The Real Story

Alright, it's time to write this down, because I'm a Whiting, so the story has definitely gotten better with the retelling. So I'm ready to set the record straight.

October 1984

Isuzu I-Mark Coupe

It was a dark and stormy night...no really it was. My friend, Julie, who lived up the canyon, and I were on our way home from a church basketball game at the E 1/2 Rd chapel. I can neither confirm nor deny that we may have been gossiping about a certain girl cousin of mine who can still irritate the hell out of me. The road was really slick from the cold rain and I didn't exactly drive the speed limit. (I still don't drive the speed limit on that road) Just as we crested what is known as the whale's head, a little bump of a hill with about a 30 degree turn on the down side, a giant raccoon ran right in front of me.  Now, before I get you all lecturing me about never swerving to avoid an animal, I want to assure you that this was neither my first nor my last animal that I have mowed down.  I have never had a wreck resulting from swerving and I never plan to.

Anyway, I hit that ginormous raccoon straight on, the little sucker bent the tie rod on the drivers side causing the car to swerve sharply to the left. I tried to correct against the slide but the car did 180 and rested for about a millisecond once it hit the the gravel. Ever so slowly the car flipped on it's top and slid down into the barrow ditch on the north side of the road. Right up to the point that the windshield broke I was pretty sure I could get my cousins to help me flip the car and my parents would never know.

Julie thought I was dead, but we actually both walked away with only a couple scratches and bruising. Considering I wasn't even sure there were seat belts in that car, someone had to be watching over us.

We walked home about 3/4 of a mile in the rain, and I think I must have been in shock because I was really worried that someone might attempt to steal my basketball and Footloose tape out of the car before we could get back.

Of course my parents were on their way back home from moving my sister up from Arizona, and it was the days way before cell phones so there was no way to let them know. We watched for the highway patrol to show from window, but before the patrol man could show up we saw the bright lights of my Dad's pickup and those pretty lights from his horse trailer he was using, especially as the brake lights lit that red trailer up. My sister Laura and I jumped in her car and tried to get up to my parents before they thought I was dead too. Fortunately a truck and 4 horse trailer don't exactly stop on a dime. My Dad was walking back up to the accident site when we got there, it was very dark and very late, how in the world my Dad's eagle eyes spotted that car upside down in a ditch I will never know.

Despite this picture, I can assure you that this raccoon was huge.

So know you know the whole story, I'm pretty sure that there were plenty of ministering angels watching over two teenagers that night, and maybe a few since then.