THE ICE MAN MAY COMETH…

I’ve been away to the mountains of Pennsylvania, helping a friend recover from a bad spill and the following surgery.  With her son coming in today to take over her care for a bit, I am hoping after picking him up from the airport, to come home. 

Coming off the mountain though will have some challenges if the weather prediction holds up.  We are to have some brief snow showers.  Not a great accumulation but enough to create icy conditions on the roads.

Funny how time, experience and location can change one’s perspective.  I grew up in Northern Illinois where snow was just a hiccup in the days plans.  Nothing was ever cancelled unless you couldn’t see the hand in front of your face during the storm.  Slip the snow chains on over your winter tires and you were good to go.  I don’t ever remember school being closed for snow events.  But I do remember some fun rides with our school bus driver as he made some interesting turns on our lakeside roads!

When I got my driver license, my dad said to me, “Come on girl.  You and I are going driving.”

We got in the car and he directed me to drive out onto the frozen lake.  That was not so unusual around us as our lakes would freeze over and we often saw vehicles drive out onto the ice, pulling their ice houses for a winter of ice fishing.  

So off we went, onto the lake.  “Now step on the gas,” my dad said.  “No faster,” he continued.

So I did.  Suddenly he reaches over with his foot and slams on the breaks forcing our car into a tailspin.

“Turn into the spin!” he yelled.  “Turn into the spin!”

We must have done that five or six times before I could catch my breath and we stopped.  “Now,”  he said, “you will be able to drive anywhere anytime because you will instinctively turn into the spin, stopping the spin.”  

In all the years of my driving, I never used that technique but once…a patch of black ice in the wee hours of the morning as we headed down to North Carolina for a family visit.  Thank you for the experience, but I hope to never have to test my skills again.

So here I sit, looking out the window onto the gray skies hoping against hope, that the flurries won’t bring the icy conditions forcing me to cancel my trip home.

As a friend reminded me in a message sent this morning, “Don’t take any chances with the weather.  Home is not going anywhere.”

So I’ll plan with flexibility in mind…