Marty and Tony’s Race to the Right radio show had a Christmas theme on Sunday asking callers to talk about a favorite Christmas movie or present they’d received or share a story about a memorable Christmas. I’ve had many memorable Christmases but there is one in particular that stands out because of the lasting effect it has had on my life.
December 24th, 1983 I set out from the Twin Cities for my parents’ home in Missouri. It was at least an 11-hour drive in those days so I tried to get an early start. Unfortunately, Old Man Winter was already up and stomping about; several inches of snow were already on the ground and high winds often made it hard to tell the snow already on the ground from what was steadily arriving. Progress was slow as I joined a line of cars heading south on 35W at about 40 mph. Normally I would have been seething, but I mentally geared down and accepted that this was going to be a slog; the important thing was to keep moving and to hope that I’d eventually break out of the weather and be able to get back up to highway speed (and then some).
The night before I’d spent a little time with the woman I was dating then. She had, I thought, an inordinate interest in my spiritual welfare, but I enjoyed being around her and her friends — at least until the inevitable part of any gathering when someone would try to “save” me. It had just been her and I that evening, though, as we exchanged gifts. Before I left she mentioned that a group of them had been together earlier in the evening and they had prayed for me to have a safe trip. I’m sure I thanked her, but frankly I thought such activity was about as useful as telling someone to have a nice day. Creeping down the interstate, though, I might have wished for a direct connection to the Big Guy to cut me some slack on the weather.
My hopes of getting beyond the storm front were diminishing along with the visibility. By the time I crossed into Iowa there was only one lane of the highway visible and I pretty much navigated by the lights of the car in front of me. After awhile a large Iowa Department of Transportation plow appeared at the head of the line, with a Highway Patrol car immediately behind it. “Alright,” I thought, “now we’re getting somewhere.” It would easy to keep that big rig in sight, and its blade would assure a more or less clean path. South of Clear Lake, however, the plow slowed and the Highway Patrol car stopped and turned on his cherries. The trooper came along the line of cars with the word that they were closing the highway and that as soon as the plow finished clearing the short service link in the highway median we’d be sent back to Clear Lake to wait things out.
Rat farts. Christmas Eve in Iowa was not on my agenda, but if you can’t avoid it then I guess it’s better to spend it somewhere warm and dry than in a snowbank.
As I sat there I was free from having to keep my eyes locked onto the car in front of me so I looked around. We were surrounded by a ghostly white that seemed to start just on the far side of the ditch flanking the highway, and I remembered the radio weather reports saying that the winds were 70 mph and gusting higher; my car was shaking with force of it. I remember thinking that with the long line of cars extending out of sight behind me this was a chain-reaction waiting to occur. I noted that there was an open space ahead of me and to my left, and I decided that that was where I was heading if I heard loud crunching sounds. And no more than five minutes later that was exactly what I heard and exactly what I did.
After I pulled forward and left and straightened my car out I looked in my rearview mirror in time to see a pick-up truck behind me suddenly go nose down and then bob back up, but without bumping into me. Pleased with the success of my plan I then looked to where I had been and saw a semi had pushed a car through that space and into the ditch. I later learned that the car had been one of the first the truck had hit, and that it had then pushed that car all the way through the line of other cars. The car looked like a wash cloth that had been wrung out and left to dry in that shape.
I closed my mouth, grabbed my coat (but not my hat) and jumped out of my car to see what needed to be done. The driver from the pick-up truck was out of his vehicle and trying to get an arm around the driver from the semi, who was also out of his truck and beating his head against the fender of his rig. I approached and shouted to the men, but it was hard to be heard. The pick-up driver waved me toward the car in the ditch. I hopped down there a few feet, and could see the car had apparently rolled at least once on its passage through the parked cars. Though it was upright, the roof was smashed down nearly flat to the top of the doors. Where the back windshield had been I could see wrapping paper and crushed presents. Toward the front of the car I could see … well, it was messy. I didn’t think there was anything I could do. Another car was t-boned at the front of the crushed one; it appeared relatively undamaged, but had been pushed up on a snowbank in such a way that its wheels weren’t touching the ground. I went to the front of the car and looked in through the windshield. An elderly couple was huddled together in the middle of the front seat. They were looking at me, so I stuck out my hands and turned a thumb upwards as a question. They nodded and waved so I motioned for them to stay put.
I climbed back up to the highway and went back to the two men. The driver of the semi had stopped trying to bash his own skull but was bawling next to his truck. I told the pick-up driver what I’d seen below, and asked him where the state trooper was. We looked forward and though we could see his car we realized that he wasn’t aware of what had happened. Mind-boggling, I know, but such were the conditions that you could hardly hear and visibility was worse. I headed for the trooper’s car. When I got there he was talking to two people who were leaning into his window. I thought they were reporting the accident, but they were just trying to find out how long they’d be delayed. When I brought my face down to his window he at first looked at me as if I was one more yahoo that he was going to have to explain things to. When I told him that there was an accident and he was going to need ambulances he used some language probably not in the Trooper manual, but immediately got off a quick message and started getting out of the car. I started hustling back to my own car, because now I was becoming aware that I didn’t have a hat or gloves on. I nearly passed out from hyperventilating and the extreme conditions before I got to my car. Once inside I looked in the mirror and my eyebrows and moustache were completely frosted over and the skin on my face was deathly white with blotches of bright red.
Eventually the service link was plowed before the emergency vehicles could arrive, and the trooper started getting people heading across it and back in the direction of Clear Lake. I followed as well, but by the time we reached town the few hotels there were already filled, even in the lobbies. We were told to try the community center because it was taking in people, but when I got there it, too, had no room. A volunteer who was trying to coordinate things told a small group of us that he’d just heard that Zion Lutheran Church was taking in travelers. We received directions and headed over there. There was still plenty of room but we could tell that it was going to fill up fast and that there were a number of young children already there. One of the guys in our little group from the Community Center and I learned that the grocery store a block away was open for another hour, so we took what money we had and went over there and bought as much milk, candy bars, bread, etc. as we could and brought it back to the church.
No sooner had we returned, however, than the first members of the congregation started to show up, carrying food taken right off of their holiday tables. More members followed, and the kitchen and basement was soon filled with turkeys, hams, sweet and mashed potatoes, bowls of hot vegetables and every kind of pie and cake. As we feasted they told us to feel free to use the church’s phone to let our loved ones know we were safe. The scene, coming as it did on the heels of what I’d already seen, was almost surreal, but the fact was we were safe, and we were warm, and were not going to go hungry. I sat in the back of the sanctuary that night as the church performed a candlelight Christmas Eve service, and then slept (or tried to) on the carpeted floor of the Youth Room.
The floor was hard, and there were more than a few snorers in the room and they were all working from different sheet music, but sleep was hard to come by because I was thinking about the events of the day. Had I been lucky, or blessed? Why me and not them (or why them and not me)? Contrasted with the horror of the highway was the open generosity of the folk who were helping us, their fellow travelers as it were. I didn’t come to any conclusions that night, but I knew I had seen some extremes over the course of a day that had turned out a lot differently from what I expected. The road was familiar to me, but now I wasn’t so sure about my way. It was the beginning for me, however, to consider things I had long discounted or even openly mocked.
I know that from that night forward my heart and my head started to work together in greater accord. It wasn’t a process that happened over night or even over a matter of months, but it is a process that has continued to this day. It wasn’t a gift I was looking for, but it was a gift I’ve used a lot since then. By the same time a couple of years later I would be on the same highway but following a different path.
But that was all to sort itself out over time. I still needed to get home. The highway was reopened around noon on Christmas day and I resumed the drive. I got into my folks’ home town about 10:30 that night and headed for my uncle’s house where everyone had gathered. Unfortunately, everyone had gone home and the party was over by that time; well, almost over. I walked into the kitchen, wrung out from events, the drive and lack of sleep. My cousin, a year older than me, greeted me with a big grin and handed me a beer. “Merry Christmas,” he said, “here’s your present!”
“Thanks,” I said. “Can I open it now?”
