Tuesday, June 20, 2017

1973 Renault Gordini

Random story from my past....

So in my unpacking of boxes, I ran across some old pictures.  When I was in seminary, I bought a
really cool sports car from Lacy Weatherholt's dad, it was a 73 Renault Gordini.  Oh I loved that car.  It had fuel injection, and it would fly.

During Advent, our youth group was wrapping presents in the Walmart lobby for extra money.  [I doubt Walmart would allow that today.]  I had to run to the bank to get some change.  It had snowed the night before.  It had been years since I had driven in snow and no one in Tulsa, Oklahoma sees much snow.

On the way back from the bank I was heading up to the stop sign on Memorial Drive.  I hit the brakes.... nothing happened.  I was sliding.  I saw immediately that I was going to end up out in the middle of this main artery of traffic.  I said to myself, nothing will be coming, I will slide right through.

Sometimes our intuitions are right, and sometimes they are wrong.

As I slid into the intersection, a tractor trailer was coming.  The front end of the Renault slid under the trailer and the back wheels of the trailer hit the driver's side door.  The impact spun my car out from under the trailer.  I came to a stop on the side of the road.

The first one to the car was a friend of mine, John, who  was gassing up across the street.  They called an ambulance.

Overnight in the hospital, broken ribs- no worse for the wear.

As a side not, during my recovery, my friends loved to tell me jokes and try to get me to laugh so my ribs would hurt.  Then I would groan and they would laugh all the more.  I have always had great friends.

Maybe I should have, but I never really thought of this incident as "oh, I could have died."  Mostly I have looked back on this incident and thought about how I love cars too much.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.




3 comments:

Unknown said...

That is truly a "guy thing" I would remember I could have died just then

Unknown said...

I enjoyed your car story. I was amused one day to find a list of the top 10 ugliest cars, according to Motor Trend Magazine. I had owned 3 of them: 1971 AMC Gremlin, 1975 AMC Pacer, 1982 Renault Le Car. Yours could have been on that list. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Anonymous said...

Thankful for your guardian angel in that moment.