Tag: crash

Posted in God, gratitude

A close call

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Usman Malik on Unsplash

My son slammed on the brakes as red tail lights suddenly stopped in front of us. We couldn’t see beyond the semi ahead, so we didn’t know what was going on. He sighed, “Great. Now what?”

My grandson in the backseat said, “I think a car bounced off the guardrail.”

As traffic slowly passed to the left, we found room to sneak by on the right.

A white sedan with a crumpled front end was turned sideways. Two other cars were stopped in back of the that car. The truck driver had already walked up to check on the driver, who stood next to the car, apparently unhurt. We crept by, just avoiding some torn-off chrome trim on the road.

I couldn’t really tell what had happened, but I was thankful for the timing. Had we been arrived a minute earlier, we might have been involved. A minute later and we’d be in standstill traffic for a while.

Anything can happen driving through Dallas on I-30. And I’m sure it does just about every day. I’m grateful we made it to Fort Worth and back.

I don’t know about you, but I often pray for safe travel for myself and others. I ask God for protection as we go about the day and while we sleep at night. I don’t notice most of the times he answers those prayers. I’m oblivious to the close calls I have. He keeps me blissfully unaware of the dangers around me.

And for that, I am thankful.

Posted in neighborhood

The mailbox didn’t have a chance

Posted on by William Douthwaite

How fast do you think this person was driving?

The first thing that caught my eye was the uprooted mailbox post. It was completely lifted up out of the ground. I thought, “Who would do that?”

Then I saw the car or truck parts along the tire track in the lawn. Someone took the curve too fast, swerved onto the grass, and took out that mailbox.

But where was the mailbox? I spotted it up by the house, about twenty yards away. Wow, they must have been moving!

I know the guy who used to live in this house. Used to means I don’t know what happened to him. I used to see him all the time, riding his bike around the neighborhood. He either died or is living in a care facility. A company cares for the lawn each week. But no sign of him.

If someone put their mind to it, they wouldn’t have much trouble finding the offending vehicle that picked up a few dents and dings and left a few trim parts behind.

We’ll see if anyone notices or cleans up the yard in the next few days. It’s on an isolated section of a road I often walk on in the morning, easily overlooked. I’ll also keep an eye out for the rest of the truck or car.

It could have been worse. Some folks build bricks around their mailbox posts for these kinds of moments.

Posted in Grace, Life

Thanks, angel.

Posted on by William Douthwaite

emergency_vehicleI headed out the door to make a few hospital visits the other day. As I was just about to merge on the interstate to head south, I saw a fleet of fire engines, ambulances and sheriff’s cars along the side of the road. Traffic was moving, just very slowly. As I passed I saw a car on its side in the woods and people being carried out on stretchers. They must have rolled a number of times to get that far back. It looked bad. Couldn’t have happened more than a few minutes ago. Dodged that bullet!

When I was getting off the interstate, I slowed down for a similar scene. Lots of rescue vehicles plus three smashed up cars. It didn’t look like anyone was seriously hurt. Missed that one by just a few minutes, too.

After my visits, I passed yet another crash in the middle lane of the interstate overpass. Bumpers, glass and fenders littered from at least three cars littered the road. Wreckers were starting to pull what was left away. Another close call.

One more stop to make. Publix. I always park pretty far away from the front door. Too many lazies and crazies up there. Too lazy to walk from a parking spot. Crazy enough to run you over. Sure enough, someone pulls around and just misses me. Thanks, buddy.

My guardian angel did a good job that day. Got a little overtime, too. Will our driverless cars be able to do as good of a job someday? I hope so.

Posted in Life

Crash

Posted on by William Douthwaite

We had a computer crash at our house last night. I was minding my own business, scanning some pictures and listening to Pandora, when suddenly, the computer burped and I got the SOD (Screen of Death.) “Windows has shut down…” I couldn’t reboot. Couldn’t reboot from an emergency boot disk. Couldn’t do anything.

Today, I just reloaded Windows XP, thankful for having done some good backups and not losing anything but a few pictures. But it’s a pain to have to reinstall software. But not as much of a pain as it used to be. Most of what we do is in the “cloud.” I use Google Docs more than I use resident word processors and presentation programs. So everything I use the most is always there, somewhere for me.

I had to take the machine apart, too. Change the CD player from slave to master. Unhook the DVD drive. And wait a long, long time for about 60 updates to be loaded. But in the end, everything works good. In fact, it was a blessing, since we had some Google redirect virus somewhere in the bowels of the machine that no program could find and deal with. No problem now. Kind of like a clean slate.