Day 13 Lucky 13
June 13, 1944. Prompted by the successful Allied Landing in Europe, Germany launched a V1 Flying Bomb attack on England. Luckily, only four of the bombs hit their targets.
Tell us about a time you were lucky. Or unlucky.
Flipping the Fiat.
See these cassette tapes?
Get closer:
No, closer:
December, 1975. I was driving solo from Santa Barbara, CA to Springfield, MA. It was day 2, I was on US160 somewhere between Alamosa and Walsenburg, Colorado, with my destination that night Colorado Springs.
And I was studying the various colors and letters on the Maxell tapes.
Stevie Wonder may have been playing, or perhaps I was about to put Stevie in the deck, or Stevie was the first tape I found
after I flipped the car.
I glanced up from my contemplation and noticed that I was on the wrong side of the road.
Ack!
Turned the wheels sharply to the right, was heading off the road, overcompensated, and the world was suddenly rotating around me. I remember thinking, “This is interesting.”
The car came to a stop on a soft cushion of snow, driver side down.
I had a roof rack, and it bent the gutters so I couldn’t get either door open. At this point, I was in a panic: “The engine is going to explode! Get out! Get out NOW!” (Thanks Hollywood). I frantically cranked one of the windows open, grateful that I opted for the cheaper choice in window functionality. I hoisted myself out, got some distance from the car, and nothing.
A white Fiat 128, on its side on a snowy verge, in a world filled with silence.
I stood there in a stupor, thinking, “Now what?”
The first person to drive by stopped and said, “Let’s get this back upright before the state patrol comes.” OK. We flipped it back onto its wheels. “See if it starts up.” It did! He helped push it back onto the road, ascertained that I was OK, and drove off. Thank you my Good Samaritan!
Then I had to drive. And THAT’S when the “what if” scenarios started playing in my head.
What if there had been a car coming from the other direction?
What if I was on THIS section of the highway, where it’s solid pine trees?
What if I was HERE, where it’s a precipitous drop?
What if the engine HAD blown up?
And on and on, all the way to Colorado Springs. Occasionally they still play.
I was sure lucky.
annembray 