Car Story Number 1
It was 1977. I was 24 years old. I was moving with my two children, ages 2 and 5, from Los Angeles to the town of Chico, in north-central California, a distance of 600 miles. I had borrowed a car for 24 hours to pull the trailer that carried out belongings, because my Volkswagen Rabbit wasn't strong enough. I spent the daylight hours loading the trailer. We headed north in the cool of evening, July 30. I drove as the children slept, and I drove slowly: even the borrowed car could barely crest some of those grades, and I was forced to drive between 30 and 45 miles per hour most of the way. It turned out to be a 16-hour drive.
I slept briefly at our new house, and then unpacked all our furniture and boxes and drove back south to return the car. I had to be back in Chico the following morning, August 1, to meet with family friends who were passing through and would be there only on that day. After another brief nap, then, I piled the kids and the rest of our things into the VW and headed back north, starting my third 600-mile drive in 24 hours. It was gruesome. I hadn't developed a tolerance for coffee yet, and staying awake was a miserable ordeal. I don't know what I was thinking, but at the time I had boundless faith in my own resources and in the good will of the universe.
Fifty miles shy of our destination, around 4 a.m., I woke up. I don't know how long I'd been out or why I awoke. I just know I was driving 90 (yes, 90) miles per hour, my accelerator foot was pressed all the way to the floor, and my car was on the wrong side of the highway. A semi-trailer truck was in the oncoming lane not that far in front of us. No one else was on the road. I pulled the steering wheel hard to the right, we veered into our lane, and the truck passed us by, but the car went out of control. It began swerving sharply back and forth across the road, from side to side, the wheels turning themselves; I couldn't get them to stop. I was barely conscious and terrified at the same time. I couldn't figure out what was happening.
And then a calm, clear, insistent voice from the center of my head said, "Take...your...foot...off...the...gas...pedal."
And I did. And the car slowed down and I could control it again. And all was well. I pulled over to the shoulder then and sat there, adrenaline surging through me, and tried to find my wits. We made it to Chico alive that morning. I'll never forget that voice, even if it was some grownup part of my own self and not a guardian angel or intervening oversoul.
8:53:46 PM 
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