The Burning Truck

A change of route; a change of mind.

The Burning Truck

I didn’t know a thing about the accident, or even if there actually was one. The clock on the wall was indicating the approach of workday’s end, when a co-worker stepped in and advised me that my usual road home was blocked in both directions by a burning tractor-trailer. “Check it out online,” he urged. “The local paper has it up on their website.”

And so it was. A shell of a truck, its blackened cab a mere skeletal remain with smoking debris of a fragmented trailer behind it, blocking the highway. “The road will be closed for several hours,” the short article declared. “Motorists should expect long delays.”

As the decimated truck was positioned in the narrowest segment of the highway between my workplace and my home, I believed it. There is a ravine on one side of the highway and a mountain on the other. It usually takes me forty-five minutes one-way if the roads are clear and dry as they are now, and if traffic moves well. The alternative was a far less-traveled pathway over several steep mountains, connected by many miles of winding secondary roads. When I say “winding” and “secondary,” that hardly covers it. It passes a wildlife sanctuary and a remote state park, and passes right through an even more remote, state park. Then the road becomes treacherous to drivers who don’t know their way around a country switchback, or through the snowbanks and turkey-tracks of horse-and-buggy-land.

Of course I did it. Overall my effort might have been almost a wash, as the trip required two and a half hours to complete; but that was mainly because I wasn’t the only one unwilling to wait until late to set out for home. I had plenty of company, including big trucks, like the one that was blocking the highway in the middle of the better-traveled route.

For the greater part of the trip I felt like I was in a slow-moving caravan. Traffic was moving in both directions so there were no clear passing zones, and of course there’s always an overly-cautious driver who leads such long trains of vehicles. At least we were making progress. Eventually, though, the first real bottleneck appeared up ahead, and we all sat for twenty minutes or more to attempt an entry onto a somewhat better secondary road. You couldn’t see far at the stop sign, and traffic on that road was fast-moving. I opted for the path that I knew would be less-traveled, and I made a right turn to get out of traffic. I then turned left toward yet another mountain, and realized it had worked. For most of the rest of the way home, I was virtually alone. And that’s where this brief story really begins.

It was an overcast evening anyway, and darkness would fall by about the time I reached home. For now, it was waning daylight. I had passed the last country church on the way to Jack’s Mountain and was settling into the much more pleasant drive, negotiating the circuitous route that must have been established centuries ago by wildlife and then riders on horseback, perhaps the occasional buckboard. The pictures in my mind were vivid and clear. I wondered for how long each winter these roads had remained closed before the coming of four-wheel-drive trucks with snowplows. I'm sure that thought set the mood for the last turn in the narrow road before it began to ascend the mountain.

And then, there it was. An ultra-clear view of the Appalachians that seemed to extend forever into the blue-white distance; fold after fold after fold of sculptured planet, the trees on each fold contrasting with the snow before it, the scene topped by even higher mountains nestled immediately behind them, those topped with purest white.

All of my cluttered thoughts tumbled to the stony pavement, scattering along the roadside as my little car slowed to a stop. I glanced at my rear-view mirror. I was still alone.

I sat for a few long moments and gazed at the scene. Then I shifted into low gear and began the ascent, my thoughts, my perspective and my world forever altered, yet again.

The township road is fractured, undulating pavement of the roughest sort, angled slightly toward the guardrails. It’s a wonder snowplows can even clear it. I have seen large trucks on this road, probably the reason it’s that way. Any tree of the thousands that stand along it would close the road if it fell. There is an overlook at the top of the mountain, and long before I reached it, I knew I would stop again.

From the summit of Jack’s Mountain there is a fantastic view of the deep valleys on either side. The height and the distance is always breathtakingly beautiful, but neither view is the equal of the scene I’d beheld before I started up the mountain. In the summer that grandeur wouldn’t be apparent either, not without the contrast of the snow to outline the shapes as they extend into the distance. Words are totally inadequate. Tectonics, compression, elevation, erosion. Upheaval, geology, topology, buckling, anticlines, synclines. Call any of it what you wish. “Majestic” doesn’t cover it, either.

As I stood and gazed over the snow-covered valleys, I considered my good fortune at having come this way on this particular evening. I realized that my everyday thoughts are organized into layers; one handles my bills, my income and my taxes, another, my workload; yet another, the relationships I try to balance, whether at work, with family or with my closest friends. All of my wishes, hopes and dreams are interlaced with all of those things, everything I know or I'm curious about is in there too. There are names, and statutes, and expectations, and conditions, and properties. Materials, energy, craft, and technique. On and on and on. And I wonder, what exactly are the limits to what we can know, or imagine? Or are there limits at all?

And yet.

All of humanity is so small, so insignificant in comparison to this place. This Earth.

I have long believed that humanity will somehow survive all trials, overcome all obstacles and will endure for as long as the universe exists. I hope we will. Tonight, I finally have serious doubt that we can endure as long as the planet on which we live. Despite our mental abilities, we are so frail. We are so emotional. In our arrogance we do stupid things, and we obsess on trivialities. We prioritize money, and comfort, and sex, and drugs. We attack and kill each other to a degree that exceeds the habits of common animals. As a group, we don’t always look out for our elderly, or the weak, and often, not even our children.

The planet is so unimaginably huge. Take a hard look, and try to imagine the relative permanence of the earth. I have to say. If in fact our planet is a mere dust-ball in the cosmos, as I’ve heard it said, it’s one hell of a dust-ball.

And we concern ourselves with so many of the wrong things. It’s not “the way of the world,” it’s the way of people. There’s nothing like a real view of our limited place in this grand world to clear one’s mind, and to press the reset button for one’s priorities. It's as if my maker selected this event to say to me, “Well hey, did you know?”

This morning I learned that the driver of the truck escaped the vehicle before it caught fire. I wouldn’t wish him any worse off because of the fiery event that blocked the highway. I'm sure he isn't happy about it. The pavement where the event occurred was melted and scorched and the highway, I've heard, was closed for twelve hours.

I, on the other hand, was quite fortunate.

***********************