On cold fall day during a long storm, the leaves blowing across the driveway and cats playfully fought amongst themselves. This was the formula for a near-death experience. My father was working on the rusty, old truck, which had been setting for roughly five years. The truck was needed to carry furniture away from my grandmother’s house because she recently died. Before it was able to start, the truck needed work.

The truck was old and only used to bring large items to our house. My father told me, “It will take more time than I expected because the hood is jammed shut.” It took nearly an hour before he was able to pry the hood up and get started. It started to pour down rain, but he fixed the engine and tested the truck.

Late afternoon during a break from the rain, he finished working and was ready to begin a perilous trek to my grandmother’s house. He shut the hood of the truck, and I remember thinking, “Wow, there is a large gap between the hood and the truck.”

We entered the truck and attempted to start the engine, and my father pumped the gas endlessly until the engine finally started. My father and I left the driveway prepared for the trip in the beat-up scarlet red truck. The trip included many small country roads almost too small for the large, aged truck. Nearly halfway to the house, we entered an extremely thin road with a shallow ditch on the left and a deep ditch on the right. This tiny road could barely fit the truck, leaving only two feet on each side. A small grey Pontiac was following us through this small road. As the truck began to pickup speed to fifty-five, the car began to pass us. My father pulled as close as possible to the right just before the car began to pass. The car, which was inches from the side of the road while passing our vehicle, flew straight into the ditch on the left side of the road. As this happened, the hood of the truck flew up, blocking the windshield and view of the road. I thought that we were going to hit the deep ditch on the right side of the road. I began to brace myself for what I thought would be a brutal and painful experience. Nearly half of the way into the ditch, my father was able to regain control and pull it back onto the road. My father stopped the truck instantly and began using fowl language directed toward the other driver.

The Pontiac driver and we were unharmed along with both of the vehicles. The other driver told us that he was practicing his passing skills and just lost control of the vehicle, but my father was angry with the driver and verbally abused him before he let the driver leave. We began the trip home after a long and perilous journey, which ended without even completing the task we set out to finish.