Wrecked

Dear everyone,

We be a little shaken up right now, not our usual up and at ‘em selves.
Yesterday noon we were in an auto accident, the little red car is
totaled (with 2 payments left), Dave spent the night in the hospital
with a concussion, Jason flew from east North Carolina to help us and
had a very stressful time due to PGA tourney and NASCAR race in
Charlotte. I’m so sore every move is a groan, and the phone won’t quit
ringing with insurance agents. wuh. Other than that, we’re okay and so
incredibly lucky we are humbled.

We were driving down Hwy 11 between Chesnee and Gaffney, South
Carolina, saw a restaurant we wanted to stop at and slowed down, but
couldn’t pull in because there were cars coming out of the parking lot
on our right. So Dave hit his blinkers for a left turn, we both turned
around and looked behind us because we knew there was a line of cars
behind us, but there was no one coming in the passing lane, and the
oncoming lane was clear, so we turned left to go into a side street and
turn around and go back to the restaurant. A second later everything
exploded. It was just awful. According to a woman who was sitting in
the parking lot ready to leave, and the guy in the car behind us, a
fellow in a 1999 Chevy Suburban had passed five or six cars behind us
at a high rate of speed, and was going to pass us but saw us signal,
so he tried to pull in behind the car behind us and he couldn’t slow
down, was going to rear-end the guy behind us, so he elected to pull
back out into the oncoming lane of traffic and stepped on the gas,
trying to go around us before we completed our turn. He didn’t make it,
but hit us in the left front tire. One second more and he would have
hit the driver’s door and Davey.

It tied up traffic for half an hour and seemed like forever before the
state trooper and the ambulance arrived, but the lady in the parking
lot and the man behind us stayed and gave their statements. The trooper
told me the other guy was totally at fault and today he apparently
accepted full liability.

I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with Dave at first, although
I should have. It took us a long time to get out of the car, and he
wouldn’t talk to me. He was awake and moving okay but had a real flat
affect. The first person to reach us was Teresa, a skinny little black
woman who smoked a cigarello, wore ten or twelve rings and stuck her
hand through the window, flapping it and yelling, “CA’M DONE, JES CA’M
DONE, AH UST TA BE A PO-LEECEMENN’S WIFE, AH KIN HEP!! CA’M DONE!”
Funny the things you notice during a time of trauma. At various times
until the ambulance took us away, I could feel Teresa’s little wirey
arms around me, and hear her, “God done talk to you, girl, you jus’
lissen up, you hear?” Lord knows, I heard. When we left, Teresa hugged
me and said, “Lord, honey, I don’t even know who you are, but I love
you, and Jeesuss loves you! Now you go on and finish you journey!”

Waiting for the ambulance we were sitting on the side of the road and
Dave asked me, what happeded? We were in an accident, I said. Did we
hit somebody? Somebody hit us. Where did he hit us? In the left front
tire. … Sixty second pause and then it was What happed? Did we hit
somebody? Where…? He repeated this sequence of questions for nearly
three hours, just like he hadn’t ever asked them before. He still
doesn€™t have any memory between seeing the restaurant and “waking up”
in x-ray. They did a CT scan and he doesn’t have any swelling or
bleeding in his brain, his neck is okay, the head wound didn’t require
stitches. For a long time he also couldn’t remember what happened in
the previous half hour, but that’s better now. They admitted him and
did an EKG and did the blood enzyme tests to make sure he hadn’t had a
heart attack during or before the accident. I told them if they could
just do a prostate exam he wouldn’t have to have a physical this
summer.

Jason and Kevin were lifesavers. Jason helped us with a rental car and
driving me in the dark and getting our stuff out of the little red car.
Jason couldn’t have gotten here without Kevin helping get him car
reservations on line. Our friend Karen at Sunrise Travel in Eugene,
Oregon got him tickets without having to pay $500 to fly 350 miles.
Sunrise Travel – it works for us no matter where we are or where we’re
going.

So now we’re back in our little bus-house, watching a big storm that
has come in. Just rain and wind, no big bad things. It feels like a
little wrist-flick of life, parked on a hill in the midst of
communities named Suck Creek, Sandy Mush, Hicks Grove, Fingerville and
Apple Tuck. We made pizza and are watching an old Goldie Hawn-Mel
Gibson movie and listening to the thunder with the door open. This is
very beautiful country , three miles into North Carolina, north of
Spartenburg, S.C. In the shadow of the Smokies, they call this area a
thermal belt, the weather is so mild. This park is a very hard sell;
folks around here don’t know there is an RV park here and actually
aren’t sure what “a Ar-Vee is.” But after we take a couple of days off
to tend to our bruises we’ll get right back after it. I figure I have
to make 100 calls before I talk about giving up. The park owners feel
terrible about our accident and say we can stay as long as we want.

We’re counting our blessings, more than usual, and you’re all on the
list!

Love,