"The Mysterious Meteor of Louisville"

So I'm in Louisville a few weeks ago and meet up with friends. Well, they're really more like family than friends. Good folks, Jeri and Dave. 

Jeri scares the hell outta me though. Can't lie. She offered to swing by the company yard and take me to their place for the night. Usually I just drop my trailer and drive my truck there but I've gotta get some repairs done. What Jeri never knew all these years is that the main reason I take my truck to their house is because, if I'm gonna die it's gonna be on my terms. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't think she, herself, would hurt me. But her behind the wheel?? She always comments on how, when she's driving, I practically fall asleep. "That's because I want to die in my sleep, Jeri. I don't wanna see it coming." Like I said, she scares me half to death. I didn't have white hairs until I got in a car with her. Now, as soon as that door closes, you can watch the colors change. They just skip grey. Straight to platinum. It's like autumn on my head, just POOF! brown to white. 

So she offered to come pick me up this time. "Why'd you go all quiet, boy? You don't have to come see us if you don't want." No no, I want to come visit. I just can't speak while my heart goes into tachycardia. Plus, I was internalizing how to word my will. I'll be here waiting. I know you haven't seen me in a while; I'll be the one holding the rosary and kissing the pavement. 

So she shows up. I put my stuff in the backseat and instantly regret not bringing a crash helmet. She's the only person I know that Saturn insisted on installing a roll cage and 5 point harness in her car. I'm strapping in like Tony Stewart and wishing they'd set this car up like a driver's ed car. Even just a passenger side brake pedal would be a blessing. And awaaaaay we go! 

She's rounding the corners like they're banked and someone just dropped the green flag. Four tires on the car but only 2 in contact with the ground on corners. And that's the surface streets. 

When we get on the highway my ears pop as the sonic boom hits, other cars are swerving from the shock wave, an F-16 drops down to drag race. She's pulling away from them. There's a red glow around the car like we're entering the atmosphere. 

As we hit the end of the on ramp I'm looking over at the speedometer wondering how far the needle goes, feeling like Marty McFly and yelling "we don't need roads where we're going!" But she can't hear me because we are now at Mach II and even our voices are behind us. 

She comes flying up behind a pickup in the far left lane. I can feel the heat of the brakes through the floorboard. The poor sucker in front of us is only doing 10 above the speed limit and I'm thinking "this is where I die!" She manages to slow this missile all by herself but I was trying desperately to jam my feet through the floor and Flintstone the car down to double digits. She's so close to the guy's bumper that I got the serial number off his trailer hitch. Then he gets over and we're off again. Her foot comes off the brake and hits the accelerator hard enough it sounded like a starter's pistol. We're going so fast the wind is whipping through my hair even with the windows up. And she's just over there laughing like the devil at a Hillary Clinton rally. 

We're bobbing and weaving through traffic like Cheech and Chong at a Bob Marley festival. We make a 40 mile drive in under 8 minutes. As she takes the off ramp she asks what I want to eat and I tell her anything but a drive-thru. So we Tokyo Drift through her town and stop at a local restaurant where we wait on Dave, her husband, to show up. He's taking a little longer to get there because he's traveling at less than breakneck speeds. 

As always, it was a fun visit. I was fortunate enough that either David or I drove everywhere during my stay so I lived long enough to tell this tale. The moral of the story? Apparently Saturn made a really good vehicle. If they can withstand the atmospheric friction of Jeri's driving and keep right on going...NASCAR should write the Saturn folks for tips. 

"The Non Eventful Day"

I was asked the other day about writing a post for a website. One I'd written for twice before. (Free plug here: emergingwritersonline.com. Check em out). In fact, it was the only writing contest I've ever won; with a poem of mine they'd posted on their site. The second piece was an article about "Childhood Memories". 

The topic I was asked about writing on this time was "Life Changing Events". Well that got me to thinking...whose life? I mean, there could be a room full of us who experience the same event and it only really be "life changing" for a percentage of those people. Our realities are both fluid and subjective, dependent upon our individual perspective. 

Sometimes that life changing event occurs without you even realizing its impact upon your life. It may not be an occurrence but a distinct absence of one that institutes the change. 

So I thought I'd take a different road and screw up the grading curve here. How's about I write about a life changing non-event then? That should be fun for everyone, right? 

I don't expect to win this little writing contest because I reckon I'm making up my own rules about non-events as I go. But I just can't help myself. So here goes, hang on for the ride folks. Arms and legs in the train at all times. Safety first. 

I remember it like it was just now and I'm writing about it. It was a chilly morning and I'd wanted to sleep in but I couldn't because I had work to do. So I resigned myself to get up early and get started. 

I got up, got ready and went into the truck stop for my daily coffee. Among the truck stops I feel Flying J has the best so I'd parked there overnight. This way I could get some decent coffee to get my day going. Without my coffee I don't seem to think clearly. I remember thinking that just before everything didn't go wrong. 

Half hour later I've checked in with the shipper and I'm backing up to their dock. Being a flatbedder this feels unnatural. Usually we get loaded from the side or by overhead crane. Bumping docks is what the "other guys" do. We flatbed drivers think that like we're some kind of special but we aren't. Unless by "special" we mean not smart enough to limit our manual labor in a job that has "driver" in the title. 

It took them all of twenty minutes to get the load on my trailer. Less than half that length of time later I had it strapped down. Only thing left to do was put a 6 foot tarp on top of it, bungee that down and get my paperwork. Pretty simple process which I had done countless times before. 

Only this time they brought me out a ladder to use. I'd never seen a company do this before. A ladder? To tarp? Ok, sure I can figure out how to do this their way. 

That's when it didn't happen. That's when I didn't almost die. I didn't climb up a 12 foot ladder with 85 pounds of dead weight on my shoulder. 

I distinctly remember not having that ladder slip out from under me on that angled dock. The world sliding out from under me as I felt myself hang in the air like a coyote who's just overshot that clever roadrunner. Weightless for a split second before gravity remembered its job. The side of the trailer, 5 feet or so below me, the only potential barrier between me and the ground. 

I barely missed it on my way to the cement, hurtling head first like an errant meteor. Throwing my hands up (or down as the case may be) to push the man made stone away from my face, I definitely didn't feel the impact or hear the multitude of breaks as I connected. 

When the ambulance didn't show up and the EMTs didn't put me on the gurney I wasn't realizing that I'd nearly just died. At the hospital they didn't take X-Rays after the doctor said "oohh, that's broke" as he pointed to bone that tried to displace where my wrist had been. 

After determining surgery was going to be in order to repair 10 breaks in the right hand alone, there was no panic because I knew none of this was happening. I knew it was all just a bad dream brought about by eating hot wings too close to bed time. None of this was real. I'd wake up any minute now in a cold sweat. 

At 39 years old I hadn't just been informed that there was a chance I'd lose the use of my right hand. I definitely hadn't just been told that I may be permanently disabled even though I was the only source of income for my family of four which included 2 boys too young to even start school yet. 

This was clearly a non-event created by my sleeping mind to teach me a lesson. To make me realize that life can end in an instant by something as insignificant as a fall. A non-event that not only changed my life but could have ended it, thereby changing my kids' lives forever as well. 

In reality there were 6 months of intensive therapy to regain enough strength to hold a pencil, much less be able to write again. There were epidural injections of steroids for the cracked discs in my back and talk of surgeries to fix them. 

In reality this event could have ended differently. I could have chosen to tarp the load the way I always had and thereby not fallen. Or I could have clipped that trailer on the way down and been paralyzed or killed. Even the fall alone should've killed me. But it didn't. The fall was an actual event. Dying was a non-event. 

Each minute choice or action leads to another. That ladder slipping was a single factor caused by other variables yet we don't focus on all those minor details but only on the larger picture. The consequence of our choices is only because on the intangible decisions. There is no single, cataclysmic act but only the result of the smaller ones. So be mindful of the steps you take today for tomorrow you may not be able to change them. 

Would it have affected your lives? No, because you didn't know me. Ironically, among the serious of events I've not considered "life changing" is this blog that seems to entertain so many of you. Our realities....fluid and subjective.