Through Ice and Fog
Title: Through Ice and Fog (Or, Why I'm Not Keen on Semis)
Genre: Non-Fiction
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,172
Summary: On a dark and snowy night, my family encounters truckers being douchebags. This was originally published in the Loan Star Gazette in April, 2006 which was a company-wide newsletter at Sallie Mae, where I worked. Special thanks to my father for filling in the little details I'd forgotten because, let's face it, I was four and a four-year-old's memory tends to be spotty.
Through Ice and Fog
December 3, 1982
My little sister had just been given six months to live. After a battery of tests and a cat scan, the doctors had discovered that she had a tumor in the area of speech and understanding. Come next month, on January 5th, we would be returning to Walla Walla, Washington so the doctors could operate. They were not hopeful, and we were all very scared for her. Even at four years of age, I knew the situation was serious even if I didn’t completely understand what was going on.
My mother was taking this especially hard, since her own father, Samuel, had died from a brain tumor when my mother was only fifteen. Now her daughter had been diagnosed with the same brain cancer. In a few days Shannon would turn one year old. How could someone so young have such a deadly condition?
We were all in a somber mood that evening as our family of five piled into the borrowed 1980 Sportabout to head for home. It was reddish-orange in color, with faux wood paneling along the sides and roomy enough for all of us. To me it was a very nice car, much nicer than the car we had waiting for us at home - a car that Dad was still working on getting fixed up. Since our family car was a work in progress, we’d borrowed this car from a woman whom we fondly called “Grandma Mary” even though she was not blood-related. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was actually my grandfather’s mistress and was planning on leaving her husband, so that she could marry my grandfather, Elliott. Mary would carry on with my grandfather while her husband Bill was out mending fences. Apparently he’d be gone for days at a time.
At this time we lived a short ways east of Baker, Oregon, along a tributary of the Snake River. My grandfather had moved out there with us, into our trailer house, so that he could be closer to Mary. Closer was within walking distance of our house - two hundred yards or so from our front door to the river, cross by way of a rickety wooden footbridge, and then perhaps a half mile along the highway to her house. To me, Grandma Mary was simply a nice old lady with beautiful silver hair and soft hands that were always freshly lotioned.
The sun set as we passed through a town called Milton-Freewater. It was there that Dad noticed that the headlights on the car weren’t working properly, so he stopped long enough to try to adjust them. Dad wasn’t able to fix them completely, but it was late and he deemed them satisfactory enough that we could continue on.
Just outside of Hermiston, Oregon we ran into a thick blanket of fog. The headlights reflected on the sheet of ice that had formed on the highway, and it looked as if we were driving on a black river. Dad drove slowly, cautiously, winding our way through Pendleton, Oregon and still southwards towards home.
My older sister, Michele, climbed into the open expanse of the very back of the car and curled up to go to sleep with a pillow and a blanket, leaving the back seat to me, where I snuggled down under my own scratchy pink blanket and pillow. I drifted off here and there, but mostly I stared out the window, watching the headlights disappear into the fog. Shannon was tucked in a car seat in the front between Mom and Dad.
“The indicator isn’t working,” said my dad, suddenly, as he tried to figure out whether or not the high beams were on. He moved the lever back and forth, and the headlights flickered sporadically. Behind us the headlights of another vehicle appeared. As the vehicle came closer it became obvious that it was an eighteen-wheeler.
“He’s getting a little close to us, isn’t he?” Mom asked, looking in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, the semi was dangerously close to our back bumper. Dad agreed, and pushed down on the accelerator, trying to put some distance between our car and the truck that was riding our tail, still careful to maintain a safe speed on the icy road which had become decidedly curvy. It seemed that would be the last of it; the truck pulled into the oncoming lane and sped up until it was right beside us. My father dropped his own speed down and made sure the headlights were on low, out of consideration. If the semi driver wanted to speed, he could very well pass us.
He didn’t pass us. Instead, he began to move his truck toward the car we were in. My dad moved to the right, not wanting to get hit by the side of the truck. The ice was not helpful, we began to slide a little, but my father, being an ex-racer, knew how to handle a car and he righted us again. The truck still came closer, and my father knew he didn’t have enough room to drop back behind the semi before being hit. So he accelerated.
“What’s happening?” I piped up from the back seat, only to be hushed by my mother. There was a panicked look in her eyes. “Go to sleep. Everything’s OK.” I knew she was lying, but I lay back down on the seat and pulled the fluffy pink blanket that was covering me up to my chin. In the back, Michele was still asleep, as was my other sister. I wished that I was asleep too, but closing my eyes helped nothing.
My father, pushing the car to sixty mph, cleared the front of the semi as it dropped back into the lane directly behind us. In the next moment it swerved back into the oncoming lane, speeding up so that it was next to us again. I clenched my teeth together and remained silent. I may have been only four, but I wasn’t stupid. I was well aware that for some reason, this driver wanted to hurt or kill my family. I felt my eyes widen, but there were no tears in them. I think I was too frightened to cry.
“Don’t try to race him, Rick,” said my mother sternly. The semi driver began to move our direction again, and again there was not room to slip behind the semi. My dad pressed down on the gas pedal, and we moved over the sheer slick of icy pavement at eighty-five mph. The driver sped up as well, and moved back over into the other lane a little bit. Taking advantage of this opportunity, my father slowed down as safely and as quickly as possible, falling behind the semi and pulling over to the side of the road. He stopped the car completely, and the semi disappeared into the fog ahead of us.
We waited there for a little while, letting our hearts and our breathing calm. “We should get going,” said my father. “I don’t want to be sitting here if he decides to double back.”
“What’s going on?” Mom asked, her voice trembling. My father shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
We began driving again, and for a while there was no sign of the truck. Then, in the distance we saw the red glow of taillights. Not sure if it was the same truck, my father drove past it, and in the rearview mirror he saw the headlights swerve onto the road after us. The driver did the same thing he had done a few miles back, shadowing us, trying to push us off the road. Each time my father barely eluded him. My father was furious now; he reached up and turned on the dome light, trying to show the driver of the truck that there was a family with small children in the car. He pointed to us vehemently, and for a moment it seemed like the truck hesitated, then tried to swerve into us. My dad turned off the dome light. Apparently there was no reasoning with this monster. Dad managed to drop back and pulled over to the side of the road. So did the semi, and this time we could see him waiting up there - waiting for us to pass him so he could try to finish his job. My father turned off all of our headlights and reached for the door handle. My mother stopped him.
“No, you can’t go out there!” she said. “You don’t know if he has a gun or not!” My mother tried to reason with him, and he listened, settling back into his seat with a sigh. After a few minutes the taillights up ahead disappeared.
“I think he left,” said my father, starting the car. He turned the headlights to low, and we all held our breaths as we started forward again. The night seemed to have gotten even darker, the fog thicker, and we didn’t see the semi sitting on the side of the road with its lights off until we were passing it. Then the lights came on, and again the semi crept out behind us. He pulled around us, and this time passed us completely. Was it over? Had he just been toying with us for some reason?
The truck stayed ahead of us, and we were doing a reasonable speed. Then, behind us, another set of lights was quickly approaching. This one’s approach was much too fast, and he didn’t appear to be slowing down. The truck in front of us put on his brakes, slowing considerably. My father, realizing that we were about to be squished between the two trucks, swerved into the other lane and slammed on his brakes. He then pulled to the side of the road and turned off his headlights. In front of us, both trucks pulled over to the side of the road, waiting.
My father, quite the religious man, had been praying out loud for quite some time now. My mother was rigid in her seat, wondering if we were going to survive this. I was huddled underneath my pink blanket, sending up prayers of my own. We waited, afraid to go forward. Still, the trucks waited for us to pass. Then, out of the fog behind us, came a new pair of headlights. The driver was going slowly, taking precaution against the slick sheet of ice that was the highway. As it passed us, we couldn’t see the driver, but amazingly, the car was very similar to the one we drove. Blue smoke puffed from the tailpipe. The station wagon passed the semis, and we saw them swerve back onto the highway to give chase to this new car.
Fifteen minutes later, my father turned the headlights back on and drove out onto the highway. We drove forward slowly, keeping an eye out for the semis, or for any accident they may have caused. We saw nothing, and when we finally arrived in La Grande, Oregon, my father took the exit for the state patrol office.
He walked in, his eyes huge. He told them what had happened, and they made us wait there while they patrolled the stretch of highway, looking for the trucks. They found no sign of them, or of the station wagon that had been our salvation. After a few hours, we set for home, arriving safely and without incident.
The next day, Bill came to retrieve his car. My father told him about the events of the previous night, and his reaction was unexpected. As he got into the car to leave, he began to laugh. He laughed and laughed, much to my father’s shock and disgust.
“I don't see why you're laughing,” Dad said. “We could have been killed out there!”
“Well,” Bill said, still laughing. “I guess that’ll teach you to be on the road at night in the fog!”
A few days prior to our trip to Walla Walla in his wife’s borrowed car, Bill had mentioned to my father that he had a close circle of friends who were truckers. At the time it had just seemed like a passing comment, but after the events of that night, my parents wondered it hadn’t been a sort of warning.
Had Bill found out about his wife’s infidelity and used the opportunity to try to wreak some twisted sort of revenge? Was it all a coincidence? Why couldn’t the police find the trucks that had tried to push us off the road? How had a perfect decoy car come out of nowhere only to vanish into the fog, and just when it was needed most?
In real life sometimes questions don’t get answered and unfortunately for us, this was the case here. We still talk about it now and then, wondering what exactly happened that night, but all we can do is speculate. It’s our own little family mystery, or perhaps - just perhaps - it’s our own little family miracle.
Author's Note: My little sister underwent brain surgery and not only survived, but thrived. Today she is grown with a family of her own.
Genre: Non-Fiction
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,172
Summary: On a dark and snowy night, my family encounters truckers being douchebags. This was originally published in the Loan Star Gazette in April, 2006 which was a company-wide newsletter at Sallie Mae, where I worked. Special thanks to my father for filling in the little details I'd forgotten because, let's face it, I was four and a four-year-old's memory tends to be spotty.
Through Ice and Fog
December 3, 1982
My little sister had just been given six months to live. After a battery of tests and a cat scan, the doctors had discovered that she had a tumor in the area of speech and understanding. Come next month, on January 5th, we would be returning to Walla Walla, Washington so the doctors could operate. They were not hopeful, and we were all very scared for her. Even at four years of age, I knew the situation was serious even if I didn’t completely understand what was going on.
My mother was taking this especially hard, since her own father, Samuel, had died from a brain tumor when my mother was only fifteen. Now her daughter had been diagnosed with the same brain cancer. In a few days Shannon would turn one year old. How could someone so young have such a deadly condition?
We were all in a somber mood that evening as our family of five piled into the borrowed 1980 Sportabout to head for home. It was reddish-orange in color, with faux wood paneling along the sides and roomy enough for all of us. To me it was a very nice car, much nicer than the car we had waiting for us at home - a car that Dad was still working on getting fixed up. Since our family car was a work in progress, we’d borrowed this car from a woman whom we fondly called “Grandma Mary” even though she was not blood-related. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was actually my grandfather’s mistress and was planning on leaving her husband, so that she could marry my grandfather, Elliott. Mary would carry on with my grandfather while her husband Bill was out mending fences. Apparently he’d be gone for days at a time.
At this time we lived a short ways east of Baker, Oregon, along a tributary of the Snake River. My grandfather had moved out there with us, into our trailer house, so that he could be closer to Mary. Closer was within walking distance of our house - two hundred yards or so from our front door to the river, cross by way of a rickety wooden footbridge, and then perhaps a half mile along the highway to her house. To me, Grandma Mary was simply a nice old lady with beautiful silver hair and soft hands that were always freshly lotioned.
The sun set as we passed through a town called Milton-Freewater. It was there that Dad noticed that the headlights on the car weren’t working properly, so he stopped long enough to try to adjust them. Dad wasn’t able to fix them completely, but it was late and he deemed them satisfactory enough that we could continue on.
Just outside of Hermiston, Oregon we ran into a thick blanket of fog. The headlights reflected on the sheet of ice that had formed on the highway, and it looked as if we were driving on a black river. Dad drove slowly, cautiously, winding our way through Pendleton, Oregon and still southwards towards home.
My older sister, Michele, climbed into the open expanse of the very back of the car and curled up to go to sleep with a pillow and a blanket, leaving the back seat to me, where I snuggled down under my own scratchy pink blanket and pillow. I drifted off here and there, but mostly I stared out the window, watching the headlights disappear into the fog. Shannon was tucked in a car seat in the front between Mom and Dad.
“The indicator isn’t working,” said my dad, suddenly, as he tried to figure out whether or not the high beams were on. He moved the lever back and forth, and the headlights flickered sporadically. Behind us the headlights of another vehicle appeared. As the vehicle came closer it became obvious that it was an eighteen-wheeler.
“He’s getting a little close to us, isn’t he?” Mom asked, looking in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, the semi was dangerously close to our back bumper. Dad agreed, and pushed down on the accelerator, trying to put some distance between our car and the truck that was riding our tail, still careful to maintain a safe speed on the icy road which had become decidedly curvy. It seemed that would be the last of it; the truck pulled into the oncoming lane and sped up until it was right beside us. My father dropped his own speed down and made sure the headlights were on low, out of consideration. If the semi driver wanted to speed, he could very well pass us.
He didn’t pass us. Instead, he began to move his truck toward the car we were in. My dad moved to the right, not wanting to get hit by the side of the truck. The ice was not helpful, we began to slide a little, but my father, being an ex-racer, knew how to handle a car and he righted us again. The truck still came closer, and my father knew he didn’t have enough room to drop back behind the semi before being hit. So he accelerated.
“What’s happening?” I piped up from the back seat, only to be hushed by my mother. There was a panicked look in her eyes. “Go to sleep. Everything’s OK.” I knew she was lying, but I lay back down on the seat and pulled the fluffy pink blanket that was covering me up to my chin. In the back, Michele was still asleep, as was my other sister. I wished that I was asleep too, but closing my eyes helped nothing.
My father, pushing the car to sixty mph, cleared the front of the semi as it dropped back into the lane directly behind us. In the next moment it swerved back into the oncoming lane, speeding up so that it was next to us again. I clenched my teeth together and remained silent. I may have been only four, but I wasn’t stupid. I was well aware that for some reason, this driver wanted to hurt or kill my family. I felt my eyes widen, but there were no tears in them. I think I was too frightened to cry.
“Don’t try to race him, Rick,” said my mother sternly. The semi driver began to move our direction again, and again there was not room to slip behind the semi. My dad pressed down on the gas pedal, and we moved over the sheer slick of icy pavement at eighty-five mph. The driver sped up as well, and moved back over into the other lane a little bit. Taking advantage of this opportunity, my father slowed down as safely and as quickly as possible, falling behind the semi and pulling over to the side of the road. He stopped the car completely, and the semi disappeared into the fog ahead of us.
We waited there for a little while, letting our hearts and our breathing calm. “We should get going,” said my father. “I don’t want to be sitting here if he decides to double back.”
“What’s going on?” Mom asked, her voice trembling. My father shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
We began driving again, and for a while there was no sign of the truck. Then, in the distance we saw the red glow of taillights. Not sure if it was the same truck, my father drove past it, and in the rearview mirror he saw the headlights swerve onto the road after us. The driver did the same thing he had done a few miles back, shadowing us, trying to push us off the road. Each time my father barely eluded him. My father was furious now; he reached up and turned on the dome light, trying to show the driver of the truck that there was a family with small children in the car. He pointed to us vehemently, and for a moment it seemed like the truck hesitated, then tried to swerve into us. My dad turned off the dome light. Apparently there was no reasoning with this monster. Dad managed to drop back and pulled over to the side of the road. So did the semi, and this time we could see him waiting up there - waiting for us to pass him so he could try to finish his job. My father turned off all of our headlights and reached for the door handle. My mother stopped him.
“No, you can’t go out there!” she said. “You don’t know if he has a gun or not!” My mother tried to reason with him, and he listened, settling back into his seat with a sigh. After a few minutes the taillights up ahead disappeared.
“I think he left,” said my father, starting the car. He turned the headlights to low, and we all held our breaths as we started forward again. The night seemed to have gotten even darker, the fog thicker, and we didn’t see the semi sitting on the side of the road with its lights off until we were passing it. Then the lights came on, and again the semi crept out behind us. He pulled around us, and this time passed us completely. Was it over? Had he just been toying with us for some reason?
The truck stayed ahead of us, and we were doing a reasonable speed. Then, behind us, another set of lights was quickly approaching. This one’s approach was much too fast, and he didn’t appear to be slowing down. The truck in front of us put on his brakes, slowing considerably. My father, realizing that we were about to be squished between the two trucks, swerved into the other lane and slammed on his brakes. He then pulled to the side of the road and turned off his headlights. In front of us, both trucks pulled over to the side of the road, waiting.
My father, quite the religious man, had been praying out loud for quite some time now. My mother was rigid in her seat, wondering if we were going to survive this. I was huddled underneath my pink blanket, sending up prayers of my own. We waited, afraid to go forward. Still, the trucks waited for us to pass. Then, out of the fog behind us, came a new pair of headlights. The driver was going slowly, taking precaution against the slick sheet of ice that was the highway. As it passed us, we couldn’t see the driver, but amazingly, the car was very similar to the one we drove. Blue smoke puffed from the tailpipe. The station wagon passed the semis, and we saw them swerve back onto the highway to give chase to this new car.
Fifteen minutes later, my father turned the headlights back on and drove out onto the highway. We drove forward slowly, keeping an eye out for the semis, or for any accident they may have caused. We saw nothing, and when we finally arrived in La Grande, Oregon, my father took the exit for the state patrol office.
He walked in, his eyes huge. He told them what had happened, and they made us wait there while they patrolled the stretch of highway, looking for the trucks. They found no sign of them, or of the station wagon that had been our salvation. After a few hours, we set for home, arriving safely and without incident.
The next day, Bill came to retrieve his car. My father told him about the events of the previous night, and his reaction was unexpected. As he got into the car to leave, he began to laugh. He laughed and laughed, much to my father’s shock and disgust.
“I don't see why you're laughing,” Dad said. “We could have been killed out there!”
“Well,” Bill said, still laughing. “I guess that’ll teach you to be on the road at night in the fog!”
A few days prior to our trip to Walla Walla in his wife’s borrowed car, Bill had mentioned to my father that he had a close circle of friends who were truckers. At the time it had just seemed like a passing comment, but after the events of that night, my parents wondered it hadn’t been a sort of warning.
Had Bill found out about his wife’s infidelity and used the opportunity to try to wreak some twisted sort of revenge? Was it all a coincidence? Why couldn’t the police find the trucks that had tried to push us off the road? How had a perfect decoy car come out of nowhere only to vanish into the fog, and just when it was needed most?
In real life sometimes questions don’t get answered and unfortunately for us, this was the case here. We still talk about it now and then, wondering what exactly happened that night, but all we can do is speculate. It’s our own little family mystery, or perhaps - just perhaps - it’s our own little family miracle.
Author's Note: My little sister underwent brain surgery and not only survived, but thrived. Today she is grown with a family of her own.