OVERLAND ANGELS

A wise and experienced writer once told me that the emotion of an experience begins to dissipate within 3 minutes from point of impact. So, writing in the moment is key to capturing the essence of the experience.


"Just jump" I said to myself this morning. "In fact, I forbid you to shower ever again until you do it." So I'm here, in my jammies, at 4pm, starting the family blog... now, without rehearsal, no requisite props. "Out, out" with perfection as the aesthetic me cringes, "and jump."


Throw out the 3 minute model...it's been 3 weeks since the kiddies and I loaded the family wagon and headed for the plains of Oregon...without our Pa. And like our pioneer ancestors of old, we had to leave some belongings behind. Tuba paraphernalia, the lever harp...and almost Alex who was still in the bathroom at Omi's.


Lynnie said a prayer for us as we rolled away from the riverbottoms of Provo. The weight of the overstuffed trailer pulled mercilessly at our midsized SUV with the stop and go of Saturday morning traffic. Yoked up for the long haul, it was the transmission I was most mindful of. No, I don't pretend to speak transmission, I just knew we'd replaced it once a year and that was all before we had the hitch installed.


I thanked Lyn for her prayer for safety but felt a little sheepish at no mention of angelic help. I know too much to deny the part they play in God fulfilling his promises to the children of men. So I said a silent prayer of thanks.

As we dropped downhill toward I15, I asked God for overland angels to attend us, if it was all the same to Him. And here was the beginning of something very cool. I felt airspace fill up at my right shoulder and my left. It was very subtle. I smiled and maybe I cried. And the fear went right out of me--fear of mechanical problems all the way to Oregon...even when we clipped over a swell in the freeway that sent everyone's head roofward and our backs against the seats on the afterpull. Yep, we had trailer...and boy did we travel.


Which is why the explosive "boom" from the rear of the trailer 12 hrs later caught me by surprise. Wide awake, I checked my mirrors in time to see tire tread flipping a few feet up in the air behind the trailer. "Hold it, Tom and Dickey Smothers."  Had I just run over a tread on the road...one that escaped my catlike vision? Both trailer tires looked fine and pulled the same as before. No harm, no foul. We were on an incline just 3 miles from Bend city limits with steep sides and nowhere to pull over. So...we kept on going. And so did Smother's Brothers.


Well, it was a pretty happy reunion we had with Pa. For the last 12 months he'd lived away. And now we were a whole family again. Not half family. Whole family. Yo haw buck and Jerry boy...is what I say. And until the trailer was completely unloaded, no one even noticed the back wheel. Floating up that last rise into Bend, a bent fender caught and delaminated the tire down to the metal mesh. Overland angels took one for the team my friends. And thanking heaven with deepest gratitude... is always the best policy.