An Accident of Space and Time

[Willow]

I didn't want to hijack his thread, but Chiefy's post reminded me of my experience back in the Summer of 2004.  This is the story of that incident.

We had chosen for the first half of our ride on Saturday to spurn the computer generated choice of two interstate highways and opt for a diagonal route across West Virginia on US routes 50 and 250.   Being a flatlander, I had browsed the map and assumed that a northwesterly path would possibly take a little longer but would be a shorter distance than the northerly and westerly sides of what was essentially a right triangle.   Not in West Virginia.   The extra miles going up, down, and around the mountains more than ate up the advantage of what appeared to be a shorter point to point distance.
   
We had spent hours on two lanes with very little traffic and constant twisting, rising, falling turns.   I had developed a fairly good assessment of the WV highways’ value system for curve warnings.   A rating of forty-five miles per hour or more meant, “Don’t sweat it.”   Below forty-five called for a down shift to fourth gear; thirty was a cue for third gear, and fifteen miles per hour called for a second gear attack.   For a while we had chased a flat bed tow truck hauling an SUV.   He surprised me with how much I had to work to keep the pace he was setting.   I declined the opportunity to pass him thinking of how embarrassing it would be to be run over from behind by a cage carrying a cage.   He eventually turned away and left us with no impediment ahead of us and only an occasional four wheeler behind.   I worked the gears through the alternating turns glimpsing regularly at my mirror to be certain that I wasn’t dragging my partner into the corners more quickly than she was wishing to ride.
   
Somewhere after a hundred twenty miles in the twisties I began to feel the weariness.   I was recovering from a left hand turn and scrutinizing an upcoming right hand curve when I watched an oncoming Toyota pickup cheat the curve crossing the double yellow on the inside.   That’s scary, I thought.   There was a car close behind him and then the road was clear.   No warning, I noticed, must be shallow and well banked.   Lori later told me that the sign I missed while watching the pickup indicated a twenty mile per hour curve.   I entered the turn, leaned the Dragon, and scanned the road ahead.   Whoa, I thought, this is a tighter curve than I’m prepared for.   I braked late, really late.
 
I was already well into the curve and drifting badly.   I pushed the bike down, got off the brake, and turned the throttle as best I could, but I couldn’t seem to arrest the drift.   I was in fourth gear and too fully committed to down shift now.   I felt the asphalt rake the side of my right boot, heard the pavement grinding into the base of the right highway peg and watched the double yellow lines pass under the front wheel.   This is it, I told myself, any second she’s going to break loose and we’ll slide off the high side of this turn.   I hope Lori hasn’t followed me too quickly into this twist.   I looked over to see if there was room to put her down nicely, but there was only a narrow, shallow ditch between the road and the steep rock side of the mountain.   To my amazement the tires did not break loose and in a just a short distance we rolled back over onto the right side of the double yellow in time to recover and prepare for the next arc.   The experience was mostly behind me now leaving me with a racing heartbeat, a few scratches on the equipment, and a souvenir wedge missing from the right side highway peg.

I was very badly shaken.   I fully realized that I came out of that mistake only by an accident of space and time that there was no traffic on the other side.   If another vehicle the ilk of the pickup had been coming I certainly had no room to adjust.

All of life is a little like that, I guess.   I am who I am in great part because of the accidents of time and space that have placed me in the family, in the world, and in the vicinity of various opportunities.   There is too much happenstance of space and time for any of us to lay claim to being “self made men” or to have earned our place in this world.   I guess truly that we choose, we work, and we plan and then the spinning wheel of fate is added to the mix.   We reap, indeed, what we have sown, but heavily influenced by where and when we happen to be.   I know this, that it is not because I haven’t made the mistakes, but it is more where and when those mistakes were made.   So here we are by accident of space and time, or maybe it’s not by accident at all.   Maybe we are here in space and time moved by the mysterious and gracious hand of God.
 
Perhaps what it all means is that I should try all the more to make the best of the space and time in which I have been placed.   And maybe I should be more careful to see the warning signs and not be distracted by the traffic.

[Gear Jammer]

I hope after changing underwear, you went straight to the casinos   

[Skinhead]

Good story Willow.  It is very hard to do much sight seeing on 50 and 250 unless you take it slow.  Those WV will bite you if you aren't paying attention.  I agree that He must want me here yet for some reason, because there are several time I thought I was a goner.  Let's hope He doesn't get distracted and keeps looking out for us.

[donaldcc]

. . . All of life is a little like that, I guess.   I am who I am in great part because of the accidents of time and space that have placed me in the family, in the world, and in the vicinity of various opportunities.   There is too much happenstance of space and time for any of us to lay claim to being “self made men” or to have earned our place in this world.   I guess truly that we choose, we work, and we plan and then the spinning wheel of fate is added to the mix. . . . 

  My theory of life is similar.  We do not know the future, but we all have ideas of how we would LIKE it to be.  So, I think it is best to prepare yourself to make the best of both opportunity and tragedy as most people experience both. 

  Preparation comes with work, education, observation, experience and insight.  Maximize opportunity, minimize tragedy.  Such is life . . .   

[Red Diamond]

You have a way with words Sir. I have chosen not to count those incidents that has made me believe that there is someone or something watching over me, but rather to use those moments in time and space to be thankful for where I am and what I have, not be arrogant and selfish, and help myself and others who depend on me by being safe as possible. That very same thing happen to me while trying to keep up with a fellow rider. I say fellow rider, but he was not. I chose to try and keep up with him and exceeded my riding ability and wound up across the yellow line, and as you indicated nothing happen to be in that space, at that time. I have learned to be thankful for those moments in time and space where I have escaped from, and other have not. Ride Safely.

[Valkahuna]

Very well put and written Willow! I agree with your assessment of fate often having a great deal more to do with results we experience than what we ourselves did right or wrong.

I have been on both sides of this. At times things have gone badly for me even though everything I did was correct, and at other times, even though I would have deserved to have something bad happen to me, it did not, and I walked away unscathed.

I believe that it was not your time, and the Lord had a hand in guiding you and your fortune toward a good result. Having said that, were it not for the fact that you had instinctively done the right things after your initial mistake of entering the curve to fast, there is not doubt that you would have crashed.

The way it was it ended up was just another lesson that we need to be ever vigilant, alert, and aware of our surroundings.

Thanks for a good post Carl!

[FryeVRCCDS0067]

Great read and great philosophy Carl.

Many times for a rider, stopping to talk to someone as we gas up, or some other small thing which changes our place on the road by a second or a minute decides whether we live or die. I was tired and wearing darker glasses than I should have been in Sept. of 2008, which is why I'm typing this with 25 staples in my leg right now. But, if I hadn't been slowed in that corner, would I have been hit by a truck a mile down the road? Or would I have stopped on the way home and bought a winning lottery ticket? Small and large happenstances change our destiny continuously throughout life.

The destiny of entire civilizations seems to sometimes hinge on happenings which may seem minor at the time. How many small discoveries and sudden understandings led to the atom bomb? If one or two had happened a year sooner, would Hitler have had the bomb instead of us? Was it all decided by an inventor who fell off a ladder and delayed the process for a while, maybe 50 years before?

How often these happenstances are decided by the hand of God, and how often simply by fate?

Guess we won't know till we move on, if then...........

[Fudd]

Willow

I feel like I took a glimpse into the thoughts and emotions that must have gone through your mind while I sat safely behind my computer monitor.

I survived a close call recently that was totally my fault.  I was left thinking of all the "what if's."  I've decided that "it just wasn't my time."

[Robert]

 Really good read, It captured not only my interest but my agreement. 

[fon1961]

 

[musclehead]

it's harder that anything to stay frosty and alert hour after hour, but you gotta try.

and yep I've been there too.

my hunting buddy told a story of when he and his wife went over the pass in Orygun he forgot something ran back inside a delay of mere seconds. while on the trip he saw a large stump slam down the mountain side roll across the road and it missed them by 'mere seconds'   they were in an omni, it would have been ugly!

[Daniel Meyer]

 

Good to see you writing!