An early morning dental appointment — following a night of freezing temperatures after days of rain — required extra careful driving today on my way out of the Village (especially our famous S-curve!) and on the way into town.
It also brought to mind a memory from my brief relocation to Ashland, Oregon in the mid-90’s.
A lifelong resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I was not accustomed to winters with regular ice and snow. I also had an slightly decrepit Dodge Colt that leaked when it rained and whose windshield defroster didn’t work very well.
After months looking for work, I was hired for a temp job at an Imation plant a good thirty minute drive from my home in Ashland. It was past Medford in a town called White City. I usually worked from mid-morning into the afternoon, but a co-worker asked me to switch with her, which meant being there at 6:00am.
Being somewhere that early was already a challenge, but what made it super crazy is that the weather turned really cold and the news reports were full of warnings about black ice — something I had never seen, didn’t know how to recognize, and wouldn’t know what to do if I encountered it!
I was already pretty well terrified before leaving the house. To make matters worse, it was pitch black outside and the lack of a defroster meant that I couldn’t see through the windshield very well at all. So, I had my window rolled down and would stick my head out periodically to make sure I was staying on the road. I was also driving slow because of my worry about black ice.
Needless to say, I was not popular with other drivers on the freeway and I was a wreck by the time I got to work. But I did get there safely.
Remembering that experience put this morning’s town trip in perspective; after all, now I have a solid, dependable car with a working defroster and it was bright daylight. But I was still cautious and very grateful to arrive safely.