DON OAKES - DRIVING

Then Harris let out a strangled noise from his throat in what was less a scream than a gurgle, bracing for imminent death. I swerved to the right as we passed by the truck without touching it, the jeep’s two outside wheels on the right airborne over the gorge for about 12 feet, then all four miraculously back on the road. There’s no way we should have made it. The weight of the jeep when those wheels became airborne should have sent us plunging into the ravine. But it didn’t. Even then the curving road beyond the truck, which I couldn’t see, had to curve just right for me to get all four wheels back onto it. In silence I coasted the jeep for another mile, braking its speed drastically then pulling off to the side of the road at the first wide spot. Harris, incapable of speech at the moment, jumped out, his face motionless as hard rock.

Mt. Ida

(L-R) Rick Nelson and Jim Desjardins __________