Thanksgiving, 1985

Thanksgiving. A time of family, food, and fun—as I recently heard it defined. Yes, I have another Thanksgiving tale.

The year was 1985. I had just moved to Wisconsin in anticipation of getting married. My wife, who wasn’t my wife yet, and her family traveled to spend the holiday in another town. I had to work so I stayed behind to keep the house warm for the cat and dog.

Now before anyone starts feeling sorry for me, I wasn’t alone. For Thanksgiving Day, I was invited to some friends’ house. We had a good southern meal—odd for being in Wisconsin, I know, but these people were from the south—and afterward, we spent the day playing games. I stayed until well after dark and then returned to my future in-laws’ house.

Meanwhile, it had been snowing—all day. It was still snowing when I left for work the next morning—and when I returned. And, it continued snowing well into Saturday. By this time, the long driveway was pretty snowed in. I’d been driving my father-in-law’s four-wheel drive pickup and hadn’t bothered to think about removing any of the piles of white stuff. And neither had I thought to shovel. Probably should have started that the first day, instead of playing games all day long!

Waking up Saturday, I suddenly remembered my wife’s family would be returning that afternoon and they had taken a car, a car that I knew would have difficulty getting into and up the snow filled driveway.

So, I thought I’d help out. I went to the shed and started up the John Deere with a snowplow already attached. I figured the job would only take a few minutes. Well, as anyone who has been around me knows, that Mr. Murphy guy and me have a lot in common—if anything can go wrong, it will. I’d made only one pass down the driveway, when the John Deere stopped. Just stopped. I tried for several hours to get it running but apparently, I wasn’t much of a mechanic.

Looking at the driveway, I knew it would still be hard to get a car through it. The one pass I’d made hadn’t really helped much at all. So, I jumped into the pickup and drove back and forth until I had the snow packed down enough. Then I started working on shoveling the three days’ worth of snow from around the walkway and the house. By that time, I knew I definitely had waited too long to shovel. It was late afternoon when my wife and her family drove in and I still hadn’t finished.

My father-in-law, being a far better mechanic than I, seemed unconcerned with the stalled John Deere. As I recall, he had the tractor running in about two minutes. Then, while he cleaned up the driveway a little, I continued working on the shoveling.

I did apologize for breaking his tractor. He said not to worry about it, that any time a breakdown didn’t cost any money, it was good. Well, that’s true, except it had cost some money—I think I used close to a full tank of gas driving the pickup back and forth! But, as I recently learned, Thanksgiving is, among other things, a time of fun. And I certainly did have fun!

Happy Thanksgiving! ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.  Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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Ready, Or Not

So, I think I’ve mowed the lawn for the last time this season. Turned off the sprinklers, blew all the lines out, and covered the barbecue grill. I’m ready for winter. At least it would appear that way.

In reality, I’m NEVER ready for winter. As any longtime reader of this blog knows, I prefer summer. In fact, I’d like to do away with winter completely. For some reason, that has never happened. I realize I could move to Arizona and escape winter—most of the time anyway. But something tells me if I were to relocate, the first winter, the state would have its biggest snowfall in history with record low temperatures.

A couple of weeks ago, I was discussing my dislike of winter with someone who couldn’t understand what I could have against it. Only three things really; the cold, the snow—or ice, and the short days. Summer, on the other hand, has none of those!

I was told it was unrealistic to expect warm sunshine all of the time—that things would die. Like my grass, they said.

Obviously, this person has not lived in this area too long. I asked and found the guy had moved here only a few weeks before so I guess I can cut him a little slack. Still, it should have been fairly evident from all the brown hillsides that the grass does die here—every summer. Unless... Unless it is watered. I pointed this out and was met with a look of disbelief. Then, I was told taking care of an irrigation system just seemed like a lot of work.

Which is how I remembered that I needed to winterize my sprinklers! It is November already! Gotta make sure they don’t freeze up and bust. I need them for my grass next summer—or sooner, if by some miracle we get to skip winter this year! ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on iTunes, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.  Amazon Profile - http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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Is It July Yet?

22 degrees and raining. Raining hard. Conditions not at all conducive to driving. The winter weather storm warning said driving tonight would be extremely hazardous or impossible.

And where am I? Behind the wheel, of course. Since the notice didn’t mention an offer to pay my bills, I went to work. I am now cruising down the freeway at an astonishing 20 mph! At that rate, my normal run of 700 miles will take 35 hours. I think the Department of Transportation, which limits driver’s operation of a commercial vehicle to 12 hours, might frown on that.

So, I made an executive decision. Instead of my usual two trips, tonight, I’ll be making just one. The shortest of the two. That will cut my miles to around 300. I realize that’s still 15 hours at my present speed but, according to the CB chatter, parts of the road ahead are better. I should be able to get back within the 12-hour timeframe. If not, I’ll stop and wait. After 10 hours off, I can drive again. Of course, in that time the roads may become impassable. With as much snow and ice as we already have, any additional accumulation could mean an even longer wait. And the longer I wait, the worse it could become. A guy can’t win.

So, maybe I should just wait for warmer weather. How long could it take? July isn’t that far away is it?

Bruce A. Borders, author and songwriter has over 500 songs and 9 books. Over My Dead Body, and The Journey, his latest books, are available on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. For more information, visit http://www.bruceaborders.com/. See Bruce’s Amazon Author Page at www.amazon.com/author/bruceaborders or view his Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders

My Thanksgiving

            Thanksgiving 1986. My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I, along with her sister, had traveled to Wyoming to visit my parents for the holiday. We made the wintry trip fine, had a good time, and ate way too much of my Mother’s delicious southern cooking. Facing a 16-hour drive home, we’d planned to leave early Sunday morning, which would get us back in time to catch up on some sleep before Monday morning. Due to an evening snowstorm, we decided to allow a little extra time and took off about 11 p.m. Saturday night.

            The snow was light and didn’t present much of a problem – at first. The further we traveled however, the worse the storm and the roads became. By 4 a.m., we’d barely made 150 miles. The freeway was covered with more than a foot of heavy, wet snow and I was down to driving 30 mph. The 4-wheel drive Subaru (my Father-in-law’s car) performed very well in the less than desirable driving conditions and I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d get little to no sleep before work on Monday morning.

            Traffic was almost non-existent, though occasionally, a semi would pass, temporarily blinding me in a swell of blowing and swirling snow. Each time one appeared in my mirror, I’d let off the gas, letting the truck go by more quickly, eliminating most of the whiteout. Starting up a small grade as one truck was passing, I waited for the billowing cloud to disappear. As soon as it did, I noticed the truck driver in front of me having problems; his truck and trailer were sliding back and forth, jack-knifing; first in one direction, then the other. My first thought was, how am I going to get around him if he blocks the whole road when he crashes? Then, as quickly as it had started, it was over. The driver managed to right his vehicle and take off up the hill. I breathed a sigh of relief. Prematurely, because that’s when my own troubles began.

The criss-crossing of the tractor-trailer’s tires, sliding sideways through the heavy snow had created a chaotic maze of deep ruts and piles of snow. Hitting the first set of ruts, I felt the car slide to the side. Steering into the slide, the car straightened out just in time to hit the next set of ruts. This time we turned around backwards. By now my speed was down to less than twenty, and keeping my foot off the brake and the gas pedal, I hoped to ride it out. That hope was short-lived. With a significant decrease of friction, a car sliding on slick snow doesn’t slow down nearly fast enough. Moving sideways, toward the edge of the road, I could see the only thing between our car and the cliff was a lone delineator. For a brief instant, I wondered if the little metal post would stop the car. Common sense then prevailed and I knew it wouldn’t. Couldn’t. The laws of physics just didn’t allow it. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

That’s when I woke up my wife. Until this point, both her and her sister had been asleep, oblivious to the impending danger. “We’re going to wreck,” is about all I had time to say. My wife, on the other hand, found a little extra time – to pray.

            The crash happened in slow motion, or seemed to. We counted as the car rolled; up on it’s top, and then back on the wheels, hoping each time the wheels were on the ground that it would stop. Eventually, it did, but not on its wheels. Three and a half times we rolled with the car finally coming to rest upside down. After a bit of struggling with seatbelts and car doors, we managed to climb out of the smashed up vehicle. Then we hiked the thirty-foot, snow-covered cliff, back up to the road. Catching a ride with a truck driver, who took us into the nearest town, we made a few calls and waited for the tow truck to retrieve the car. Some ten hours later, and after several trips, they were still unable to locate the vehicle, despite the fact that I had given them the exact location. The continuing snowfall had obscured the car from view, they told us. It was almost dark when they finally showed up with the badly damaged car. My Dad, who had come as soon as I called (along with my Mother), helped me refill all of the fluids, and jumping the dead battery, we got the car running. Every panel on the vehicle was dented but it still ran. My in-laws had also come to meet us, along with the Pastor of our church. We all made it home on icy roads without further incident, though I didn’t make it to work until Tuesday.

            The next summer, my wife and I stopped to look at the place we’d wrecked. The hill we’d rolled down was steeper than it had seemed at the time. And then we saw quite a chilling sight. About thirty feet down was the small outcropping where the car had landed. It looked barely wide enough for the car, and on the other side was a drop-off, straight down for at least a hundred feet! Not knowing this and unable to see in the dark, we’d walked all around the car. Yet, none of us had fallen off! It was amazing the car had stopped where it did and even more amazing we hadn’t plunged to our death. Perhaps my wife’s prayers had something to do with it!

And that brings me to my point. Every Thanksgiving, I’m reminded of this event and how thankful I am to be alive. That’s My Thanksgiving. Oh, and one more thing. Though I wouldn’t advise this, if you want to find a way to acquire a good used vehicle, at a decent price - roll it down a cliff. We bought the severely dented car from my father-in-law and drove it for another three years!

Bruce A. Borders, author and songwriter has over 500 songs and 9 books. Over My Dead Body, his latest ebook, is available on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®. For more information, visit http://www.bruceaborders.com/ or http://overmydeadbody.jimdo.com/.