For every car accident, there are countless close calls. At least that's been my experience. In truth, this Hub is not that easy to write. Why? Because it's embarrassing. Why? Because nearly every car accident close call I've had in fifty years of licensed driving has been my own fault, and because any one of those close calls could have just have easily have been a fatal car accident, that's why.

Oh.

(Sigh.) No way around it. Here we go. Note: The first entry involves a pickup, but I count it as a car for the purpose of this Hub. It was, after all, the only "car" I could use to chase girls, and that was all-important!

1. Age sixteen. It was closing in on 4:00 a.m. as I wheeled Dad's red '55 Ford pickup down the dirt road toward Helmville Canyon northeast of Drummond, Montana. I'd worked all day on the ranch the previous day, then driven 55 miles to the Greenough area to pick up my first real girlfriend. We'd done some smooching before the night was over. I was high as a kite over the relationship, no drugs or alcohol needed. I was also dog tired and stupid.

That road can safely be covered at 65 mph...except for the canyon itself. That two mile chunk of road twists sharply back and forth between towering granite cliffs. It is not a place to tackle at high speed while asleep at the wheel. I knew this because a car accident in that same canyon had killed a friend of the family a few years ago. No close calls for Glen; he'd rolled his vehicle and died with his face jammed down into the two inches of water running down the tiny streambed beside the roadway.

The vehicle was literally entering the twisty part when I realized I was in trouble. Even at that age, I was an expert behind the wheel. No, no, I really was! Unfortunately, the canyon didn't care. Within split seconds, we (the truck and I) were sliding sideways, trying fiercely to hit one ditch and then the other as I whipped the wheel back and forth.

In the end, the truck slid (sideways) to a stop without ever having left the narrow roadway. How narrow was it? Narrow enough that I had to back and fill several times to get it straightened out. Anyone else coming through the canyon would doubtless have T-boned us in a heartbeat, but I didn't care. We made it.

And I was wide awake the rest of the way home.

2. Age twenty. It was New Year's Eve. 1963 had been consigned to the dustbin of history; 1964 was underway. In eight more days, I'd be headed to Fort Ord, California, to fulfill my obligation to Uncle Sam. Yup, I'd been drafted.

My friend, Curt, and I'd been at a party several miles east of Deer Lodge, Montana. We were heading back to town in our separate vehicles, he in his snazzy little 1961 Corvair, me in my hopped-up but also beatup 1952 Chevy. We were both drunk. Curt had pulled ahead of my by at least half a mile. We blithely ignored the speed limit on the freeway, but my Old Brown was on its last legs. It desperately needed a major tuneup it would never get; in a few days it would be consigned to the unofficial junkyard my Dad maintained near one of his fields on the ranch west of Drumond. My beast was overheating, and I'd had to limit my car's speed to a piddly 80 miles per hour.

Then I saw Curt's brake lights come on. He's slowing for the exit! I can catch up now! So I floored it.

Did I mention I was drunk?

The result of my booze-soaked decision was that Old Brown and I hit that 45 mph exit at around 80. Folks, a '52 Chevy is not a Porsche. That exit swoops hard right, up and hard left, and hard right once again. No, there was no way to shut it down enough between bouts of having to stomp on it to try to power through the turns. Even so, we somehow made it through the first two turns. Coming out of the third and final turn--just when it would seem we'd actually made it--the tires finally broke loose. Instead of sliding sideways, the car was sliding backwards, beginning at 65 miles per hour until the locked-up wheels could bring it to a stop.

Yes, I was flashing back to the Helmville Canyon moment. Mostly, though, I was really, really busy, steering the car while it slid (backwards, did I mention?), watching down the left side that should have been the right side.

And the vehicle never left the lane. Hm. Anybdy see a pattern starting here?

Back then, I wasn't even sure God existed. Looking back, it's more than obvious to me that divine protection was involved. More about that in a bit.

Naturally, ramming the vehicle in the wrong direction like that was more than enough to freeze up the engine. Add to the fact that it had already been overheated, and there was no way it was going to start by itself. What to do? These car accident close calls were getting ridiculous --there had been others that would not easily fit into a simple Hub--but for the moment, all that mattered was the problem at hand.

Kicking the transmission into neutral, I let the Chev coast the rest of the way down the ramp. Now we were positioned along the side of the two laned road as if we'd been headed the other way the whole time. A 1958 Chevy came along. The driver stopped when I flagged him down. I explained that the car had died when I got out to take a leak, and coud he give me a push? He did, and Old Brown fired right up. As soon as my benefactor was out of sight, I turned around and headed into Deer Lodge.

Curt was already coming back out to find me. He knew I'd been right on his tail and figured I'd racked it up for sure. But, no harm, no foul. We headed on in to the 4B's Restaurant and celebrated with chiliburgers and Cokes.

3. Age fifty-eight. I was at that time an experienced big rig driver. Right, that's no mere car, so how can I include it in a car accident close call story? Um...welll...there would have been a car involved for sure.....

This one took place on a turnpike in eastern Pennsylvania. Over the years, I'd realized there really had to be a Creator, that a Divine Being did exist. I'd found my spiritual path, or it had found me, and that was a good thing. Not only that, but I'd seen divine protection in action in a most dramatic way.

Some months earlier, I'd been driving a load at night, eastbound on a two lane road that parallels the north side of the Columbia River Gorge. Why or how it happened I've never been sure, but I drove into one lefthand curve a little too "hot". I could feel the rig start to lift on that left side and knew we were going to roll over. As a driver, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. As a spiritual student, there was: I hollered for help.

The 72-foot tractor-trailer unit settled back down, we cleared the curve, and the crisis was over. I hadn't done it. The truck hadn't done it. We'd had spiritual assistance. Not a car accident, but definitely a truck accident close call.

In Pennsylvania some six months later, I was westbound near sunset, loaded at close to the 80,000 pound legal limit with heavy copper pipe. The turnpike had a number of lanes. I was running in the next-to-fastest lane. Traffic was heavy. Then I topped a rise and was absolutely blinded by the blaze of the setting sun hitting me squarely in the face. Yes, I was wearing sunglasses. They made no difference.

It took a second or two to be able to see anything, and by then it was nearly too late. Back bumpers were rushing at me madly. There'd been a pileup somewhere up ahead, and traffic was stopped. There was nothing to do but lock up the brakes. The ABS brake people, in my opinion, should be hung out to dry. The only thing that saved me that time (other than possible spiritual intervention, which I'm not knocking) was the fact that the ABS system on my eighteen wheeler malfunctioned and I was able to lock 'em up.

There was no thought of changing lanes. Those lanes didn't look any better, for one thing; for another, there was no time in which to evaluate any traffic that might be coming up on either side of my truck. For a few seconds, the outcome was definitely in doubt. When my outfit finally came to a halt (again, without leaving my lane despite having locked up all eighteen wheels for an eighty-foot skid), there was a clearance of a good three feet remaining between my truck's front bumper and the rear bumper of the car directly in front of us.

The drivers in the fast lane were not so lucky. Just as I made it to a full stop, a car to my immediate left crunched into the one in front of him...then another hit him in the rear.

Sometimes you have close calls, and sometimes you witness a car accident. Or two.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32