Three Times!

          Friday night, a week ago now, I was at my Moxie Ladies Exercise Class. We were wrapping it up, just chitchatting for a few minutes before we went out the door, when the phone rang.

          I heard it — I ignored it.

          It rang again.

          "Is that the church phone?" Joanie (red-faced from exercising) asked.

          "Yeah," I answered.

          "I'd better get it," she said and made a mad dash for the phone.

          The rest of us kept up the conversation until Joanie returned. "That was Lamar," Joanie reported. "He says there's a tractor-trailer stuck on the bridge so you'll have to go around."

          When Rosie and I got out to the Jeep I called Mike and told him what was going on, then we headed for Wood's Road, a go-around which added about four miles to our otherwise short trip home, and it brought us in to Robinson Road from the other direction. I drove past my house and on down to Rosie's house and the bridge, which is almost in their front yard. Rosie and I chatted with the truck driver for a few minutes.

          "I didn't see no sign that said no trucks," The driver said. "I saw all the other signs about the weight limit and it being a single lane bridge."

          I think I heard later that someone had turned the sign around.

          I wished him well, put the Jeep in reverse, and headed for home. Unlike Mike, I am not a good backer-upper. I never learned to use the side mirrors and the spare tire impairs my sight through the back window as I turned around in my seat. It was dark, did I tell you it was dark? Between the spare tire hogging up most of the back window and the darkness, I couldn't see a thing. So I had to use the mirrors. First I was too far off on one side of the road, then I was too far off on the other side of the road! Dang! Mike makes it look so easy! Well, this isn't working, I thought, and since my rear was already off to the side of the road, I decide to do a three-point turn.

          "Where'd ya go?" Mike asked when I got home. "I thought I saw you drive past the house."

          "I took Rosie home. She wanted me to drop her off and let her walk down, but I told her no-way Jose."

          "I forgot about Rosie. Why did she want you to drop her off?"

          "She was worried about me getting turned around."

          "Did they call a wrecker?"

          "Yeah."

          And Mike worried. "If the truck is stuck on this side of the bridge (which it was) then the wrecker has to come around and where's he going to turn around at?"

          "I don't know, Charlie Cheshire's?"

          "He can't turn around there. I hope he doesn't use our driveway."

          "Why? What's it gonna hurt?" I wondered.

          "It's gonna hafta be a big wrecker and with all the rain we've had, it's muddy and he'll sink down and ruin our driveway."

          We sat and watched TV, Mike keeping an eye on the monitors for the wrecker. An hour and a half later, it's nine o'clock and I get ready for bed. "I'm gonna stay up and wait for the wrecker," Mike told me.

          I went to bed.

          Pretty soon I hear Mike get up and go out the door. I can see the Jeep lights from the bedroom window as he goes down the driveway.

          About fifteen minutes later Mike comes home, but instead of putting the Jeep in the garage, he beeps. I heard him, I didn't get up. If he knocks on the door I'll get up and let him in, I thought. The garage door opens and Mike comes in the house.

          "Peg!" he calls before he gets to the bedroom. "Peg! You've gotta get up and come see this."

          I put my Nook down. "Why?"

          "Because it's a big wrecker with lights all over it. Hurry up and bring your camera!"

          I've lived with Mike long enough to know two things. One, he won't let it rest until I comply with his wishes, so arguing is futile, and two, he thinks it's something I'd really like to see.

          We continued our conversation as I tossed the covers back and grabbed my sweats and an oversized tee shirt to cover my semi-nakedness, the only way to sleep.

          "TMI Peg! TMI!"

          I know, I know! More than you wanted to know but it explains why I had to grab sweats. We headed for the door. "How cold is it outside?" We'd been having a mild spell with temps that reached sixty that day. "Should I get my coat?"

          "No com'on. The Jeep is warm and you won't have to get out."

          "Where did he turn around?" I asked.

          "At the driveway that goes up to the gas well."

          "He backed up all that way!"

          "I met him down at Kimmies and told him there wasn't anyplace down here to turn around so he'd have to back up to the well site and get turned around there."

          "Wow! That's a long way to have to back up!"

          "How far is it?" you wonder.

          It's three-quarters of a mile from where the truck was stuck on the bridge to the gas well site driveway. (I had to call Rosie and Lamar to find that out for you.)

          "I offered to guide him back but he said he had lights on his wrecker that would turn night to day and he wouldn't have any trouble at all backing up," Mike told me.

          We sat at the end of our driveway waiting for the wrecker to back past us but after a few minutes, Mike gets antsy. "Should we go see where he's at?"

          "I don't know. I wouldn't want to get in his way."

          Mike put the Jeep in gear. "We won't get in his way."

          "I could have taken the time to grab a coat," I observed dryly.

          "I didn't know how long it was going to take him to back up and I didn't want you to miss it. If you need to get out I'll give you my jacket."

          Mike's a good husband, isn't he.

          Instead of driving down the road and meeting the wrecker head-on, Mike backed down the road so he wouldn't have to turn around when we spotted the wrecker. He makes it look so easy! We were almost to where Kim lives when we see lights coming. "There he is," Mike said.

          And his lights were bright! I snapped a picture through the rain-speckled back window of the Jeep. Did I tell you it was sprinkling?

          Mike drove on ahead and when we reached our driveway, he backed into it and we waited for the wrecker to pass.

          "Look at that Peg. Now that's a big wrecker, let me tell ya!"

          I don't know, it must be a guy thing but I was a good sport about being dragged out of my bed. "Uh-huh, uh-huh," I say twice in a row like that, a habit of mine. And I snap pictures of the lights on the wrecker as he backs past us. Then Mike pulled out and we followed the wrecker to the bridge.

          I sat in the Jeep as the men stood around talking. Finally some action as the wrecker driver pulled a cable from the back of his truck.

          Then Mike helped him pull.

          They hooked the cable to the back of the trailer and before I knew it, the trailer was back on the road and behind the cab so the truck could go on across the bridge.

          After the truck left and Mike came back to the Jeep, he let me know what was going on.

          "You know, I wasn't trying to tell them what to do, but I've driven trucks for many, many years and have had to get out of some pretty sticky situations. If he would have just pulled the trailer over two more feet he wouldn't have hit the bridge."

          "He hit the bridge?" I didn't see that from where I was sitting in the Jeep.

          "Well, he didn't really hit it. The tire of the trailer rolled up on the side of the bridge and bounced back down. He could've ruined the tire. These guys who drive for companies and not for themselves just don't care." Mike was quiet for a moment. "A steering wheel holder," Mike chuckled. "That's what the wrecker driver called him." Then Mike impersonated the wrecker driver for me. "A steering wheel holder, that's all he is!" And he chuckled again. I guess it was the first time Mike's ever heard that expression.

          That poor guy in the semi sat there for almost two hours before the wrecker ever showed up.      

          Sunday. The Lord's Day. The day we are to go to church and be with our church family, strengthening and enriching each other's faith, singing hymns of praise and adoration to our Creator, hearing God's word, and supporting each other in times of need.

          "And football," Miss Rosie adds. "This time of year there's football after church."

          Yeah, there's that too. But sometimes, something comes up and you decide to play hooky. And that's what happened to me a week ago.

          My cousin Justin called. "Would you and Mike like to join me for Sunday brunch at the Riverstone Inn in Wysox?"

          Heck yeah! the inside of me enthused. I'm all about breakfast and brunch is just like breakfast only a little later. But the outside of me was more polite. "Why thank you for the invitation Justin. I'll talk to Mike and get back with you."

          "Where's the Riverstone?" Mike asked when I told him.

          "It's just before you cross the bridge over into Towanda."

          "Oh yeah. You'll miss church," Mike pointed out.

          "I know, but some things are more important," I said. Now, don't y'all give me a hard time about it. I realize that nothing is more important than God, if it is then its called idolatry. But I really like breakfast out and I like Justin even more than I like breakfast and I'd be happy to spend a few hours visiting with him.

          Mike called Justin back and made the date. Sunday. At nine o'clock. "We'll be there a little early," Mike told him.

          The temperatures were warm on Friday but started to drop during the night and all day Saturday they continued to drop. Saturday night it snowed and we had a couple of inches by Sunday morning. I snap a picture of a snowy farm as we head to Wysox.

          We pull into the parking lot of the Riverstone about twenty minutes early. I'd brought coffee with me so I sipped on that as we waited for Justin.

          Ten minutes go by. "Maybe he's already here," Mike says.

          "I don't think so. He's five minutes down the road. He wouldn't be here this early," I reason.

          Five more minutes go by. "Let's just go in and see if he's here."

          "We'd have seen him come in," I reason again. We'd parked right near the entrance.

          Five more minutes. "Let's just go in and wait for him."

          "Go ahead," I say but Mike doesn't. He waits with me.

          Five more minutes go by and now its five past nine. "Call him and see where he's at."

          "You call him!" I don't like to call people when I think they're driving.

          We watch cars go by for a few more minutes. "Let's just go in," Mike pleads.

          "Okay," I finally agree. My coffee had worked its way through my system. "I could pee anyway."

          We walk in the door and who do you think is sitting there waiting for us?

          "Justin?" you guess.

          And you would be right. When he looked up and saw us he got to his feet and grinned real big. "There you are. I thought with the cold and snow that you might be having some car trouble or the roads were worse than you expected them to be."

          "Nope," I said as I gave him a hug. "We were sitting outside waiting for you."

          And we had a good laugh.

          We were never stuck for things to talk about and Justin told us a story about tobogganing with my oldest sister a hundred years or so ago. As he remembered and recounted the story, his face just lit up and I had to snap his picture.

          "It was really slick that day. There was like a coating of ice on top of the snow. We decided it was going to be a really fast ride so we didn't even go the whole way to the top of the hill. There isn't much steering on a toboggan, you know. You can lean to one side or the other and maybe it'll go that way. There was like a hedgerow at the bottom of the hill with trees and stuff and there was an opening just wide enough for a tractor to go through. We started down that hill and I could see we weren't going to make the opening. I jumped off and so did your brothers, but Patti was still sitting on the toboggan when it hit the tree and she was catapulted off." Of course it's funny now and Justin was quick to clarify. "She didn't get hurt though and the toboggan climbed halfway up the tree." He was quiet for a moment remembering that day. "But I don't know if she didn't see the tree coming or if maybe the snow was blowing back in her face because that happens when you're on the front of a toboggan and Patti was on the front."

          I related a toboggan story of my own. I don't remember for sure which of my brothers were there that day, David and Richard maybe. But I know that Phyllis was with us. And just like in Justin's story, this snow had a slick coat of ice on top of it too. 

          During the day the sun can melt the top of the snow just enough that when it freezes again at night it creates an icy crust on top. You can't steer anything on the ice.

          I was on the very back of the toboggan, David took the front and Phyllis and Rick were in the middle. "I'm hooking my feet under the ropes so no one can push me off!" she declared in her defiant eight-year-old voice.

          We start down the hill and my foot got hooked on the snow and pulled me off the sled almost right away. There was a bunch of yelling and the boys jumped from the sled. I must have been really traumatized because I don't remember anything after that. But I do know the outcome. Phyllis had laid down and rode the toboggan under a barbed wire fence tearing her jacket to shreds and leaving her with long gashing scars the whole way up her left side.

          —My alarm goes off and it's time to make my daily call to my mother. Perfect timing, don't you think? "Do you remember that day?" I asked Momma.

          "Sure," she replies not elaborating.

          "Well, what do you remember?" I prodded.

          "At first I didn't even know Phyllis was hurt. Her jacket had bunched up, then came down to cover it. And I remember them being like scratches on her right side."

          Curiosity piqued, I emailed my sister and had her call me. "No, no, no," Phyllis tells me on the phone. "The sled was heading for a machine that had sharp points on the front of it. The sled hit that, punching a hole in it; I flew off and slid into the barbed wire fence."

          "How did you get home?" I asked her.

          "I walked."

          "What happened then? Did you have to go to the hospital?"

          "No, dear. We were snowed in," she gently reminds me. "Mom put some yellow powder on it that she had left over from when Charles (another brother) was hurt, then she wrapped gauze the whole way around me."

          Okay, I thought. Let's see what Richard remembers.

          "No, no, no," Richard tells me on the phone. "The snow had drifted so deep that only the top of the fence post and the top strand of barbed wire were sticking out. The sled hit the post and Phyllis flew off and slid over the top of the barbed wire. It tore her jacket to shreds and tore up her whole right side the whole way up to her armpit!"   

          "What happened then?"

          "We put her on the sled and pulled her home."

          Let's see what David remembers. I called him Saturday morning.

          "No, no, no. It was just me and Phyllis on the toboggan," he tells me. "We were headed right for a tractor with a front-end loader on it. I yelled to jump and I jumped right, Phyllis jumped left and slid under the barbed wire fence. It scraped up her whole right side and the toboggan got a hole punched in the front of it."

           David didn't remember that Richard and I were with them that day and I didn't remember the tractor. "Why was there a tractor sitting there?" I asked.

          "We had a lot of snow. I don't remember how much, but Pop was using it to clear the driveway and the axle broke. George Yakabosky was not happy about it either," he added.

          That explains that, I thought. "Why were we headed for the tractor?"

          "We weren't! We were going to make it a straight shot from the top of the hill the whole way down to the house. You can't steer those things. We were just kids."

          "Pretty brave kids," I added thinking of all the adventures we had.

          David laughed. "Yeah, is that code for stupid?"

          So there you have it. Mom, Richard, and David all remember it being on Phyllis' right side, I remember it being on the left. I had to call Phyllis back.

          "It's on the left," she verified.

          "Any chance to get a picture," I asked.

          "Sure. I'm not shy."

          So here is what Phyllis' scars look like today, more than forty years later. They extend from hip to armpit and are comprised of many small scars with the longest one being seven inches long.

          Sometimes stories can take on a life of their own, like this one did, and it's been fun exploring this memory with my siblings but let's get on with the story.

          We were sitting in the Riverstone, having brunch with Justin. Mike was telling Justin the story of the truck getting stuck on the bridge Friday night and that led to some of Mike's favorite old truck driving stories. The time went quickly and before I knew it we'd spent a couple of hours visiting with Justin. "You should see the Susquehanna," Justin told us before we left. "With all of the ice floes, it's kinda pretty right now."

          And that's what Mike and I did. We drove down to Riverfront Park. I was so surprised to see how fast the ice floes were moving. Driving across the river it didn't look like they were going that fast to me.

          "Ducks!" I exclaimed stating the obvious and we sat and watched them for a few minutes.

          Just outside the gates of the park is a repair shop and junkyard. Here are a couple of old wreckers for you.

          And an old tractor.

          Monday morning Rosie Kipp called. "Peg, there's a truck in the creek."

          "Really!"

          "Yep. We don't know how long he's been there. We became aware of him when the cinder truck stopped and he went down the bank to make sure everyone was okay. Lamar went out to check things out. You wanna come down and see it? Take pictures?"

          "You know it!" I told her and Mike and I got in the Jeep and went down to check it out.

          Our road curves just before you get on the bridge and this guy said he was going slow but couldn't make the curve and went down over the bank. There isn't anyone here who believes that he was going slow.

          A couple of hours later I went to lunch at my church. The truck was still in the creek, there was a police car there with two people sitting in it, and flares lit alongside the road.

          Rosie was telling the story at our lunch, "...and he wouldn't even get out of the truck."

          "Wait! You mean that guy sat in the truck the whole time?" I was incredulous.

          "Yeah. Lamar asked if he wanted to come in the house and warm up but he said no. He was making phone calls to the insurance and stuff like that."

          The truck was gone when I came home from lunch but he'd sat there at least three hours before he got pulled out.

           

          The next day was Tuesday and they were forecasting a winter storm. Around noon Mike and I ran to town for milk. I got a couple of pictures for you.

          The snow had already started.

          These two pictures are of the same building but I bet you guessed that.

          It snowed nonstop all day Tuesday and all night and on into midmorning of the next day. We got eight inches of snow out of the storm.

          I was talking with my best girl Joanie on Facebook Messenger that morning. "How were the roads on your way into work?" I asked her.

          "The secondary roads were snow and ice covered, the main roads had slop on them, but I put it in four-wheel drive, took it slow, and I made it okay. On the bright side, it's beautiful for pictures."

          That's my Joanie, a ray of sunshine and always looking for the silver lining. "I'm going out for pictures later. Maybe I'll get Mike to take me for a drive," I told her. And the more I thought about it, the better I liked that idea.

          "Mike, will you take me out driving for snow pictures?"

          "After a while," Mike said. "I want to get the snowblower out and clear some paths in case the Kipps walk up to see us." He paused. "And for you too so you can get to the mailbox."

          In the meantime, I got the critters fed. Mr. Mister was here, outside my kitchen door, sitting up on the ledge of the feral cat house. I grabbed my camera and went out to get his picture.

          "He's handsome," my cute little red-haired sister commented.

          And look at the size of his head, would ya! It's huge! Even though he looks annoyed, he's never even hissed at me, let alone try to scratch or bite me.

          For comparison, in case you don't have a cat, here's Rascal, my biggest cat.

          Breakfast over, I suited Ginger up in her winter boots and a sweater and I went out to take pictures. I didn't want to wait too long in case the sun started melting all of the beauty away.

  

         Look at the tall hats on the teasel!

          A male and a female cardinal.

          Mike playing in the snow. The snowblower made short work of clearing the paths.

          After Mike warmed up he took me on a ride-about. Here are your pictures.

          The lower bridge that crosses our creek... 

...and our creek.

          I like the shadow in this one.

          This is the compressor station for the natural gas company.

          It's huge! It's located somewhere back over the hill from our house, about a mile away as the crow flies. Standing in my yard I can hear the constant thrum that emits from that place. Sometimes it's louder than others but it seems like it's always there.

     All the snow didn't stop the surveyors. They're surveying because our county is taking bids on replacing both open-grate single-lane bridges that cross our little creek. There's one here near my house and the other is a couple of miles down the road. They may straighten it a little too, I don't know, but this I do know. We've had a lot of issues with semi's this year. Just ask Lamar Kipp how many mailboxes he's had to replace in the past year.

          Coming back from our ride-about we stopped to visit with the Kipps for a little while. 

This old hand pump is in their yard and the tracks are from where Lamar measured the snowfall.

          "Take your coats off, have a seat — wanna play Rack-O?" Rosie asked as we stood in her kitchen.

          "Yeah!" I say without even consulting Mike. I've only played Rack-O once before and it was with the Kipps, but I kinda liked it.

          Lamar went to get the game while we settled at the table. When he came back he had two games with him. Rack-O and a primitive version of Tetris, a puzzle game. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon.

          "Oh no! Look at the time!" Mike says pulling out his phone.

          "What?" I asked. "Time for Gunsmoke?"

          "No. That's over with."

          "What then?"

          "Naptime!"

          I laughed, thankful that he'd played with us for a couple of hours, I didn't want to push my luck so I helped to pick up the game and put it away.

          I'm really trying to cook healthier meals for me and Mike but my problem is I like recipes that are basic, simple, and easy. I don't want to buy a lot of fancy stuff or put a ton of exotic spices in it.

          I must have been thinking about that when we came home from playing Rack-O with the Kipps because as I stood at the microwave waiting for my coffee water to get hot, one of my cookbook titles jumped out at me from the shelf where it was nestled with all my other cookbooks. Light Cooking.

            I took my coffee to the table, pulled the cookbook from the shelf, and sat perusing the glossy, pretty, picture-filled, pages. And that's where I was, and what I was doing, when my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID.

          "Hello Kipps!" I answer in my cheery voice. I never know which one I'll be talking to.

          "Peg, are you ready for some more excitement?" Miss Rosie asked.

          "Sure. Go for it."

          "There's another truck in the creek."

          I drew my breath in a gasp of surprise. "No way!"

          "Yes way. You wanna come see it?"

          "I'll ask Mike," I told Rosie. It was almost six o'clock and Mike was settled in front of the TV. I didn't know if he'd want to go out or not.

          "Let's go," he said and put the recliner down.

          I went to get my coat and saw the cookbook sitting on the table where I'd been looking through the recipes. It's a beautiful book, I'm thinking. I'm going to share it with Rosie. I flip the cover shut and grab it up.

          When we get down to the bridge there were lots of flashing lights. 

           I got out of the Jeep, clutching the cookbook, and walked out on the bridge. It looks to me like this truck went off the road and into the creek in just about the same spot as the other one two days earlier.

          I got my pictures and started to walk away when I see a fireman approaching. I stopped and waited for him.

          "I have to ask you to turn around and leave," he told me. "We need to set up traffic control."

          I wasn't going to let him run me off. We weren't in the way for anyone or anything. "I need to see my friend Rosie first," I told him indicating the book I held.

          "Okay," he said.

          What else could he say. I went up the path and knocked on the Kipp's front door while Mike waited in the Jeep.

          "So what happened?" I asked Rosie as I stepped into the house.

          "He said he was coming back from a dinner run, the tires on the company truck aren't very good, and he slid into the creek. Now there's pizza and three coffees all over the front of the truck."

          I chatted with Rosie for a bit, ever mindful that the emergency personal wanted us to leave, then I showed her the cookbook and left.

          Later we talked about the accident. "You do realize that the other guys sat there for hours before the tow trucks showed up, this guy was only here for ten minutes. I guess that's the difference if you call 911."

          Three times!

          Three times this week the bridge that crosses our little creek was the center of excitement.

          Well guys, this only brings you up to Wednesday night. I have more stories and more pictures for you, but I think this is quite enough for one week. Besides, they'll keep until next time.

          Remember. You're all in my heart.

          Let's call this one done!