Pattern Interrupt

Before I begin, I'm warning you that these are personal, clear memories of things that have happened to me. Things that made me wonder why I'm still alive. I've had enough brushes with death that I might defy statistics by still being around.

Sometime prior to 1974, when I was still a very short child, I was using a bicycle as a form of ladder (I didn't say I was a bright child) to get over a corrugated tin fence in my front yard. The wood braces were on the other side and my side was smooth. I put my arms over the fence and put my hands on the top support brace. The bike went out from under my feet. I wasn't weak. I held myself above the fence by grasping the top wood brace on the other side. The top edge of the tin was barely touching my armpits. I knew that if I let go, I would be seriously injured. I was frozen in fear.

The whole situation was odd. Only one person in my family, besides me, was home at the time. My oldest brother (about 10 years older than me) was in the den at the back of the house with the TV blaring loud enough for me to hear from the front yard. I couldn't yell for help. Like I said, I was frozen in fear. I remained there, frozen on top of the fence, for what seemed like eternity (although it turned out to be less than 30 minutes). All of a sudden, my brother came out of the front door of the house, walked over to where I was, and lifted me off the fence and put me on the ground. He didn't say anything. He then went back inside.

In 1978, after I had already signed up with the military, both I and my younger brother were biking from an area known as Valley Farms back to Coolidge, Arizona, on a rural road that passed the old Kenilworth school. The total distance was maybe five miles. It was hot, though, because it was June and the beginning of summer. I don't remember how hot, but during that time of year it was usually between 100 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit (37.77 and 43.33 degrees Celsius). Anyway, we were moving along at a good pace and my brother was a hundred feet or so in front of me.

The road wasn't in great condition and although we rode on the dirt shoulder most of the time, there were potholes in the dirt just like they were on the road. We frequently had to go up onto the pavement to go around these holes. The last time I did that, I was hit by a pickup truck. The right front bumper caught my left midsection and I was somehow pulled up onto the hood and across the windshield. I don't remember that part, it was in the driver's statement to police. All I saw was blue sky. The next thing I knew, I was laying on the hot pavement on the opposite side of the road. My arms were burning so I begged the driver and his passenger to get me off the road and onto the dirt.

I ended up in the hospital with a cracked pelvis and minor burns on my arms, where I spent two and a half weeks before being released on crutches. The bicycle was pronounced dead on arrival. It looked like a pretzel. I won't go into detail about what happened legally, because it's not part of the story. Anyway, I obviously recovered although I limped through the first week of Marine Corps basic training. I had to get a medical waiver because I went to boot camp three months after the accident.

In 1988, I was on a dirt road in Hubert, North Carolina, headed to work. The road had been graded the day before. When I approached the stop sign and started to break, my Dodge Charger decided to slide on loose dirt. I wasn't going very fast, maybe 30 mph (about 48 kph), but the slide seemed faster. I tapped on the brakes but it didn't help. Simple momentum was in control. The car slid across a very busy paved road, missing vehicles, and the right front quarter panel barely ran into a tree in somebody's front yard. The impact was just enough to mangle the headlight area. I was uninjured.

In 1989, again in Hubert, North Carolina, I was on a different road and on my way to work. I was tired because I had only gone home to get a fresh uniform after a 12 mile forced march. I dozed off for a second behind the wheel, just long enough for the right front wheel to catch the edge of the pavement and start pulling me down and off the road. I was doing maybe 40 mph (64 kph). The rural roads had no shoulders. The dirt was muddy but I tried to brake to slow down. No such luck. The car turned and rolled over. The deputy that went to the scene said that it rolled twice, but it happened so fast I couldn't tell how many times it rolled. My only injury was a scratch on my left temple, but they made me ride on a backboard in an ambulance to the military hospital. Backboards hurt.

While in the Middle East in 1983 and 1991, I never came close to being killed or injured, except maybe once. As I related in my article, "It's a Good Thing I was Already Sitting on the Can", I nearly got taken out by a scud missile launched from Iraq.

When I tell people that God exists, they look at me like I'm crazy. Even the religious nuts seem to think I've got something missing. I'm as sure that He exists as I am that I'm sitting here typing this. I have no doubt in my mind that I'm only alive because it's His will that I live long enough to tell everyone I can that He does indeed exist.

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