It’s those moments, when your adrenaline really gets pumping, that stay with you forever. In college my brothers and I formed a band, Pops Body Shop. We had a blast, and Mom and Dad were both very supportive. They went to every concert. Dad helped unload and load the gear. They’d help with expenses. Dad would also help drive the van when we were on the road. It was their full sized Ford, and we’d tow a trailer behind us with our gear in it. One weekend we had a concert in West Virginia. It was a longer drive than most concerts, so Mom didn’t go. We finished late on Saturday night and then headed straight for home.
One thing to remember is that this was before GPS. Do you remember those days? Talking to AAA, or poring over maps to determine the best route? In this case, for some reason, Dad decided to drive home through the mountains, on back roads, in the middle of the night. I don’t think any GPS would have sent us this way. You may not be familiar with West Virginia mountain roads, but I will never forget them. They are narrow and dark. There are no guard rails. The gravel shoulders drop off quickly to the wooded depths below. I remember all of this vividly because the sheer terror of that ride home has seared the images into my brain.
We were driving a full sized van, towing a heavy trailer, hours after midnight, trying to get home. It started as we worked our way down one of the mountains and the right van tire slipped off the pavement onto the shoulder. Dad quickly swerved back up onto the road, but he didn’t slow down. He was on a mission to get home. Well, that woke us all up and we started pleading with him to slow down. I think we were laughing and joking about his driving because that’s what we do when we’re terrified. We can either laugh, or pee our pants. We decided to laugh. We could sense that Dad was barely in control as the trailer added momentum and we swerved left and right over the switchbacks. Clay had the most forceful protestations, bringing up the fact that we still had our whole lives in front of us. Someone mentioned how dark it was, and then Dad wondered aloud what it would be like to turn the headlights off.
At that point we realized that we needed to do something drastic. Dad’s thirst for adventure was out of control. The time for weak pleading and half measures was over. He had to be stopped. We hated to do it, but it had to be done. “We’re gonna tell Mom!”
That definitely made Dad pause. He seemed to snap back to reality for a second, but then he laughed and said, “No you won’t.”
We saw an opening. We knew Mom had some power even in her absence. “The Queen Bee will be very angry.”
He laughed as we approached a short, downward sloping straightaway, and he turned the headlights off.
We all screamed at the top of our lungs. The blackness was total and complete. The van hurtling forward. A mountain on the left. A drop into the valley of death on the right. A bend in the road up ahead. The screaming continued. My brain shut down. It went on forever. Our voices were so constricted with fear that I don’t know who it was, but one of us wailed, “Save us Oh Queen Bee!!”
The lights came back on. A sharp turn to the right appeared suddenly in front of us. If possible, our shouting and crying reached an even higher pitch as we were thrown around inside the van, and the trailer caught on the slippery shoulder. Maybe the Queen Bee WAS watching, because the van eventually righted itself and our screams settled into quiet whimpers.
Dad chuckled nervously and said, “That WAS pretty scary.”
I think that sobered him up a bit, and we made the rest of the trip home without incident. We told Mom all about it the next day. The Queen Bee seemed none too pleased, and she consoled us as only a Mom can. Although I swear I also detected a hint of a grin on her face. I’m not sure she took the harrowing tale as seriously as we would have liked. All I know is, I’ve stared death in the face and survived, so I can survive anything.