“Tired”

 August 16, 2022

I’ve been out of internet connectivity for the past few days, so here is a bit of catch up:

Summer, 1973. I had just dropped off Mrs. Radcliffe at her house at the top of Alma Hill. Looking out the rearview mirror, I could see her standing by the side of the road, eyes wide as saucers, hands to her mouth which was open in either fright or amazement, I couldn’t tell which. I would know soon enough.

I was taking her to a doctor’s appointment in town, but an odd rumbling sound coming from somewhere in the car made me stop, get out, and check it all over. I couldn’t find anything wrong, so I got back in and continued on my way. Half a mile later, the rumbling had gotten so bad I decided to turn around.  I saw her in the rearview just before dropping out of sight on Alma Hill Road. 

It was steep and winding, and the rumbling was getting worse when suddenly there was a loud bang and the car lurched. I watched in utter disbelief as my left rear wheel went bounding down the road ahead of me, disappearing into the woods. I looked, but never did find that wheel. Fortunately, back then cars came with full size spare wheels. I stopped, jacked up the 64 Falcon, took a lug nut from each of the other three tires, mounted the spare, and drove home.

I thought of that incident this afternoon. I don’t think I’ve had a flat tire since that long-ago morning…till today. On our way to visit friends east of Syracuse, we were tooling down the Thruway, full speed ahead when I heard a sound like a gunshot. The car immediately felt different, and I pulled to the side of the road, got out, and saw a large H-shaped hole in the sidewall of the same left rear tire as I had lost years ago. Our Prius didn’t come with a spare, so AAA became the modern counterpart to my creativity of years ago. Two hours and a few hundred dollars later, we were back on the road.

Before arriving at our destination, we drove through intermittent cloudbursts so severe that in one of them, a semi right in front of us disappeared in the mist. Then came the hail, almost hitting a bald eagle so intent on his prey in the middle of the road that I had to swerve to avoid hitting him, and almost getting sideswiped by a semi. It was the most extraordinary day trip I’ve ever taken.

When we pray for God’s blessing and protection on the highway, it isn’t merely a quaint ritual. Most of the time we never actually have the curtain pulled back so we can see what those prayers prevented. Today, Linda and I saw, and are thankful.