Somebody Up There Likes Me

So it’s been a couple of months and time once again to clean off the mounds of pine needles Mother Nature has deposited on our roof. 

 

And on a mild northern California January morning, the job offered a perfect opportunity to let some pent-up winter energy out and some fresh air in. Except I didn't know this particular task was on the Saturday docket. I knew there were chores to do, but hadn't been briefed on the specifics. Actually, I hadn't asked. I'd been watching "The Three Stooges" and blogging.  But when finally lured outside, I found the ladder already propped up against the house, a sure indicator of what was on my task list. And not having to be told twice--or in this case, even once-- up I went.

But it wasn't until I landed topside and began moving around that I realized I probably had the wrong shoes on. After quickly dressing, I'd sequestered my feet in the closest pair of shoes, the high-arch "Rockers" tennis shoes I'd worn on Friday. They're comfy and the extra support feels great walking around on level flooring. However on an angled surface- like a roof- maintaining balance quickly became a problem. The slick pine needles didn't help either. So allowing discretion to become the better part of valor, asking the lovely Amy to toss up another pair of shoes really should have been the next course of action.

 

However, as someone who always fancied himself a jock- or at least a heightened sense of coordination- I knew I'd quickly figure out the lay of the slippery slope, proceed with caution and all would be well. So I began working. And he job was going all right. It wasn't easy, but my feet were holding their grip and almost a third of the chore was complete. Standing at the crest of the roof before a last run down the back part of the house, I surveyed the work and pronounced it good. So far. Naturally, though, with pride coming before the fall, it was right about then when I lost my footing. I slipped and fell on my side, the broom landed behind me out of reach and gravity began taking me away from it towards the edge of the house.

 

Fortunately, I didn't slither very far before grabbing and wrapping my arm around a wind turbine, which halted my downward slide. With sudden disaster apparently cut short, I hugged the turbine and waited for my accelerated heart rate to slow down. I wasn't afraid of falling off the roof- it was only about a ten foot drop- but you never quite know about the landing. Sideways? Feet first? Head first? Ouch. Whichever, I didn't want to find out. Grateful I wasn’t sliding off into the abyss I hung on and watched my life pass before my eyes. Well, not my whole life; just bits and pieces. Like sifting through a bag of M & M’s, searching only for the blue ones, as I clung to my friend, the turbine, I picked out all the other near misses I've come through reasonably unscathed….

 … I mean, I didn't wear a helmet or pads when riding a bike or skateboarding. Nobody did.  And though I somersaulted over the handlebars when my Stingray bike's front tire abruptly came unhinged remains a vivid memory, I walked away from that childhood mishap with barely a scratch. Shoot, I didn't even ride in a car with seat belts till I was ten; and didn't wear one consistently till I got ticketed for 'forgetting' after it became a mandatory law. Yet I still walk among the breathing. 

 

I wasn't even wearing one the night I was on my way to a Sacramento Kings basketball game in 1989 and got rear ended by a fast moving car that came upon me in slowing traffic on Interstate 80 at the Arco Arena exit. I saw his tail lights getting closer and heard the screeching of his brakes. But landlocked by cars in the adjacent lanes, and too late for him to slow all the way down or me to move, he plowed right into me. But in that case, as well as the other two times I was the meat in a three-car sandwich, I didn't even get a mild case of whiplash.

Then there were just the stupid things.

 

Like the time I ran full speed though a glass door in college. Or clasped my hand over a blossoming flower concealing a big bumble bee. That one stung.  Or, how bout this? I played every one of my hockey games without a cup. During my very first game, when I found it too uncomfortable to skate in, I took it off between periods and never wore a jock strap again. And never got hit where it counts. Or the time my sister and I got into a loud verbal scrap after a neighborhood tennis ball-baseball game. Glenn Vogel was on my side, egging me on; Nancy Haglund was on hers but mostly staying out of it.

As the sniping continued, I shouted at Sue’s back; she bellowed to a distant point on the horizon until she finally had enough of it. She wheeled and, hard as she could and from pointblank range, threw a tennis ball in my face. With no way to protect myself (or even know it was coming) it hit me full force in the eye. Though it was just a tennis ball, she really drilled me. Instantly seeing stars, I was dizzy and felt like I'd been smashed in the eye with the butt end of a shovel. It pretty well ended the argument, though. But once my head cleared, I was more embarrassed than hurt because my little sister had really nailed me.

Then there were the close calls with Ginger. 

Ginger was my horse, a welch pony-appaloosa cross, a small but beautiful horse I enjoyed riding bareback. On a leisurely summer afternoon trot, Ginger pulled up unexpectedly when a rabbit darted across our path. That day we weren’t going real fast, but fast enough that the sudden stop catapulted me over her head and onto a hard pan trail. But ya know what they say- a horse throws ya, ya get right back up. So I dusted myself off, climbed back up and would’ve ridden off into the sunset completely unscathed except for the time a stray dog began chasing us on another, what should’ve been, laid-back ride.

 

It happened so quickly, though, she got away from me. In other words, I lost the reigns and had no control.  All I could do was grab a hand full of mane and hold on. She was running faster than she’d ever done before and I thought I was going to slip off. But she headed straight home and, once safely in the corral, came to a gentle stop and allowed me to easily dismount. My heart had jumped all the way into my throat, but I was still alive.

Of course, there were also the times when I was young and so drunk I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel of a car. But was. This would include a 30-plus mile trip back to campus after a night of drinking over in Statetline, Idaho. And another time when I tipsily pulled into 5-Mile Prairie Lookout going a touch too fast and nearly went over the edge. It'd have been about a 400 foot drop, but fortunately, a tree impeded any further forward progress. But I was perfectly sober the time I came closest to vehicularly cashing it in.

It was December 1974, and my first return trip home from Spokane to California after my first semester in at Whitworth. Though it’d been clear and cold the night before, when I got up the next morning it was snowing heavily and at least three inches were already on the ground. Caravanning with Lee Ramaley, who had a passenger, we left campus around 5:15 and, though the roads through town were slick, they weren’t horrible. Before hitting the Interstate, we stopped at a 7-11 before we hit the freeway. Lee and his friend bought some munchies and coffee. I just got coffee, the extra large size.

It was 20 minutes to 6 when we hit I-90 and snow was still coming down hard, but with hardly any other traffic I didn’t feel too stressed about it. I had good tread. A shitty car, but good tread.  

Once on the freeway and out of Spokane completely, I let Lee’s car take the lead, feeling safer following in his tracks. I kept his tail lights in sight and matched his speed, not going more than  30 mph or taking any chances in the driving snow and pre-dawn darkness. But shortly past the Medical Lake exit, a big rig blew by us in the left lane. He was moving really fast, and in the vortex left in his wake, the truck threw up a ton of snow. Immediately, I lost sight of Ramaley. In fact I lost sight of everything. I don’t know what happened to Lee’s car. The artificial blizzard had me so blinded I could literally see nothing. So, as a 19 year old California kid who'd driven in snow maybe once, I did the only proper thing and panicked- and slammed on the brakes.

 

But there wasn’t enough good tread on my studded snow tires on my crappy, light-as-cardboard Ford Pinto to prevent it from going into an instant tail spin and gyrating out of control in the white blindness like a wobbly top.  So there I was; alone, in the dark, my car doing figure 8's in the snow and with no way to make it stop. I thought I was going to die. 15 seconds later, although it felt like 15 years, the spinning slowed and stopped, the windshield cleared and a thousand pounds of Ford scrap metal finally came to rest. And when it did, only by the grace of God was the car still on the pavement, un-scratched and still facing in the correct direction.

 

As the engine continued to idle waiting for me to decide what to do next, I took a long deep breath.

There were no other cars coming or going on either side of the freeway, which was another miracle because I could have easily hit or been hit by another vehicle and there’d have been no way to prevent it. When my breathing returned to normal, I reached for my coffee to take a sip, calm my nerves and figure out the next move. But if I really wanted any I'd have to lap it off the floor and dashboard because it’d spilled all over the front seat. So instead, I took another deep breath and got out to look around to get my bearings. I was sitting almost, but not quite off the roadway; two tires were still barely in the right lane, the other two on the shoulder.

 

I couldn’t see it then, either, but had it been daylight I would’ve noticed an embankment just off pavement. And in the snow, once my car hit the slope there was nothing but fifty more slippery feet and a couple of trees between the highway and Willow Lake, a small body of water that briefly paralleled the freeway. I doubt the Pinto and its good tread would’ve made it that far, as several pines stood guard between the pavement and shoreline. But it’d be just my luck to miss all the vegetation and glide straight into the gully. Nevertheless, I was relieved the car and I were still in one piece, and glad I didn't know the lake was lurking nearby, too. And in the cold and dark of the very early December morning, all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there.

So I climbed back into the warm car and, with my heart rate slowing to normal, tried not to think about any more “what if's” and eased back onto the Interstate. Thirty seconds later I finally saw another vehicle, but it wasn’t Lee’s. Apparently, in the 5 minutes since the truck roared by and left me doing half a dozen donuts in the snow, I’d lost him. I know Lee wouldn’t have gone on if there’d been an accident. But the conditions were so bad that dark snowy morning, like me, when the truck zoomed by Lee was probably fighting to hold the road himself. So, when everything settled down, either he  thought I was still behind him and coming, or decided to keep going and hope I’d catch up. I never did though, and made the remaining 700 miles alone…..

 …Relaxing my grip on the turbine, I took a deep breath and realized I've come through stuff a lot worse than almost falling off that silly roof. Not just the near disaster on snowy I-90, or flipping over my handlebars, or falling off the horse. But other, seemingly inconsequential-in-the moment moments, too- like wanting to execute a lane change in traffic but at the last second didn't and missed running into an unseen car in the blind spot. And all the ankles I didn't turn or break stepping into a rut or off a curb when I wasn't watching my step. That could've happened dozens of times. But when it counted the most, something always got my attention and I didn't make the misstep. Some call it fate, karma or good luck; I choose to call it divine intervention. Little things or not, God's always had my back.

That, of course, doesn't guarantee permanent immunity from any future calamities. And even if I never have another accident or close call, I still won't get out of this life alive. That is a certainty. But on this day, this hour, there was no way my potential downfall was going to come from falling off our house. Besides, if I died, what an embarrassing way to go-- death by clumsiness. So I hoisted myself up from the turbine, clamored back to my feet and began sweeping the pine needles off the roof as if nothing had ever happened. I didn't even mention the incident to the lovely Amy till later on and only in passing. She still thinks I'm rugged and athletic. Why spoil that for her?

But for the rest of the weekend, as my side and lower back cried out for some Icy-Hot, the lyrics to that old song kept playing in my head... Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come….'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home....

A-men to that!