How do you rate yourself as a driver?
No, that’s a stupid question. You rate yourself above average.
It’s a well-known fact that all humans consider themselves to
be above-average drivers, including primitive Amazonian mud
people who have not yet discovered the wheel.

—Dave Barry
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I’ve grumped about it all before. Lancaster County is full of people, as least compared to the places I come from. A lot of people means there’s a lot of traffic, doesn’t matter where you go. On the main roads and the back roads. And you mix in those buggies and crazy wild horses they drive around here, and it’s a mess at any time of the year. But you mix that clogged mess with the winter we’ve been having, and it’s just downright an obstacle course out there. And there are a lot of idiot drivers out there, too. And maybe it’s all that cold and snow that’s freaking me out, but this winter I joined the ranks of local really stupid drivers. Because last Saturday I came as close as I’ve ever come to totaling my truck because of how I was driving.

The thing is, I have never had an accident. Never. Not even a fender bender. (Except a lady nudged and dented my bumper, once, but that wasn’t my fault. Her insurance company was all concerned about whether the air bags went off, and whether I felt any whiplash. I told them I was fine, because I was.) And I’m not a putzer, when it comes to driving, either. I mean, I move along. But I’m very careful. Always. I keep my eyes on the road. Drive defensively, that’s my motto. Pay attention. There are a lot of idiots out there. And you never know what the other guy’s gonna do.

And that’s why I’ve always had a reputation for being rude, when it came to waving at friends I meet on the road. They waved at me, they told me a hundred times. Some of them claimed to have leaned out the window as we passed, gesticulating wildly, because they wanted to see me wave back. And I never did wave back, because I didn’t see them. And I told them. I wasn’t ignoring you. I just didn’t see you. I was looking at the road in front of me. That’s what you do, when you’re driving. You don’t lollygag around, looking at the sights. You’re on the road, driving. You got to focus, when you’re doing that.

It’s been close, a few times through the years. I’ve done some stupid things, pulled out in front of people. Once, maybe ten years back, I didn’t see a stop sign. In my defense, it was obscured by some bushes, and I didn’t know it was there. And I pulled up and turned right. A little old 80s car swished right by. Missed me by maybe a foot. Talk about being startled. That was the close call that’s made me shiver, thinking about what might have happened, up until the thing that came down last Saturday.

We never saw a whole lot of car crashes, growing up. Our world was pretty restricted. And it was rare to hear of an accident in it. We read about such things in the paper, but rarely saw them. The one that I remember happened when I was very young, maybe four or five. A guy on a Harley crashed at the crossroads just west of our house, less than half a mile away. It happened around dusk. I think my brother Joseph heard the abrupt halt of the bike’s growl. The guy came up to the crossroad from the south, on the road leading to the print shop. Problem was, it was offset, the crossing, not straight. He never saw it. And he crashed into the ditch, and lay there all night. The next morning, I remember seeing the flashing lights of the ambulance when we got up. We all rushed up to see. The ambulance was gone, by then. And we heard the story, from people standing around. The Fehr boys were on their way to work, and were the first to see it. I think the guy survived. I remember seeing the motorcycle, there in the ditch. I think it was blue, although I can’t say for sure. What I remember clearly was the saddle seat. And we talked about that accident for many years, in my childhood world. It was a thing that stood out to us. And of course there was a lesson, down there, all buried in the talk. That’s what can happen, when you drive a thing with a motor on it.

I’ve never even been a passenger in an accident, except once. And that was way back in the eighties, back when I lived in Bloomfield. My old buddy Chuck Leonard (of Chuck’s Café) took a few of us up to Waterloo to see Titus in rehab, one Sunday morning. I don’t remember who all went, but I remember who all came back. It was Chuck and me and Dad and Ruth, heading home. Mom stayed with Titus when we left, late that afternoon. And it was snowing and sleeting, right on down. And it was getting dark. Chuck fussed about the road as we crept along in the slush on the four-lane highway. And then, just like that, his old boat of a car spun out. It turned completely at least once, and we slid down a long gradual embankment into the ditch. I think the bank was gradual, because we didn’t roll. But it sure seemed steep at that moment. I don’t remember anyone saying a whole lot of anything until the car settled to a stop. We took stock. No one was hurt. I don’t think our emotions exploded, or anything. We were pretty much in a state of disbelief and shock. Then Chuck broke that tension. He laughed and explained. The car just slid out. He couldn’t control it. Somehow a tow truck showed up an hour or so later and pulled us out. Other than one little turn signal light, nothing was damaged. We headed on home. I never forgot how helpless it felt as that car was spinning out on that ice, and spinning down into that ditch. I’ve never felt that helplessness as a driver, though. Except last Saturday, it came very close.

I’ve even had a cop tell me how good a driver I was. That happened a couple of summers ago, one fine sunny Saturday afternoon as I was heading over to a friend’s house for coffee. And just down the road a few miles, about six cars were lined up by the Turkey Hill, waiting for the first car in line to turn left. Problem was, there was a lot of traffic coming from the other way. And we just sat and sat, waiting. And more traffic came at us. And there we sat and sat. Why in the world weren’t those backed-up cars passing the first one, on the shoulder? I mean, that’s pretty simple. I looked the situation over carefully. Wide shoulder, six cars to pass. Should be no problem. I edged my way on by, and broke free out front. And just as I was breaking free, I saw him sitting way back off to the right, in a little lane. A local cop. That’s why those other cars weren’t moving. He instantly glided out and tailed me. About a quarter of a mile down the road, he pulled me over. Good grief. Now I’d get a ticket. I fumbled for my driver’s license and handed it through the window. I didn’t say anything, just handed it over. I don’t have a habit of talking to cops much.

He was a young guy, just a kid, really. Mid-twenties, probably. All puffed up in his big old uniform and official hat. But he was friendly enough. “Look,” he told me, as I sat there, silent. “It’s Saturday afternoon. There’s a lot of traffic out here. I don’t like accidents.” He handed me back my license, and I realized he wasn’t going to ticket me. “You had your eyes on the road, and you were driving very carefully,” he said. As he turned away, I broke my little rule and spoke to him. Obviously, I wouldn’t have passed those cars if I had seen you, I said. He chuckled. “Yeah, I know that,” he said. And just like that, I was free to move on. I was pretty astonished, that he didn’t ticket me. But that was as it should have been. I had done nothing wrong.

And that’s the way it’s been, with my driving. I’ve always been careful, and always felt relatively safe. Until this winter. It’s brutal out there. Half the time, it seems, there’s snow and ice on the roads, when you need to get to work. And with all that snow, they’ve piled up the banks everywhere. It’s not safe, to pull out in a lot of intersections. Because you can’t see what’s coming at you. Black ice, and frozen snow on the roads make it all that much more dangerous. The buggies rattle and clop along, right on the main drags. There’s no room for them to pull off on the shoulders. Too much snow piled up. And the traffic clogs up behind them. And sometimes, the road is so bad that it’s hard to even pass a buggy. It’s all enough to drive anyone a little nutty.

And last Saturday, I had a few errands to run, here and there. Light snow in the morning, that’s all they claimed we’d get. It didn’t start, though, until about midday. And the one place I was stopping at was right on the edge of Lancaster. A light snow was spitting down when I left the house. That should have been an omen, right there. This is a sign. Stay far away from all evil cities in weather like this. Nothing good will come of it. But I ignored the premonitions. The snow was light, and it might stop soon. So I drove right out into that mess, all blithe and confident. It wasn’t all that important to get to where I was going. I just felt like heading out.

I wasn’t quite sure how to get there, so I plugged in my GPS. It’s a few years old, and has been mostly good to me. It has an annoying habit of trying to drag me off main roads onto back roads, for the shortest distance. And when you don’t know where you’re going for sure, that gets a little tricky sometimes.

The snow kept spitting down. Not real bad, but steady. I had my pallet of pole pills on the back, and I could feel the solid weight. My truck was anchored. The GPS led me over toward the west side of the city, then guided me onto some real back roads. And again, it was OK. The thing that always irritates me during stressful driving is the pushy drivers that come up behind you. And sure enough, as soon as I turned off onto what should have been a deserted back road, an SUV got all uppity. Followed me way too close. I plugged along, and it finally turned off. Then another slid right in to take its place. And soon enough, I pulled up to the main highway, close to where I was going. I turned right. And the GPS claimed I was there.

But there was nothing “there” except a tiny little opening in the snow, off onto a tiny little side street. And a large sign that screamed ONE WAY. So what now? Irritated and nervous, I drove on down the highway, looking for a street to turn left onto. There was none, in the first half mile. I turned left into a business parking lot, to figure out what to do. Traffic was pretty light, for such a busy road. Snow was still spitting. Sideways, windswept. What to do? The GPS had clearly told me to go down that one way road. I thought about it. I’ll head on back and look it over. Maybe I can make that hard right turn. I’ll look it over. I was pretty tense.

And I pulled out to the right and drove on back. Approached the sign. No Right Turn. Well, I thought. You can ignore signs like that if no one’s watching. I looked around. No cops anywhere. No traffic coming at me. I approached the hard right turn. Glanced at my rear view mirror. No traffic coming from behind, either. I switched on my turn signal. Turning right, here. Swung way left, then turned for the hard right. Right across the right lane. And right there is where I almost lost my truck.

I was turning, edging slowly. The side street was narrow. Edging, edging, halfway across the right lane I’d come from. And just like that, a little white car whooshed past, on my right. The driver avoided me by hitting the snow piled along the side. It will always be frozen in my mind, that instant. Snow spitting down, snow spattering from the banks, and that little white car skedaddling from underfoot like a frightened rabbit. He missed me by less than an inch, I will always claim to my dying day. Had I turned half a second earlier, that car would have smashed into Big Blue’s right front side, by the tire. And at that speed, probably thirty-five miles an hour, there would have been some serious damage, not only to my truck and the car, but probably to the car’s driver. Who knows? About anything could have happened. It all still just makes me shiver.

You think about it, how close that was. This was my truck, my pride and joy. Big Blue. And I came just that close, to losing him. Not to mention all kinds of associated costs. The illegal right turn. I have no moral qualms about making such turns at all. But there are consequences, if something bad happens. There would have been tickets. Points against my license. Insurance costs would have shot straight up. And who knows what all kinds of litigation?

And it all would have happened because I was an idiot driver. That’s the real heart of it. I was a stupid idiot. Sure, my truck might get all smashed up next week. You really don’t have a whole lot of control over that, because something might happen that’s not your fault. That would be hard enough to take. But if you smash up your truck because you’re an idiot, that would make it so much harder to deal with.

And you look at such a thing, that happens in your life. A really stupid mistake, and you walk away unscratched. Not because you deserved to. But because that’s just how it all came down. It’s all so random, mathematically. And maybe it really is all random. But I’ll tell you what I did, right after it happened, right after I quit freaking out. And I’ll tell you what I’m still doing today.

I’m talking to God a lot, in my heart and in my mind. And with my voice, too, yeah, some. But mostly inside. And I’m thanking Him from the bottom of my heart for looking out for me.
***********************************************************

Yesterday, we were short in help at the office. Which means Rosita took a day off. So I was the main guy answering the phone. And it wasn’t all that busy, and we managed just fine. About midmorning, the phone rang, and I answered. It was my brother, Titus. I was surprised and pleased. He calls, oh, every few weeks or so, just to chat. But today, he was calling to tell me some news.

“Well, Sollie died,” he said, after we had greeted each other. I grasped at the name. And I asked. Sollie who? “Sollie Herrfort,” he answered. And it all flooded through me, the emotions that always come when I hear that name. Solomon Herrfort. The father of Nicholas in the book. Ah my, I said. When? Are you going to the funeral? “He died yesterday,” Titus said. “I would like to go, but it’s way up in Wisconsin, and it’ll just be too cold.” Yeah, I sure understand that, I told him. Do you think the Aylmer people will go? “Yes,” Titus said. “Yes, a lot of them will go.” And we talked a bit about who the man was. He was 92 years old, close to my father’s age. He had a hard life. And a lot of pain.

I haven’t seen anyone in that family since the mid-eighties, the last time I visited Aylmer as a young Amish man. I know almost nothing of the details of their lives, the Herrforts. I know they moved from Bland, Virginia, sometime after Nicholas died. Way up north, to another real plain community in Hillsboro, Wisconsin. I heard little snippets, now and then, through the years. Esther got real sick one time, got all delirious. They thought she was passing on. And in that delirium, from some deep well of loss and pain and sorrow, she cried out again and again the name of her firstborn. “Nicholas!” And then, somehow, she pulled out of it. Came back. She survives her husband. She had a hard life, too. And there they lived, in Hillsboro, for all these years.

I’ve heard, too, that Solomon got a pretty good price for his little farm when he moved out of Aylmer. He had it paid off. So maybe they weren’t quite as destitute as I remembered them as a child. I just don’t know quite what all is true and what isn’t.

Solomon had been blind for a good many years before he died, they tell me. I can’t even begin to imagine what his existence was like in that darkness. Or what it was like back when he could see, for that matter. Whatever it was, he lived his full range of years.

And now he is gone. And now he is reunited with his son.

He was ignored as a nobody like no other Amish man ever was, at least in the world I grew up in. There is no reason, really, that anyone outside the boundaries of his world would remember many details of his life. Or that anyone, anywhere, will long remember his name. But here, with my voice, I speak of who he was. And I speak of his passing.

Solomon Herrfort, Rest in Peace.