A bunch of us were sitting around the fire at Snowbird, in the mountains of North Carolina, talking, when Brother Dave walked up, stopped about 20 yards away, and just looked at me. He didn’t say anything. But I noticed that his shirt was torn and he was bleeding a little.
Those were clues: In a flash I knew something had happened to my four-wheeler, which he was no longer riding.
Turns out it was in a creek a mile, mile and a half from our cabin, broken up a little, but nothing Dave couldn’t, and didn’t, fix.
He had been coming back up the hill from Little Snowbird Creek, going, shall we just say, too fast. He had my Polaris running nearly wide open. And then the road curved and he couldn’t.
The ATV went airborne, over a 10 or 12-foot embankment, though a mess of rhododendron, landing on its nose in Juanite Creek. After getting a look at the situation I think the rhododendron may have saved my brother’s life, scraping him off the Polaris before it came to a sudden stop below.
Hopefully, this won’t happen again. Dave is older now, wiser. He has much better judgment.
He was only 71 then.
Coming Friday: “Are You Boys Armed?”