt shoulder, traffic behind me, k-rail, traffic in front of me, dirt shoulder, traffic behind me. . . I slowly moved away from the k-rail next to the fast lane, and the spinning car began to travel across the lanes towards the slow lane, and the dirt shoulder.
I pulled the wheel in the opposite direction, and after at least another half-dozen spins, the car straightened out. I down shifted, slowed to a crawl, and pulled off onto the dirt shoulder.
The traffic passed me by, without anyone stopping to make sure things were fine.
No surprise there. I am, after all, in the friendly confines of the Soviet Socialist Liberal Republic of California - a.k.a. Hell on Earth.
I'm a native, though, born and raised in the cities south of Los Angeles, and east of Los Angeles, so the madness of Southern California seems to bounce off of me like bullets to Superman. I think we are all that way. We hate the State of California, but love where we live. It's almost like a love-hate relationship. We all say we want to get the hell out of this state, but we never do.
I examined the car, and there was no apparent damage. Tires were all fully inflated, and there were no bumps or dings.
Only frazzled nerves on the part of the driver.
I could have very well died. I may have avoided becoming just another statistic. Yet, though I could feel my heart pounding, and I remembered the "Oh God" sequence quite well, I wasn't in a panic. I simply took a deep breath, got back in the car, and proceeded to enter traffic and head home.
After the incident, during the remainder of my 30-40 minute drive, I began to think about what had happened. Situations like that are the great equalizer. Government can't help you, it is up to the individual to resolve the situation. Those small decisions, as the car is spinning, could affect everyone related to the driver for a lifetime, and quite possibly the drivers on the road, too. Had I slammed the breaks, or turned the wheel the other way, my wife may have lost her husband. If another car had been near me, I may have wound up in the hospital and unable to work. A whole number of scenarios could have taken place.
In July of 1985 I became "the other guy," and wound up with various injuries, and in a deep coma, as the result of a vehicular accident. I know what it is like to wake up in the hospital, and not know where you are, and in my case, for a short time, who you are. I had to learn to walk all over again, battle with various disorders that resulted from the trauma, and to this day the effects of that accident still haunt me.
This time, the car stopped its movement with me still kicking, and I simply drove home and told my wife about my experience after it happened.
Just another moment in life where the slightest variation could have completely changed my life.
I spent a good deal of time, once I was home, after talking to my wife, and waiting for her to get over her shock and fear, glancing through the photographs of my kids, and my grandchildren.
Was my last words to my kids words of love and encouragement?
Did my last encounter with my grandchildren leave them with a positive impression of Grandpa?
How very easily those short moments with my family could have been my last.
I am not trying to be philosophical, and there is no moral to the story in this post. I simply wanted to tell you what happened, and my reaction to it. You can take from it what you may. All I know is that my size 34 trousers were soaked with rain after I got home, and walked across the yard in the pouring rain, and that was a decent problem to have, considering what I could have experienced, had my tail spin ended a little differently.
Life is a blessing, and I live it full throttle. But, sometimes after a tail spin, it is important to stop, take a breath, and tell those around you how much you truly love them.
Life is but a journey, and the destination is unknown. Only God knows the final path, and thankfully, He saw fit that my travels are not quite finished. . . yet.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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