Borderline Winter
By the time I got home the other night, almost like a done-in cartoon character, I wanted to open the car door and stiffly fall out into the snow. Instead, I rolled my neck, listening to the cracks, gathered up my things and gimped into the house. I was exhausted. I felt like Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon movies.
Some of my city friends and those a tad more fortuitous than I may scoff at me. They can. Those who drive four-wheel-drive vehicles can also laugh. However, I challenge them, to hop into my little car, and take a few turns on SR 241, over every pitch-black hill and around each curve, waiting for buggies, bikes, horses, tractors, wagons, or walkers to greet them, in the ice and snow, at all hours, in all conditions. After 17 years, the feelings of dread and resigned acceptance haven't gone away on that three-county, 25-mile drive. If anything, they've increased, even though I no longer must drive six days a week, between 3:30-5:30 a.m.
I have a few favorites. About 12 years ago, driving home after an 18-inch dumping of snow, wondering how, or if, I'd make it through what I call the Gauntlet, a stretch just north of Mt. Hope, where the drifts meet the curves, continuing all the way to the hill before and after the county line marker. Another time, I went off the road, through the fence, into the pasture, and drove out the pasture gate as if I planned that stunt, fuel line hemorrhaging, with just enough gas to pull into my drive. My Amish neighbor reckoned $10 would cover the damage to his barbed wire fence. My mechanic reckoned a bit higher.
Last year, in the Gauntlet, heading south, at about 6 a.m., in the pitch dark with snow falling, the southbound lane was completely drifted shut. We all had to take the northbound one, on a hill as it descended into a curve, with no visibility of oncoming traffic. Car after car took its hesitant turn, and I held my breath. I made it through seconds before passing a northbound semi. Two years ago, I made it all the way to Mt. Hope, passing car after car in the ditch, on my way to work. I sent a text to my boss that I was going home, and proceeded to turn around. What should have been a 20-minute drive turned into an hour and a half, as roads began to close, forcing several alternate routes. When I got home, I took off my coat and shoes, dropped on to my bed, and fell sound asleep, exhausted, having spent the morning driving to and from Mt. Hope. I've careened all the way home other times, only to bury the car in my drifted driveway. The hits keep coming.
It may shock you to know that I love winter. Well, I don't have the same love I had for it, say, when I was 10, or 17 or even 24. But I like winter better than summer, and don't mind being an Ohioan at all. It's just the tiny matter of winter driving that's starting to get the best of me.
In reality, our country roads are much better, albeit more hilly, curvy and darker than urban and suburban roads. Most of us rural folk have adapted to the changing conditions of the roadways, and we know where the worst spots are (most of the time). State, county and township crews do heroic work and there's no more welcome sound than that of the scraping plow at 4:30 a.m. We do OK. It's the driving with others on the roadways that's taking the life out of me.
The other morning, I had to be in Wadsworth by 7:37 a.m. Such a ridiculous time could only mean one thing: it was the time a school started, since no sane school district actually starts on an :00 or :05 of an hour. SR 94, my main road of travel, was a sheet of ice in most spots, with a light dusting of snow, and enough salt on it to fill the shaker sitting on my stove. I wasn't in the granny driving mode, but I felt my car swishing from side to side, up and down the hills, and again, knew most of the bad places ahead.
The car behind me, however, had its own agenda, and tailgated so closely that I couldn't see its lights. As I approached the 585/94 intersection, I seriously contemplated stopping, getting out and giving the driver a piece of my mind. However, reason prevailed, and I did have that 7:37 deadline to meet. Again, when I found a parking space, I cracked my neck, and felt as though I'd been in a battle.
We are not invincible on the roadways. I listen, time and time again, to folks bemoan those who go too fast and those who go too slow, lamenting there is a "just right speed in this weather." So my question is, what is the "right speed"? Look, it's not Goldilocks science. That well-intended philosophy, doesn't work on American roads. No one wants to be late for work or appointments. No one wants to die or be injured, or worse yet, see their car insurance rate climb. No one wants to admit that winter driving is just, well, the pits.
Folks in lumbering trucks and SUVs have that invincible feeling, too. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, I found out, as I watched a relatively new Trail Blazer bite it on US 30, near Canton, on a stretch that was a sheet of ice. Yet I often get the feeling they are pushing me forward, into a situation my vehicle cannot handle, as if disdainfully thinking the closer they get, the faster I go, at any cost for both of us.
I don't like that feeling of pressure being forced upon me by someone who has decided they know best for everyone on the road, or are blinded to the other drivers on the road. However, I can say the same thing, as I'm pointlessly shouting in my car, watching someone putt-putt up one of the worst S-curves/hills (near the Wayne-Holmes line), as my own car fishtails, begging for me to hit the gas to make it, because sliding backwards is not an option. We all think we know best. Unfortunately, for all of us, our knowledge will fail at some point, with or without consequences for other drivers/passengers.
"The roads are fine, as long as you're careful," is one of my favorite pointless phrases to hear. This compares to, say, not being careful, and throwing Molotov cocktails out the window, baking a cake, watching TV, doing my hair, or making an origami bird? I do realize a lot of folks drive and text, or maybe some do drive and do their hair or watch TV, but I still think, in snowy and icy winter weather that expression is a bit trite.
Here's what I've decided: I know best what's best for me, because I know me best. I know my little (and new) car best. I know what I pay now for car insurance. I know how much I have grown to hate ice and snow driving when it's unnecessary, and I know how much I value my life and those around me.
So if you pass me in my little car, hunched over the wheel as the snowflakes fly, I'll probably be muttering my Danny Glover line over and over, mixing in a prayer or two, and doing my best to be as safe as I can on the snow-covered road. But then again, hopefully you are watching the snow-covered road, and not what I'm doing in my car.