ONE U-TURN A COLLISION AND AN ICE-CREAM CONE

Today is December 18, 2013. 

I'm reading REFLECTIONS ON THE CIVIL WAR by Bruce Catton, and thought the following sentence from this book fit what I wrote below in a letter that I posted in 2007: 

"The human trajectory is eternally incalculable, beginning in deepest mystery and going blind to a fate no one can predict." 

*
 

I had just left work and wanted to buy a vanilla ice-cream cone.

I could have done otherwise, but I didn't.

I turned right from Dyer Street onto Honda Pass.

I was only a few hundred yards from getting my ice-cream cone.

Then, suddenly, a white car started turning left without any signal.

I also swerved left and accelerated forward to get ahead of the car's path.

I thought that I had succeeded in avoiding a collision when...

CRASH!

Some unprintable swear words came out of me.

Then I looked in my rear view mirror to make sure that the white car's driver was not "running away".

He wasn't.

We both pulled into a parking lot.

I took a look at the damage from the collision.

The door on the passenger side was smashed in, but I could still open the door and close it.

I said to the other driver, "I tried like hell to miss you, but you just kept on coming."

The driver produced his driver's license, and I fished out my insurance card.

I said to the driver, "You’ll admit that this was your fault?”

He said, "Well, I don’t want to say that."

"But you will admit that you turned in front of me?”

"Yes, I was making a U-Turn."

I wrote down his name, address and phone number.

I left this scene and drove about one block to get my ice cream cone.

I wouldn’t be thwarted by Fate.

As I am driving I often ponder what ifs.

What if I went this way instead of another?

I believe there is something true about intuition and gut instincts.

For example, before I decided to get my ice-cream cone I again thought about the consequences.

Maybe something bad will happen.

Should I go this way?

Bingo!

Something bad did happen.

None of us can stop living or doing what we do based only on what ifs.

Maybe you don't think about what ifs as much as I do.

It's probably better for your health.

I remember a short story in which an all-powerful computer was "killed" when it was asked to define fate.

Maybe I should stop trying to escape or define my own fate.

Just let it flow.

S*** does happen.

IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!