Black Ice, Truck on My Tail, Road My Ancestors Walked

I pushed on through the mountains, the Chevy Lumina taking the curves with surprising accuracy. Snow lay along the roads as I watched for black ice on the interstate.

I had hit black ice before, when I was about 20. I exited Atlanta’s I-285 at Doraville, heading home from a concert in Marietta. About 20 feet onto the circular ramp, the car spun out of control. Using what I had learned in driver’s ed a few years earlier, I did not fight it. I turned into the spin and prayed until the car came to rest, facing oncoming traffic.

I was blessed that it was about 2 a.m. and no one was exiting behind me. I let the car slip backward off the ice, turned around, and drove on, feeling as if I had just walked out of the scariest scene in a horror film.
Now, crossing that same kind of country, I thought of my ancestors making their way west through these mountains without the advantages of modern travel. I am sure my heart pounded much as theirs did when a bear came close, or when they tried to avoid a hunting party in the woods. Time and technology do not change the basics of the human condition. We still face fears, some imagined, some real.

Then I looked in the rearview mirror. Headlights seemed to be on top of me. My heart raced as Jim and Jesse’s “Diesel on My Tail,” a song I once recorded, began to feel like prophecy. I hugged the curves, trying to stay ahead, but I was not going fast enough in the dark, icy conditions to suit the trucker.

I moved into the other lane, even though the ice looked worse there. In the mirror, no matter where I went, the truck stayed behind me. Maybe it was only the turning roads. I kept pushing, hoping to reach the flatlands.
Finally, as we cleared the Appalachians, the truck passed and sped off into the night.

I continued home from North Carolina, more relaxed now that the ice was behind me. My greatest concern was keeping my mind occupied and my eyes open.

What makes such moments worthwhile is that they remind us the world is beautiful and filled with God’s creations, and that we can still find ourselves with a racing heart and a mind given over to fear. How we react, knowing God is with us in everything, shows whether we can keep walking the path our ancestors walked: one step at a time, into the unknown.

Read more of Randall’s writings in his books available in the Store.