“RE: Something to Prove”

For my 11th birthday I received a new bike and promptly managed to almost kill myself on it. It was just a cheap BMX-style bike but the great thing is I lived in a very rural area so we could really ride our bikes even as young kids without having to worry about cars too much, which was what caused my accident -- because I wasn't used to cars driving back in the middle of nowhere, I wasn't very cautious.

Anyway, I'm tooling along and I saw something on the left side of the road. I'm in the middle of nowhere with no cars around for miles so I switch lanes to pull over and check it out. The next thing I know I am airborne and I can hear my new bike being crunched like a potato chip. I'm doing my Superman imitation for what seems like forever but couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 seconds and I'm wondering what the heck just happened.

What just happened was a Cadillac, which I swear must have had the quietest running engine on the planet because I never heard it come up behind me, decided to pass me just at the moment I switched lanes and it gave me a huge nudge.

I was, fortunately, unhurt but very narrowly. I landed precisely on a 3-4 foot section off the side of the road that was the only place that wouldn't have resulted in severe injury or death (where I feel was so covered in weeds, etc., it felt like being dropped onto a matress from 15 feet or so).. Three feet to the right and I hit the pavement very uncomfortably. Five or six feet more to the left is a 60-70 foot drop into an enormous gravel pit.

As it was, the old lady who hit me got the worst of it because she was badly shaken up, and apparently felt guilty about the whole thing for many months afterward even though everything about the accident was completely my fault.

It took about 3 or 4 months before I'd get back on a bicycle.