The trip from my hometown to my late grandparents farm is a 20 minute drive on a country, two-lane road, past farm land, woods, and single or small groups of houses. My grandparents died many years ago, but now my dad and his wife live out in that area of the county (though not on the old farm, which is still in the family).

Their house is in a new subdivision, in the middle of nowhere, building up in what used to be farm land and sand pits. It’s a really nice looking area, and all the homes are twice as big as what you could get for that money in my current town. So I still get to drive out on that old country road when I visit my dad.

There’s a strange structure you can see off in the distance at one point along the route. It’s a landmark that has intrigued me for 40 years. I’ve always thought it looked like a white Mercury space capsule sitting on top of a squat building.

For 40 years I’ve only seen it in the distance — about a mile away off the road we travel. My dad had long ago told me it had something to do with the nearby regional airport — a weather station or something. But it’s real purpose never figured in my imaginings about it. It was always an enigma in the middle of the farm land.

A few months ago I finally decided to actually go to it, see it up close. There’s another road that leaves the one that goes to the farm, and my dad told me that it goes right by that structure. On our way out to visit my dad, I took the family on that detour to view this strange structure that has given me wonder for all my life.

It’s no less strange or intriguing when seen up close. It looks pretty much exactly as it does from a distance. Only the T-shaped things around the roof can’t be seen from the main road. It still looks like a Mercury space capsule on a squat building.

As curious as I was (for 40 years), I was sort of afraid that seeing this thing up close would spoil my imaginings about it. But seeing doesn’t spoil anything. I’m actually even more curious about it — what’s inside? In my mind’s eye, I picture old computers with tape reels and banks of flashing lights.

Maybe in another 40 years I’ll find a way to see the inside. Until then, I’ll keep loving how it makes me wonder.

Bullgrit

1985. My step-sister and I were on our way to the restaurant where we worked after school and on the weekends. We were in a little orange, 1982, hatch-back, Honda Civic. I was driving, and sister was in the passenger seat.

We left our neighborhood outside the town limits, and was cruising down the two-lane highway towards town. This road crosses a railroad track, and at this time the lights were flashing to warn of an approaching train. There was no signal arm to block the road, but as a smart and cautious teenage driver, I stopped at the crossing.

A short line of cars were stopped on the other side of the tracks; workers coming home after 5:00 p.m. No train was to be seen in either direction — and in this flat, open farmland terrain, we could see a couple miles or more. But there was a strange screeching and air horn sound coming from behind us. I looked into the rearview mirror just in time to see the big yellow front grill of an 18-wheeler.

WHAM! The truck slammed into us from behind, shooting us across the railroad tracks. It hit us at such an angle that we were flying right to the line of cars on the other side of the tracks, but in total instinct, I managed to wheel us to the right and away from another collision.

My feet had come off the brake and clutch, and we had enough momentum that I steered us off the road and into a business parking lot on our right. When we came to a full stop, my sister and I just looked at each other. “Are you alright?” we both asked. “I don’t know,” we both answered.

We got out of the car. The rear was completely crushed in such that had anyone been sitting in the back seat, they would surely be dead. Then we saw the 18-wheeled truck that hit us. It was jack-knifed up at the signal lights.

The truck driver was rushing over to us, and people were coming out of the business. “Holy crap,” I think I said. Comparing the huge size of that truck to the little size of our little putter, how did we survive that hit? How were we not even apparently hurt?

My sister went into the business to use their phone. (We didn’t have cell phones in those days.) I stood out by the car shaking as the adrenaline rush started wearing off. People were talking about the accident — what they heard, what they saw, how lucky everyone was.

Turns out the truck driver had already been down this road that day, and he knew the train signal lights were malfunctioning — had been signaling all day — and he just didn’t notice that our little car was stopped there until he was too close. He slammed on his breaks, and his trailer started to jack-knife, and that kept him from hitting us at full speed.

As I mentioned, it was after 5:00 in the evening, and the road was full of folks heading home from work. My mom was among those travelers. She came down the road and got caught in the long line of traffic waiting to slowly get around the scene. And then she saw our car, smashed all to hell, in the parking lot. When she pulled into the lot, she could see her son standing there, but she didn’t her step-daughter.

I don’t remember seeing Mom pull into the lot. I don’t remember much of anything more than a minute after getting out of the car and before being in the hospital emergency room. I think the shock and adrenaline rush overwhelmed my memory cells.

At the hospital, the emergency doctor gave both of us a look over. I had a knot on my head, and my sister had a sore neck, but we had no visible wounds or injury. The staff took some x-rays, but nothing showed up. My sister got a neck brace, but I don’t think she wore it 24 hours.

We were the talk of the area for a few days, as many people on their way home that evening saw our wrecked car and the jack-knifed truck. People were surprised then, and I am still a bit surprised today that we weren’t seriously injured in that collision. I mean, that truck outweighed us by a few tons, and shot us directly towards other vehicles.

I like to think it was my quick thinking that saved us, and others, from a second, head-on collision. But that would mean I’d have to say with a straight face that I did something other than think, “Oh shit!” and react purely on instinct. At least I didn’t mess my pants. That’s really the only heroic thing I can claim in that incident.

Bullgrit

In the summer of 1981, I was 13-14 years old, my brother was 9 years old.

Our home during my middle and high school years sat on the back edge of a neighborhood outside the town limits. Surrounding the neighborhood was woods and farm land, and a few barns of varied structural integrity. One of the cool things, for kids, about living in tobacco country during that time was the ubiquitousness of tobacco sticks.

Find a barn, even an old, currently unused barn, and you would find at least a dozen forgotten inch-square sticks about four-feet long. One barn on the edge of our neighborhood was a mother lode for these sticks, with probably a couple hundred stored in bundles of a dozen or so. Tobacco sticks were perfect for imaginary swords.

At the time of this story, I and a friend had “gathered” a couple of bundles from that particular old barn. We had 20-30 swords ready to go in my backyard. For days we had major sword fights among all us kids. When a stick broke in mid battle, you had to run as fast as you could to the reserve pile, while your opponent chased you with his sword raised above his head, trying to strike you down while unarmed.

We were having one such battle in and around the tree house in the woods behind our home. It was me and my little brother (on the ground) against my psycho friend (up in the tree house). We were trying to storm the castle while he was trying to keep us at bay. It was all good fun until . . .

My little brother gave a short cry of pain. I stopped my assault on the tree house to see what had happened. Brogrit was standing on the other side of the fort holding his head, at his front hairline. His stick sword was lying on the ground where he had dropped it.

He was calm but had obviously gotten hurt. We called “time” on the fight, and I walked over to check on him. I think he said, “Ow,” but he didn’t seem anything more than just momentarily stunned. Then I saw the blood trickle down from under his hand. He took his hand away from his head, held it in front of him and looked at it.

“AAYYYEEE!” he screamed, at seeing his blood-covered hand. There was a lot of blood running down his face from his hairline. “Oh crap!” I said.

The battle, of course, came to a complete end as I got my little brother around the house to the front porch. It was a weekday afternoon and our mother and step-dad were both at work. I ran in the house to call Mom.

I don’t remember the details of the phone conversation, but I do remember our mom’s car coming racing up the neighborhood street before I could hang up. OK, maybe I was woozy from seeing the river of blood pouring from my little brother’s head, and I lost track of time. It might actually have taken Mom a whole 30 seconds to drive the normal 15-minute distance. Either way, she got there PDQ.

In my shock, I don’t remember anything right after that. I think I went to my room and laid down. Mom took her 9-year-old boy to the hospital where he got some stitches in his head. (Mom or brogrit will have to fill in those details, if they wish, in the comments below.)

The next day, Mom made us take all the tobacco sticks away — even the broken ones; especially the broken ones. We weren’t allowed to have those things in the yard anymore. So ended the glorious summer of the Knights of the Tree House.

Bullgrit

When I was around 12-14 years old, I had a “friend” who was a pure psycho. Notice I put the word in quotation marks — I actually considered him a friend for about a year, and he considered me a friend for two or three years.

At first, we had fun together. He lived in my neighborhood, and we played some Star Wars action figures together, and played Atari together. He also introduced me to two of my favorite games: RISK and Dungeons & Dragons.

In RISK, he would always put a token on the corner of the game board and say it was his nuclear bomb. If I started winning the game, he’d “set it off” by hitting the corner and overturning the whole board, throwing pieces and cards all over the room. I could never win a game of RISK against him, and I gave up playing with him after about half a dozen tries.

In D&D, he was a power-mad Dungeon Master. If you aren’t familiar with D&D, I can’t describe the type to you. If you are familiar with D&D (or any role playing game), you probably already know the type.

Fortunately, I stopped playing either game with him, and I found other gamers with more self control and respect for others. The last time I ever went into his house alone, or really had any personal, solo contact with him, he chased me around his kitchen table with a butcher knife.

Yep, that’s right, my “friend” chased me with a big knife. Even at the time, I didn’t think he was really trying to cut me, but I did feel that if I didn’t show enough fear, and try to run from him, he probably would have hurt me just to get the reaction he wanted. He wanted me afraid of him right then, for reasons I couldn’t and can’t fathom. (Out of young stupidity, I didn’t tell my mom about that incident until about 20 years later.)

For the next couple of years, he spoke of me as a friend even though I really didn’t have much to do with him on a personal level. I had new and better and non-psycho friends with whom to hang out, talk about girls, and play games with (not necessarily in that order).

A few years later, a couple of my then friends met this old friend (two separate and unrelated encounters), and they related how they thought he was very strange. I graduated high school with this guy, and then he went into the navy. I can only hope the military discipline straightened him out, or maybe he’s sitting on death row somewhere.

Bullgrit