You Are [Almost Not] Here!

Did you ever wonder how lucky all of us really are to be alive...here...and now...and how, oh so very easily, any of us could have not been here at all?


I was just thinking about my dad who passed about 10 years ago at a very ripe old age. He led a fantastic and amazing life...and left behind a large and accomplished family.

I just remembered an old story dad once told me about when I was a teenager.

His brief story was about how, growing up in rural West Virginia...he and a couple of his friends decided to play hooky from school to go swimming in a local river they had found while hiking. They were all probably about 10 or 12 years old.

Dad got so serious when he was telling me this story.

His two buddies actually left school to go to the swimming hole they found in the river...and dad was ready to go with them, but at the last moment had a bad feeling about it and told them not to go. Dad stayed behind...and they decided to go ahead without him.

His two best friends went...and were found drowned in the river the next day.
Apparently, that area of the river had an extremely dangerous undertow and, though young and strong, the boys never had a chance.

I remember dad telling me that if he had gone with them...he believed he would've died that day too.

Just remembering this old story from long ago...made me think how easily I could never have been born if my dad had not listened to his inner voice way back in the 1940s.

Just sharing.
Anyone else have a similar story to share?

I will never not use such an obvious and appropriate opportunity to promote the MrBallen YouTube channel. He's a former Navy seal who specializes in strange, dark and mysterious (but always true) tales which includes a playlist dedicated to "3 places you should never go and people who did it anyway" aka the Darwin award series. Hours of incredible and unsettling storytelling for anyone who likes background noise.

I cannot recommend strongly enough.

a reply to: IAMTAT

About 15 years ago, when my kids were toddlers, the wife and I took them out to run some errands. We were living in Portland Oregon at the time. I was driving and was stopped at a red light. It was a very hilly area in Southwest Portland. To the point that I had no vision of the traffic coming from either direction.

My light turns green and I let off the brake to accelerate forward. All the sudden a car swiftly makes a right turn onto my street and comes to a complete stop right next to our car. The driver had his window down (as did I) and he yells at me “DON’T GO!!!” He had two other friends in the car with him that just looked at him stunned, like they had no idea what was going on. Within a few seconds after that, an old beat up van comes barreling thru a red light at about 80 MPH in a 40 MPH zone.

I remember looking at my ex-wife and both of us were absolutely bewildered. The van would have broadsided us and obliterated us.

The guy that gave us the warning appeared to be in some sort of trance. All the sudden, you could see him come to consciousness and just drove away like he didn’t even know what just happened.

Here’s the question, how did the driver know the van was going to run the red light?

Angels on our side.

a reply to: KKLOCO

That's an amazing story. Wow.

a reply to: TzarChasm

I used to love him, when he talked about strange and mysterious cases, but then he went the creepy deaths way and didn't deviate from that in a long time, so I stopped watching him.

a reply to: KKLOCO

What a wonderful heartwarming story

My first husband wanted to take a 4 hour trip to see his aunt and uncle; I had a really bad feeling and begged him not to go. He insisted, assuring me he would drive extra carefully. We loaded up the two kids and left, with me in tears.
We made the whole trip without incident and only had a mile or so to drive through town.

He slowed down to less than 15 MPH and every crossroad, even though they all had stop signs, just to appease me. Suddenly we were being forced off the road and into a tree! A guy in a large, black car without his headlights on had plowed right into us. He begged us not to call the police, as he was a teacher- and obviously very drunk. The police estimated he had to have been going at least 70 MPH when he ran the stop sign.

Every so often throughout the years I'll cancel going somewhere, or postpone it for some time due to that 'feeling' I get. There has always been an accident right where I would have been had I not listened to that inner warning. Doesn't mean I would have been in the fray, but it's served to make me even more likely to go with my intuition and error on the side of caution.


P.S. I ALWAYS know if I'm going to get an 'unexpected' flat tire, or have any kind of car trouble, too.

When I was a kid...I was staying over at my best friend's house.
On the wall in his home were a bunch of old family photos.
In one of the frames were a couple of old tickets...with a photo of my friend's grandparents when they were very young.

I asked about them...and my friend said they were tickets for the TITANIC (which they were).

He said his grandparents were all set to take their honeymoon on it's maiden voyage (wealthy family)...but had a conflict and had to cancel at the last moment.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Did you ever wonder how lucky all of us really are to be alive...here...and now...and how, oh so very easily, any of us could have not been here at all?

Had this exact conversation with my husband this weekend.

On my moms side there was starvation, war, out of 5 daughters, 3 survived.
On my dads side, he had an accident as an infant yet survived, and accident a child and survived,
And also faced near starvation.

All of us that are here, are meant to be here. When you think about it, our ancestors were bad azz.

a reply to: IAMTAT
I was born (or at least I was born as "me") because my father fell into a dock while on night sentry duty.

Barry, south Wales. This was early in the war, so of course a full blackout was in force. One moment he was doing whatever sentries do, pacing or patrolling or something. The next moment he was lying in a hospital bed. He had been found in the (presumably dry) dock the next morning, so he must have tripped. The concussion naturally deleted his memory for the minutes preceding the event.

There was no lasting physical damage. The real significance of the fall was that it caused him to switch units. His original unit had moved on by the time he got out of hospital, and it was simplest just to transfer him to the replacement unit. It was as part of the new unit that he moved around the country for the rest of the war. It was as part of the new unit that he moved to the area that he met my mother. He always regarded that fall as a key event in his life. And, indeed, in mine.

It's happened a few times but the time it stuck with me most was when I was in my early twenties, staggering home drunk in the middle of the night. A car drove slowly alongside with the driver simultaneously leaning into his empty passenger side to wind down the window to speak.

All he said was "get in, there's someone following you" Normally, I'd be suspicious but I got in without a second thought. He said he'd watched another car slowly follow me for a few blocks. He gave me a quick lecture, asked where I needed to go and dropped me off there.

It was so strange.

I have a similar story my father skipped school to go fishing with his friends on the river while in high school. My story is a little different because my dad actually went with his 5 other friends. They were all drinking have a great time until the boat flipped from their fooling around. My dad was the only survivor.

Life is fickle, enjoy the present times, smell the roses but keep your head on a swivel.


a reply to: IAMTAT

I had near fatal accidents a few times, but always came out ok, or barely bruised.

But, I think the closest I came to never be was when my dad was 15.
He was a lumberjack, and one winter day, after work, he was going back home, walking on the snow in the forest and he went through and slashed open his scrotum on the pointy remains of a tree hidden under the snow.

He had to walk a mile to get help, holding my exposed future in his hands.

I had just finishing piecing together a 67 Lemans Sprint OHC 6.
Turned it into a GTO, a lot of work to iron out various kinks.
The front springs were among the last thing to be switched out.
Without heavier springs the car would bob wildly, no matter how
slowly you drove. It had a 455 bored over with 9.5 to 1 heads,
factory headers, his her shifter, and most importantly, no tunes.
I had learned to live without music pretty much during the noise rock
infestation of the late 80's, when any $hithead who had licked balls
of the Ramones, once finished with their prepaid Ivy League University stint,
could impress crowds with their dissonant amplified edgelord act. The music
was atrocious but who cared. Certainly not the person gaining microceleb status
and sitting on ten millions, which was the game plan all along. Ruination of culture
was just a fringe benefit, a perk, to the tone deaf leader of the pack.
Eventually these performers learned that money is not enough.
The new thing is to embrace nwo agendas, become a young global leader
before it's too late, and adjust their tack to follow in the wake of U2, Hanks,
big names in the bizz. Be like Taylor, be like fashion icons. You say it, I will play it,
like a whore. To pay tribute on social feeds
whenever anyone in the band has a birthday, oozing how sweet
this or that man really is. They are so sweet, all of them, dear friends and young global leaders.
Happy birthday sweet Edge. Happy birthday dear Bono. See you at the needle's eye.
As much as I once loved music,
I now hate it; this severance did save more than my life.

The vehicle looked nice, was a lot of fun to cruise around in, but horrible at handling,
since the frame was pretty weak, even when new. Having twenty years
of Illinois rust on it's undercarriage didn't improve things. New tires, shocks, springs
and a fresh alignment didn't make it a much better. The gear ratio would
allow a top end of about 150, but it was equipped with manual power drums
all around. Eventually I realized the car would kill me if only by way of the floor
dumping out. But the drivetrain was bulletproof, and the only thing this car
excelled at was getting in the passing lane and dumping it into second at 65.
You would see 100 in just a few seconds, the hood twisting diagonally with the driveshaft
counterweight scudding loudly against the floor with each small depression
in the road. Smooth as silk, it begged you to find flatland roads and just jam gears.
Never a hitch with anything, always started, pulled a steady 19.5 inches of vacuum with a short duration,
high rise HO industries cam. The last thing I did after break in, and before seeking redline range, was to install
BBC screw in studs and roller rockers, because the abruptness of the cam
snapped the stock studs on a regular basis during torgue demand test runs.
The motor was sold to a guy with a red firebird. I never saw the car...but at times
I have dreams of it. I am sitting in his car and listening to the motor. I had
told him if the motor is not what I said it is,
just come back and kill me. That seemed to satisfy him, cinching the sale.
I raced to get my Fenders out of hock, but the coke addict had sent them to Germany...
after which time I was still paying on them. Clever guy.

One night I was on a Wisconsin two lane blacktop, behind a semi, heading north.
Traffic was light, and for no perceptible reason the semi leaned on his brakes,
eventually slowing to a meditative crawl. As I came close to the tralier,
I reached for the shifter...

For some reason I did not get in the passing lane. Seconds later a car flew past
going the wrong way, a pretty common thing along these roads due to the roadhouses
catering to the 18 year old set and the skeletal signage dotting these dark entrances.

But I did not know this at the time, narrowly averting disaster, just as I didn't
know about the same sex (not that there's anything wrong with that)
kidnapping ring that ran wild
in the 70's, while fleeing from a guy in a green 65 ish Olds Starfire or Special,
on my first visit to Park Ridge.
He took his foot off the gas, leaving this hollow purposeless sound and then pulled a U
and came right for me. I know I have posted this story already. I was 10, looking at a garter snake
which was dead and dried alongside the eastbound lanes, in the curb. I always liked the special curbs
Park Ridge has. They look like a calculus symbol, the derivative. It was one of the first things I loved about the town.
When I watch cement
workers replacing the broken segments, I am twinged with nostalgia seeing the men
match the contours, expertly. The shape allowed one to merge on and off roads on your bike without a jolt,
but now they are being swallowed up with layers of roadwork. I hope they remain, even as the city
becomes a painful and crumbling memory.


All that remains of the car is the small bolt D shaped clamp from the rear end, delicate
and marvelous that it held all that torque without distorting after hundreds of power shifts.
It is so small, refined, would make a nice necklace pendant.
That, and the driver side mirror which I snatched off a 69 Lemans I happened upon
along Milwaukee Avenue, neatly tucked in a parking spot upside down and crushed
front to rear, where a pot store now resides, near Superdawg.
The mirror was an exact replacement
for the one on the 67, which was cracked, so I could not resist pilfering it, and everything
I could off that smashed wreck. Probably persons died that night. I had to throw some beans to
the creatures which emerged from the woods across the street since they knew what I was up to,
while removing the Grant mini custom steering wheel and some tires. A real monster, it must have been
doing a hundred before piling into things.

These days I wander along this path on a POS Huffy, which the police allowed me retain possession of.
Never in my wildest nightmares did I think I'd pedal a Huffy. Spokes break, rims wobble, I take what I need from the gutter.
But some things never change. Along the curb you still see entire families of raccoons who had tried to
congress traffic to the other side....flattened amongst the beer or water bottles, Superdawg cartons, and mostly spent vape carts.

Night moves.

# 1547

I was launched into a brutal swimming race once.
The competition was fierce.
Almost 250 million contestants were in the race.
I managed to overpower and out think the entire field and cross the finish line first.
You guys should've seen it.

originally posted by: Mandroid7
I was launched into a brutal swimming race once.
The competition was fierce.
Almost 250 million contestants were in the race.
I managed to overpower and out think the entire field and cross the finish line first.
You guys should've seen it.

So did you end up with egg on your face?

originally posted by: coamanach
I had near fatal accidents a few times, but always came out ok, or barely bruised.

Isn't it strange that this type of stuff can keep happening to people over and over?

My mom survived being one of the first ever RH negative blood tranfusions as a baby, then survived near drowning. One brother fell into a manhole in Nairobi and got swept away by the sewage only to be rescued by the friend he was with, who had the foresight to run to the next manhole and actually find the cover missing, he reached down and my brother grabbed his hand. My other brother totaled his motorcycle with only bruises then developed a mild fear of riding. His friend loaned him a bike to get over it and he went off the road going down the mountain. Totaled that bike too, with just bruises. My parents rolled their jeep three times going down the highway when the tie rod broke. Bruises and cuts. I've survived a couple drug overdoses. My son survived a car accident that left not much of the car with a concussion and mild misalignment of his back.

Yet my great aunt got conned into opening her store after hours and was stabbed over a hundred times and died.

Some people seem meant to live, some aren't. Regardless, I always listen to the inner voice that will tell me not to go to town, or sometimes the feeling will lift an hour later and I'm left wondering what would have happened if I'd gone at the original time.

originally posted by: igloo
Isn't it strange that this type of stuff can keep happening to people over and over?

I have been contemplating that thought for so long, lol. Being a man who has always had faith, I say God was watching over me when I got those accidents.
People say He should have prevented them, but I think lessening them is a good bargain. And it gives incredible stories to tell at times.

Also, it allows you to take a good measure of what is important in life, and not to take it for granted. Even during bad days, I still appreciate what I have and where I am in life.
I rarely get down and when it happens, it lasts a good 5 minutes then I retake control.

I love life.

a reply to: JAGStorm

When you think about it, our ancestors were bad azz.

Which are just us reincarnated. In a more woosified version.

Don’t worry, the true badasses will show up - IN THIS LIFE!

originally posted by: coamanach

originally posted by: igloo
Isn't it strange that this type of stuff can keep happening to people over and over?

I have been contemplating that thought for so long, lol. Being a man who has always had faith, I say God was watching over me when I got those accidents.
People say He should have prevented them, but I think lessening them is a good bargain. And it gives incredible stories to tell at times.

Also, it allows you to take a good measure of what is important in life, and not to take it for granted. Even during bad days, I still appreciate what I have and where I am in life.
I rarely get down and when it happens, it lasts a good 5 minutes then I retake control.

I love life.

I know what you mean. I'm not religious in any formal sense but I do believe I'm supposed to survive. My family has become pretty religious after all this too.

The balance is as you say... the lessened accident lessons are a good bargain and to my mind sets us on the right track. The fact it happens over and over for some is like a parent putting the child back on the bike to try and learn again... done with love.