88 feet per second

January 1977 was one of those tweener years. 6 of us borrowed my dad’s big Pontiac for a ski trip to Beech Mountain. At 20 or 25 you have the world by the tail. But how tenuous the hold. Is it just a coin toss that separates the typical altered state moment from mortality? Just a bunch of friends on holiday, flying weightlessly on the freeway. The cold gray clouds give up their moisture. The dusting doesn’t begin to accumulate till just past Johnson City. The music drawing us along, eager. Curse the tanker truck poking along in the track of the right lane at 5 mph less than we want to go. Step on it. What is an inch of snow when you are nationwide? Ease out in the left lane to pass- nothing to it. Making new tracks, inching past. better leave a cushion before easing back, slowly, slowly, feel the edge, starting to slip, slicing right, now dizzy, we spin in slow motion briefly facing the tanker like our accuser, for what seems like the 3rd rotation, and in pas de deux, fishtail onto the shoulder, just as the behemoth helplessly rumbles past. then silence. At loss for words. The Guardian Angel gives the sign for... safe.
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