MARRIED... Winter woes (Part 49k)

At the very end of the previous part (48e) I told about my meeting an old family friend (John) in the city. He had told me that he was trying to ”broker“ a meeting between Elle, I and my grandparents and asked for me to think about coming home during the Spring break. He had made a point of calling me every few weeks to see how Elle and I were doing and to find out if I was making use of the ”heads up“ he’d given me about what was going on in the State political arena. He also used to call to push me towards taking him up on the offer to be a go between in a meeting with my grandparents. I’d told Elle about the offer right after I’d returned from the city and she’d responded rather coolly. I didn’t pressure her but with Spring break only two weeks away I knew I had to let John know our plans. John would usually call on Sunday nights knowing we’d be home. So, I sucked it in and tried to pin Elle down. I truly knew how she felt about being treated like she didn’t exist by my grandparents but I still loved them and wanted the standoff to end. We ended up agreeing to go but Elle was clearly unhappy and in bed she let me know by turning her back to me.

I’d leave for school around 6:30am but would get up around 5;30am to see what the weather was like. On that Monday morning I stuck my head out the door and even though it was still dark I could see it was very foggy. Because I travelled narrow back roads to get to school I decided to give myself a little extra time. Once on the road I found it hard to see more than a few feet in front of the car. As I approached town all I could see was a big bright glow as the fog diffused the street lights. Leaving town I ran up behind another car and was glad of it. I figured I could just follow him and let him do all the hard work. There were four distinct parts to the trip. The first was about 15 miles in length. There the road forked and most of the traffic usually went left. I was surprised to see the car I was following bear right but was happy about it. The second segment was about 8 miles and ended in a small town. My route took me to the left at the stop sign and, again, the car ahead went in that direction. The third part was about 10 miles and was the hardest part of the trip, good weather or bad. As I remember it we were doing only about 25 to 30 miles per hour at the most. There was another town that we had to go straight through. There wasn’t much to it with only a two pump gas/service station, a tavern and a building that served as a post office. On a road map it would be generous to call it a map dot. In any case we went on through the town and shortly after passing through the road made a fairly sharp right turn followed by a fairly sharp left turn. The fog was still hanging low but it was starting to get light. I was just following the tail lights of the car ahead when I felt the wheels on the right side of the car drop off the road a bit. When the car came back up onto the road I could feel the back end start to come around. Being around race cars as long as I had I knew enough to steer into the skid but it didn’t matter. The next thing I knew I was looking back at the lights of the town we’d just passed through. I’d done a 180 degree spin and was still moving when I heard and felt a tremendous ”WHOMP!“. I felt the car take a violent turn back to the left and then nothing. I knew instantly that the car was no longer on the road and I had the feeling of falling. I vaguely knew that this part of the road had been carved out of a small mountain and that off to the right was a big open field. As I looked out the windshield all I could see was blackness. It was then that I realized that I’d gone off the road and was now ”flying“ down the hill. Something made me duck my body off to the right and to lay down on the seat with one hand stuffed between the seat and the seat back with the other grabbing onto the underpart of the seat. No sooner had I done that when I heard and felt another ”WHOMP!“. Then there was nothing but silence. I sat up and saw nothing but white on all the windows. The motor was still running, the dash lights were on and the radio was playing but I just sat there. I don’t remember how long it was before I tried to open the door. It wouldn’t budge. So I slid over to the passenger side and tried that door. I was able to get it open about three inches or so but not far enough to get out. Next was to put the window down. As I looked out I could see those same lights from the town that I’d seen right after going into the spin except I was now looking somewhat upwards at them. I was decidedly below the level of the road. I shut the motor and lights off and climbed out the window to see headlights from the road above shining out towards me. They didn’t do much good because they were shining out into nothingness. Then I heard someone calling. I called back and let him know I was OK and then started making my way up the hill towards him.

It was the car that I’d been following. He’d seen my headlights disappear and knew there was no place to turn off in that area and so turned back to see what had happened to me. As we stood there talking I couldn’t believe where the car ended up. The road was about 25 to 30 feet above the field where the car now was. Neither of us could believe that it had made it from the road into the field without touching any part of the hill on the way down and hadn’t rolled over. It was then that I realized just how lucky I was because the car was a convertible. We looked around and discovered just what the first ”whomp“ was. There were no guard rails but only one single cement mile marker. When my car was completing the 180 degree spin it was about to go over the side but, with unbelievable luck, it hit the mile marker. The guy surmised that I must have hit it right in the middle of the car and with the weight of the motor in the front, the mile marker acted like a fulcrum causing the car to spin back to the left before going over the edge. At that point I didn’t care. Just the thought of what might’ve happened made my knees weak.

To be continued...