Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 - 11:25 am
SUPERWEIRD.
I was in a car crash in Northern Idaho as a kid- my mother was driving, two of my brothers were in the car I was behind the passenger seat. The car spun out in the mountains and we went rolling down a ravine to water below.
The strange thing for me is it happened so slowly and without a sound. I had enough time to see the rocks coming at me so I took off my seat belt and moved away from the window. I saw it smash in slow motion, the glass flew in like strange sideways raindrops, then the car began the tumble down the ravine. As the car moved I made my way from the floor, then follwing the rolling motion went to the roof, then the floor like a damn gerbil in a wheel, over and over again- floor roof floor roof.
When it finally crash landed the car was upside down and its roof cracked wide open and water started coming in. Then it all went suddenly back to normal and the sound came back- there was this loud roaring. Everyone was hanging upside down in their seatbelts but were okay. My whole car side was smashed in to the where my brother was sitting. He was hanging upside down in his seatbelt- we said "hello" like nothing had happened! After a series of events and a comedy of errors we got back to the town. My mom had an injured neck but was fine. When the car was brought in on the back of a truck the cop asked me how many people had been in the car and i said four. he said oh so the person in the hospital was on the back passenger side? i said no- that was me there- and he told me he couldn't believe it because when he heard one of us was in the hospital and then saw the car he thought "that person is dead or isn't going to last long" i didn't even attempt to tell him what happened to me i knew he'd never understand. if i had stayed strapped in i would have been killed. not that i say, don't wear your seatbelt, but its hard for me to strap myself in now anytime in a car- if we head for the mountains i certainly won't. *****
SUPERHUMAN
Pippin, my big mutt beauty dog, fell onto the train tracks in Tarrytown- I was house-sitting, my friend lives in view of the Tappen Zee bridge. The trains from NYC run right down there by the waterfront. His yard is fenced off from a bushy wild looking expanse that leads to a wall and a long drop to the tracks below. its a sound and distance barrier, but when a doggy from the city gets to follow a big shiny furry woodchuck or rabbit they flushed out- they will follow the creature (she never hurts them she likes to smell them..)
So Pippin disappears and i wonder where she is- then i hear a trian horn blow- they don't blow their horns there.. with my dog-mom "radar" i get a horrible feeling and i follow a kind of new trail through the brambles getting shredded and there she is- far below, running on the tracks.
i ran back and and got a neighbor of my friend's i don;t even know to help me. he was a very old thin man. this mini hero man climbed down through the brambles with me to the wall and he lowered a 12 foot ladder down with a rope. We calculated by using my height when I got to the ladder it was 5 feet short of the top- he said wait for a firetruck to come, i wouldn't be able to get myself and Pippin back up (Pippin is not huge but she's not small either)- and right then the train sped by and Pippin was frozen there on the side of the tracks by this scaggly little tree.
I'm like yeah fucking right I'm going to wait- I climbed down and got her and climbed the ladder with one hand, held her with another and then amazed and scared did a one armed pull up when another train went by shook the ladder. The little neighbor was lying in the thorns and pulling my coat sleeve so he helped but I can't even do a decent looking chin-up with both arms on a good day. i was afraid we'd all fall onto the tracks but we were all saved. The next day my one arm was useless, literally, i couldn't move it for days without it feeling numb and painful at the same time. i guess it slipped back into regular human standards. Pippin had scratches and bruises and broken front claws- the poor girl had tried to hold on before she fell. but even this experience did not dampen her love for smelling woodland creatures when she can including two events with a skunk before we left there :)
So bizarre to think of what we are capable of.. it runs to the mystical- super strength and the ability to slow time.. just amazing to me...
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