In an effort to remain somber in muh blogs, I was reminded earlier of an incident when I was a child that scared the hell out of me. I am sure that the amount of people I have told this can be counted on one hand so if I have told you this story... consider yourself in the select few.
I grew up in the boonies in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. It was a fantastic place to grow up. We had open fields to play in, a HUMUNGOUS front and backyard that we could play wiffle ball in, and it was away from any form of development. It was great. There was only one real negative. Friends lived MILES away which made biking to your friends house an egregious task. We sometimes had to rely on our parents to get places. If that was the worst of our worries, we had it pretty frigging good.
The other thing that was perhaps a negative in some respects was the road we lived on. It was basically an asphalt path that wound through a forest with long driveways connected to it. The sides of the street were either embankments and difficult to climb or tree lined. When two oncoming cars met in the road, they would literally have to pull over as far as possible and sneak by each other afraid of the scraping sounds of clashing side mirrors.
This made walking on the street dangerous as the road was narrow and windy. People had a difficult time seeing down the street.
I was walking down the street one snowy afternoon to go play with a friend who lived 1/4 miles or so away. To this day, I can't remember which friend I was going to go see.
When I reached the bend in the road, I heard a car coming from behind me, so I did what I always did. I stopped, turned to face the car, and waited for it to pass. The car must have been going a bit faster than it originally intended and it began to skid out. The driver lost control of the car and it swerved directly at me. I had nowhere to go as it was an embankment behind me so I fell into the snow essentially standing exposed and in a prone position.
I held my breath.
Somehow... the car missed me... not without me feeling a brush of air as it skidded by. To this day... I swear that she hit me but I had no bruises or marks to show it.
The car stopped a hundred feet down the road after bumping into the embankment. The owner of the car got out, examined her car, looked at me lying on my back not moving on the side of the road (embankment), and then drove away.
I was too stunned to say anything and I didn't know what to do. My body wouldn't move so I couldn't chase her... so I just say there... eventually, I picked myself up and went to my friend's house.
I don't know if I was any fun, but it was then that I started to realize how indestructable I wasn't. That's a tough thing to discover at about 10 years old.
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