THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

J.K. Rowling, a woman I greatly admire, gave the 2008 commencement speech at Harvard.  She brought the house down with a clever quip. 

"Of all the subjects on this planet, I think my parents would have been hard put to name one less useful than 'Greek Mythology' to secure the keys to an Executive Bathroom."    -- J.K. Rowling

With a nod to my idol, let us begin my tale with some Greek Mythology.  The Myth of Sisyphus is a sad story that symbolizes the futility of striving.  Sisyphus was a deceitful man who was punished for his sins.  The Greek Gods condemned him to spend eternity pushing a giant rock up a steep hill.  Whenever Sisyphus neared the top, he would lose his strength and see the giant boulder roll down to the valley.  The Curse required Sisyphus to return below and start the process over again knowing full well it was useless. 

I have long felt a close affinity to this story.  By my count, I hit Rock Bottom six times.   My Senior year Crisis marked my third trip.  In this chapter, I will backtrack and cover the first trip.  However, before we begin, I would like to share Joanne Kathleen Rowling's views on the Benefits of Failure.  Why?  As we shall see, Failure will be a frequent topic in the coming chapters.  For this reason, Ms. Rowling's illuminating perspective is a good place to start.

One assumes Ms. Rowling started writing the first chance she got.  Not so.  Life got in the way and seven years of misery ensued.  A man she met in an overseas bar got her pregnant.  Forced to marry, her sketchy husband beat her and chased other women.  Stuck in Portugal at the time, Ms. Rowling used the last of her savings to escape back to England with her four-month old daughter Jessica in tow.  Penniless and lacking any sort of support system... no friends, no parents, no relatives... Rowling found herself alone at the mercy of Britain's welfare system.  Joanne Rowling had hit Rock Bottom. 

Age 28, Ms. Rowling had just entered the Poverty Trap.  Her weekly benefit of £69 gave her just enough money to pay for a squalid apartment and buy food and diapers for Jessica.  If she earned a shilling more, it would be deducted from her current stipend.  She needed a full-time job to afford childcare, but she could not get a full-time job until she had money for childcare.  How was she supposed to look for a job if she had to bring her baby girl along for interviews?  For that matter, where was she going to find a well-paying job?  Her only marketable skill was teaching.  However, she did not have the necessary degree in England to qualify.  This was by far the deepest hole of her life.

Trapped, Rowling saw only one door available to her... Write.  Three years earlier she had received a blinding insight about Wizards, Magic, and the courage to stand up to Evil.  The time had come to put those ideas on paper.  For the next year she pushed a pram around a coffee shop until her little girl fell asleep.  Then she would race inside to write furiously in longhand until her daughter woke up.  This strategy was the longest of long-shots.  Rowling already knew there was little likelihood this move would rescue her from the Poverty Trap.  "There's no money in children's books."  In the unlikely chance she could actually get her first book published, she fully expected the financial rewards would be small indeed.  However Rowling had the guts to trust her intuition.  She followed her dream and saw it pay off beyond her wildest imagination. 

It was not until every other possible door slammed shut that J.K. Rowling found the courage to attempt writing a book.  I doubt seriously Joanne Rowling ever imagined the incredible success that awaited her, but what other choice did she have?  Imagine the relief she felt when her crazy gamble paid off.  It would be interesting to know if Ms. Rowling suspected the Hidden Hand of God had been involved.

Through the gift of Hindsight, Ms. Rowling used her commencement speech to share what she learned during her period of intense hardship and hopelessness.

"Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes Failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.  I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my own graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.  An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless.  The fears that my parents had for me, and that I had  for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun.  That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale, rags to riches resolution.  I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the Benefits of Failure?  Simply because Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.  I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.  Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.  I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.

And so Rock Bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."    

         -- J.K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Speech, June 5, 2008

1955, age 5

MY FIRST TRIP TO ROCK BOTTOM

I was five years when I took my first trip to Rock Bottom.  One day I accidentally sliced my left eye with a knife.  Determined to cut a thick piece of rope in half, I found a table knife.  The edge was barely sharp enough to cut meat at dinner.  Forced to use a dull knife, progress was slow.  I discovered I did better pulling the knife towards me, so that is the direction I used.  Incidentally, it is stories like this that cause mothers all over the world to squirm.  As for my own mother, she was in the next room watching TV.  She did not have the slightest idea what I was doing.  Ten minutes passed, maybe fifteen.  It was slow going, but I was almost done.  My mother suddenly called out to me in a strong voice.  She told me to hurry up whatever I was doing and get ready to leave.  Sensing the urgency in her voice, to speed up the process I gave the knife a big jerk with my left hand.  

I was not aware that just a sliver of thread was keeping the rope intact.  Boom.  The knife swiftly cut through the remaining strands of rope and kept going in an arc that sliced the pupil of my left eye.  It did not hurt, but I was definitely terrified.  Emergency room here I come.  They sewed the eye up, but I soon developed a cataract.  They operated to remove the cataract, but then I developed a detached retina.  I was forced to remain bed-ridden for an entire month with bandages over both eyes.  This was a long-shot attempt to cure the detached retina, but it did not work.  Completely blind and stuck in my bed for a month drove me crazy.  After the bandages came off, I developed another problem.  The doctor detected early signs of 'sympathetic ophthalmia'.  This is an inflammation of one eye that can transfer from the bad eye to the good eye.  If left untreated, the good eye runs the risk of going kaput in 'sympathy' to the bad eye.  This condition can leave the patient completely blind.  I imagine modern technology has a better solution, but in 1955 the best they could do was completely remove my bad left eye as a precaution.  I was given a plastic eye to fill the empty eye socket. 

What where the consequences?   Mostly the inconvenience of having no peripheral vision to my left.  However, there was one serious consequence.  I was forbidden to play high school football and strongly discouraged from playing basketball for fear of a blind-side accident.  That was a real shame because I turned out to be a pretty good athlete.  So was this blind eye my Fate or was it just a tough lesson given to me by the School of Hard Knocks?  The thing that made me suspicious was the perfect timing between the moment my mother suddenly ordered me to get moving and the thinness of the remaining rope.  In other words, Mom had called at the worst possible time.  I was so distracted by my mother's call that I failed to notice the job was almost done.  They say there are no accidents, but who am I to know the truth?  I happen to think most accidents are just accidents.  But this accident might have been the exception.  Due to the unfortunate, yet perfect timing, for now, I will list this experience as a potential Supernatural event and leave it at that.

RICK ARCHER'S LIST OF SUSPECTED SUPERNATURAL EVENTS
 

Suspicious

 1955

1955, age 5

A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

LIST OF SUSPECTED SUPERNATURAL EVENTS
 

Serious

age 9, FOURTH grade, 1959

CONCERNING MY MOTHER
 

In Chapter One, I said that things went downhill for me and my mother following the divorce.  Now it is time to elaborate.  Word of warning - put your seatbelt on.

Please forgive what I am about to say, but candor is important.  My mother was not an attractive woman.  Throughout her childhood, my grandmother took some sort of perverse joy in comparing my mother to Mom's older sister, a serious beauty.  As a result, my mother was haunted by low self-esteem courtesy of her highly critical mother

Following the 1959 divorce, Mom was ill-prepared to take care of herself, much less me.  Money quickly became a huge problem.  Despite my father's monthly contribution of $100 child support, Mom had serious trouble supporting the two of us.  Like many wives of the post-World War II era, she had expected to be a stay-at-home mom.  This explains why she dropped out of college to support my father while he got his engineering degree.

Mom's decision to support my father was a good idea at the time, but backfired badly after the divorce.  Although Mom possessed some serious smarts of her own, her lack of a college degree forced her to accept secretarial jobs for which she was intellectually overqualified and psychologically unsuited for.  Mom did not like being told what to do. 

My mother was not tough.  She was a Daddy's Girl who grew up rich and pampered.    She adored her father while he in turn encouraged her to speak up and think for herself.  I sometimes wonder if my grandfather did her an odd disservice.  Mom thought she could say anything with impunity.  She had a smart mouth and rebelled against the rigid gender roles of the day.  More about this shortly.

Mom was pregnant three times during her marriage.  After giving birth to me, her next two pregnancies ended in miscarriage.  On advice of her doctor, Mom had her tubes tied.  This decision would have grave consequences.  As we know, the approval of the birth control pill played a major role in the sexual liberation of women during the Sixties.  Women were finally free to enjoy sex without fear of pregnancy.  In my mother's case, having her tubes tied freed her up to do the same thing after her 1959 divorce.  She wasted no time.  Mom had a lot of sex with a lot of men. 

There were many qualities about my mother that I appreciated.  She had a 'live and let live' way about her that suited me just fine.  There was practically no discipline following the divorce.  I was never grounded and rarely punished.  I was allowed to be a law unto myself.  From the moment the divorce was final, she let me do whatever I wanted.  Since I stayed out of trouble, Mom thought she was doing a great job.  My mother was never mean to me.  Passive aggressive, yes, neglectful, yes, but rarely openly hostile.  Mom was a warm person with a kind spirit.  I admire her for being extremely open-minded.  She embraced Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Foreigners and Gays in an era when that was simply not accepted.  I give her high marks for raising me without the prevailing prejudices of the day.

However, Mom was not cut out to be a mother.  Nurturing was simply not her strength.  Mom's major fault was that she tended to put her own needs first.  Consequently I was forced at an early age to fend for myself.  I never had a single babysitter; Mom could not afford one.  To cope with her overwhelming loneliness, Mom would leave the house on weekends to pursue men in bars, sometimes weeknights as well.  Rarely did two weeks pass without my mother dragging some stranger to our home for a one-night stand.  That was bad enough, but the worst part came when she let some of them move in with us.  My memory on this has faded, but I estimate anywhere from six to eight different men over a nine-year span.

As I said, Mom had one very bad habit, her big mouth.  Born of privilege, my mother was headstrong and outspoken, especially for that era.  Unfortunately, the Sixties were not kind to women who dared open their mouth on the job.  My mother did not take orders well.  She would often suggest a better way to do something.  Needless to say, that rankled her bosses.    Nor did my mother handle criticism very well.  She would often respond with some sarcastic comment.  Or she might disagree with the criticism and argue with her boss.  Another trick was to agree with her boss, then do it her way.  Invariably her boss would catch on and Mom would be shown the door.  Not surprisingly, my mother got fired a lot.  Due largely to my mother's inability to play office politics, we were always poor.  Mom did not have trouble getting jobs, but she sure had trouble keeping them. 

I don't recall any of my mother's jobs lasting more than a year at a time.  Either she got bored and quit or she wore out her welcome.  Sad to say, we became ridiculously dependent on my father's $100 a month child support.  The hardest times came during Mom's occasional stretches of unemployment.  I would come home several times a year to discover the electricity had been turned off.  Or sometimes it was the water.  The next time it was the gas or the phone.  In a day or two, Mom would receive my father's child support money and service would be restored, but now she didn't have enough money to pay the rent.  We moved 11 times in nine years.  My mother's inability to pay her rent explains why we moved all the time. 

age 12, sixth grade, December 1961

MOM HITS ROCK BOTTOM
 

My mother hit Rock Bottom many times, but the worst event took place in 1962.  Throughout the year something was wrong and she could not seem to shake it.  Despite my growing resentment regarding Mom's intolerable parade of men, I also feared losing her.  My worst nightmare was getting stuck with my father.  I had already figured out my father no longer cared about me and I could not stand that witch he had married.  The thought of being placed with the two of them make me sick.  I was certain Stepmother would order my father to remove me from St. John's.  Considering my father already considered my school to be a waste of money, that was a given.  Then Jezebel would force me to abandon my dog Terry, my only friend in the world.  She hated animals.  After that she would systematically begin to poison me.  Seriously, I would have died if I lost Terry, so my only hope was that my unstable mother would somehow pull through.  No matter how bad things were at home, it doesn't take much imagination why I strongly preferred to be with my mother.  She wasn't much of a mother, but at least she cared about me.  I had no similar illusions about my father.  I prayed Mom would find a way to keep it together, but she wasn't inspiring any sense of security. 

Two events late in the year sent my mother spiraling out of control.  Hurricane Carla, the worst hurricane in Texas history, was heading straight towards Houston.  For safety's sake, Mom decided we would stay at Fred's house, Terry included.  Fred was her current boyfriend.  As the storm raged, I took a bath late that night.  Terry scratched at the screen door.  This was his signal to be let out.  Not only did Terry love to roam, he had no respect for my mother.  Five times earlier this year Mom let him out and Terry would head for the hills and not return for hours.  I had warned her many times to stop doing this, but she refused to listen.

Sure enough, the moment Mom opened the door, Terry took off into the dark of the night.  I was beyond livid.  What kind of idiot lets my dog out without a leash in the middle of a violent hurricane?  All she had to do was call me and I would have done it myself, but, no, that would have required common sense.  I searched endlessly for Terry the next day without luck.  Walking street after street amidst flooding and desolation, my fury towards my senseless mother refused to abate.  Fortunately Terry was waiting for us back at our apartment when we returned home that night.  Don't tell Terry, but I was secretly impressed.  A ten mile trip in the middle of a hurricane?  I certainly could not have found my way home.  Sorry to say, I was never able to forgive my mother.  She knew better.  Things became very tense between us.

One month later, October, Fred ditched her.  Mom took it hard.  No job, no boyfriend, her only child hated her.  Mom spent many a night in her bedroom crying uncontrollably.  I would stand outside the door riddled with insecurity.  Here I am, 12 years old, 6th Grade.  What am I supposed to do?  I had no idea how to console her nor did I have anyone to turn to.  There were no relatives, no close friends, no neighbors to call for help when Mom had one of her crying jags.  I knew my mother was a giant mess, but she and my dog Terry were all I had.  Consequently I spent much of my time in constant fear she would go off the deep end.

One night Mom started crying, but this time she did not stop.  Recognizing she was badly out of control, a real foreboding took hold of me.  It did not help that the world was made gloomy by a torrential late November rain.  Without warning, my mother jumped off her bed and rushed from our apartment without a word.  Filled with worry, I was not about to let her leave in that condition.  I told Terry to stay in the apartment, then left to tail her from a distance.  I was so upset it never occurred to me to fetch an umbrella.  I was instantly drenched, but I wasn't going to let that stop me, not with Mom deep in crisis.  Mom walked to the edge of a swollen bayou and stared at the swirling water for a long time.  I hid behind a nearby tree and watched.  I trembled with fear that she was going jump.  If so, I was ready to jump in after her.  After a suspenseful five minutes of debate, she changed her mind.  Rather than jump, she turned around and threw herself down on the wet grass.

Mom sobbed her head off.  Her mind and soul were so wracked with pain, Mom did not care that she was soaked from head to toe.  So was I for that matter, but I was too paralyzed with fear to worry about it.  What should I do?  Should I go to comfort her?  Or should I continue to monitor the situation?  For fear of embarrassing her, I decided to stay out of sight.  However, if she moved one step closer to that dangerous bayou, I was ready to tackle her. 

Her crying jag lasted fifteen minutes, but it felt like an eternity.  Finally Mom rose to her feet.  Mom was so wet and muddy she resembled a Swamp Monster.  Thankfully she seemed a little stronger.  Still hiding behind the tree, I was gratified to see her look back towards our apartment.  After a moment of indecision, she slowly walked home.  The heavy rainfall washed most of the mud off her, so she didn't look quite so gruesome anymore.  Once I saw Mom enter our apartment project, I figured it was safe to assume she was coming home.  I took a different route and sprinted back to beat her.  I was in the shower when I heard the door shut.  I finished quickly because I knew she would want to take her own shower.  Hiding my wet clothes under the bed, Mom never knew I had been spying on her.  I preferred to let her to keep her dignity.  She would not have wanted me to see how forlorn she was.

Although my mother's life was often in crisis, she never confided in me what the issues were.  Bills, loneliness, self-esteem, problems finding a challenging job, problems keeping jobs, you name it, she was overwhelmed.  Whatever Mom was doing, it wasn't working.  She could not seem to cope.  If I had to guess, the bills were driving her crazy.  She was heavily in debt.

As Footnote to this story, years later Mom told me she once considered suicide.  I asked what changed her mind.  Without hesitation, she said the thought of forcing me to live with my father was so horrible that she couldn't bear to do that to me.  She did not add details, but I have to believe she was referring to this incident.  Mom wasn't much of a mother, but she sure beat the alternative.  For nine years I alternated between concern for my mother and fury at her incompetence.  I fully admit I grew up twisted and bitter, but you know what?  I had my reasons!  The sad thing is that we both cared about each other, but were totally unable to express it.

age 12, sixth grade, December 1961

BLUE CHRISTMAS
 

December came and Mom had still not pulled out of her tailspin.  Since she did not confide in me, I have to assume the issues were loneliness and a stack of unpaid bills.  Mom was still crying all the time.  Two days before Christmas, Mom awoke me at midnight to make a startling announcement. 

"Get packed, we are driving to Dick and Lynn's house in Northern Virginia!"

I was instantly alarmed.  Uncle Dick was Mom's brother.  In 1959 I spent the summer with Dick and Lynn while my parents finalized their divorce.  They had been incredibly kind to me.  As much as I would love to see them again, a shudder ripped through me.  This was a very bad idea!  Our ancient car was in terrible condition and Mom knew it.  As I would later learn, this was a 1,400 mile trip.  I was very skeptical that our broken-down car could make it that far. 

When Mom said she planned to make it there in two days, the 23rd and the 24th, I replied, "Does Uncle Dick know we are coming?"

"No.  It's a surprise."

My eyes bulged.  I seriously did not want to do this.  It was freezing cold outside and we had the worst car imaginable for winter driving.  It was an unwieldy convertible nearly the size of a German tank.  The canvas roof was hardly going to be able to keep us warm.  Even worse, the floor board in the back was so rusted out that I could see the street pavement through the cracks.  Cold air blowing up from below was sure to make us miserable.  I was really scared, so I decided to see if I could talk my mother out of this.

"Mom, our car is in bad shape and it is freezing cold out there.  Don't you want to rethink this?"

"No.  My mind is made up.  We are going.  Are you packed yet?"

"Mom, Christmas is two days away.  We will never make it."

"Yes, we will, but not if you continue to argue with me.  Get packed and get in the car like I told you."

"Are you sure about this, Mom?  What is so important?"

"Richard, did you not hear me the first time?  Get packed before I lose my temper!"

My mother rarely spoke to me in a threatening way, so something was wrong, something was very wrong.  But what could I do about it?  Mom had a look of despair that said she was determined to take this trip despite the odds against her.  Sick to my stomach, I reluctantly gathered every blanket I could find and stuffed them into the car.  We were in such a hurry I did not have time to properly pack anything beyond a few snacks.

Mom said driving at night was the best way to make good time, so Terry and I jumped in and we left at 1 am, December 23.   Mom had a choice between southern Louisiana or northern Louisiana.  Just our bad luck, she chose the northern route. 

My mother made very good time for six hours, but the conditions changed dramatically at 7 am.  The moment we crossed into Louisiana we saw snow flurries.  In practically no time at all, the flurries changed to heavy snowfall.  Roads were covered with snow and slush in no time.  At this point I asked an obvious question.  "Mom, did you check the weather before we left?"

"No.  This was a snap decision."

Heavy snow does not fall in Louisiana very often, but we had run smack dab into the worst winter storm in the past twenty years.  A simple weather check would have revealed this disturbing obstacle, but we have already established that my mother lacked common sense.  Nevertheless, all was not lost.  We still had time to turn around and head back to Houston.  Unfortunately Mom refused to listen. 

"Mom, if you won't turn around, will you at least pull over?"

"No.  I don't want to waste any time.  And I want you to quit needling me.  We will barely make it by Christmas as it is."

I stared at my mother incredulously.  I had never seen her like this.  Mom was in a trance!  At this rate, she was going to kill us both.  As the snowfall increased, I continued to beg my mother to stop and ride out the storm at some roadside diner.  She disagreed.  Mom was determined to continue, even when the car began to skid badly on the sleet covering the highway.  Fortunately the early morning traffic was very light in this blizzard, so the danger was minimal when the car drifted.  However I was really upset by Mom's increasing inability to control the car.  Our unwieldy car with its old tires was unable hold the road, so we kept weaving back and forth.  The car frequently drifted across the median line for brief moments despite Mom's best efforts to control the vehicle.  The fact that Mom had so little control over the car scared me to death.  This went on for an hour and I was absolutely terrified.  Plus the visibility was terrible.  My eyes ached from straining to see oncoming traffic through thick snowfall.  I complained bitterly, but Mom would not even answer.  

Finally I couldn't take it anymore.  I was afraid for my life, so I got in the back seat with Terry.  The moment I reached for the seat beat, I regretted my decision.  I had forgotten our front seat had seat belts, but not the back.  Too embarrassed to crawl back in front, I stayed put.  Soon I was freezing to death from winter air blowing up through the rusted floorboard.  When I complained, Mom said the heater had stopped working.  The car was colder than a refrigerator icebox.  Freezing and frightened, I clung hard to Terry and shivered with cold and fear.  Every time the car skidded into the oncoming lane, I wondered if this was how I was going to die.  Or maybe I would die of permafrost.  My mother was taking an enormous risk. 

Meanwhile Mom had started to cry.  She knew this was a bad mistake, but she could not force herself to stop or turn around.  I looked at the woman.  Poor Mom.  Her face was white with fear.  Something had come over her.  Mom had gotten it through her head that this suicide march was something she had to do.  Hypnotized like a mindless lemming lurching towards a cliff, Mom was determined to plow forward no matter what.  It was 9 am.  We had been driving in these blizzard conditions for two hours.  As huge snow drifts accumulated on the side of the road, the car got harder to control on the ice and slush.  Even though Mom was barely driving 20 miles per hour, one time we skidded much farther into the next lane than ever before.  Seeing an oncoming truck, my heart stopped at the danger we were in.  Mom was barely able to get us back in our lane before the giant truck whizzed past us.  The driver beeped long and loud to signal his anger at the near collision.  This had been a really close call.  God only knows what might happen the next time.  Shouldn't this be warning enough?  Surely this close call was enough to snap my mother out of her insanity. 

"Mom, please stop the car and pull over before it is too late!  This is crazy.  You cannot keep doing this; we will be killed!"

Mom shook her head no.  That is when I knew the woman was out of her mind.  She was so obsessed with making to Virginia, there was nothing I could say to break the spell.  Swerving into the oncoming lane roughly two times per mile, the car was a death trap in these icy conditions.  The only thing that saved us was sparse traffic.  Thank goodness most people had the sense to stay indoors.  A few minutes later, we came to a small town.  This was a perfect chance to stop, so I spoke up again. 

"Mom, I beg you to pull over and wait out the storm until the roads can be cleared!  Please do this!" 

Mom shook her head again.  Nothing doing. 

"Mom, what is wrong with you?  What is so damn important that you have to risk our lives?  Will you just talk to me?"

Mom did not say a word.  Staring grimly ahead, she just kept driving.  Her life had to be in serious crisis to take such desperate chances.  As she kept plowing ahead, Mom was determined to follow her dangerous path even though it meant risking our lives.  She was completely out of control. 

"Mom, look, there's a diner.  It's 9:30, time to eat.  I'm hungry, let's get something to eat.  Please??"

Nothing doing.  Mom just kept rolling down the highway.  My heart sank as the town disappeared in the distance.  I felt doomed.  With the heavy snowfall continuing unmercifully, the icy road was in the worst condition imaginable.  Our worn-out tires could not seem to grip the road for long.  As the car constantly weaved back and forth on the snowy highway, I experienced more fear than any 12-year old kid should ever have to face.  This was D-Day fear, this was the fear that death could come at any moment.  I felt so helpless stuck here with this insane mother.  She was struggling to control this weaving car, but not having much luck.  I was certain we would be killed at any moment.  And then it happened.  Our car skidded badly across the road!

Seeing a giant oncoming truck directly in our path, I was certain death was imminent.  I screamed bloody murder and squeezed my dog in terror.  Our car had so much momentum in the wrong direction, there was no time for Mom to regain control.  Instead she just kept driving in a straight line across the road.

My life flashed before me as our car passed directly across the truck's path.  It was an insanely close call.  The truck missed hitting the back of our car by inches. 

Unable to stop, our car plowed into a ditch on the other side of the road.  We landed with a thud.  Fortunately, the thick snow accumulation in the ditch softened the blow of the crash. 

Mom's gutsy move had saved our lives.  However, the car was face down in a snow drift.  To my great relief, the engine was still running.  That meant the car had survived intact.  Now came the bad news.  Mom tried to back out, but there was no traction.  It was hopeless.  We were stuck.  

Mom broke down in another one of her miserable crying jags.  I was crying too.  I trembled uncontrollably at our brush with death.  I did not know how we were ever going to get out of this mess, so I just sat there in quiet desperation.  Thank God I had my dog.  I buried my face in Terry's fur just like I used to when I was a little boy and my parents were screaming at each other.

Mom could not seem to snap out of it.  She just kept sobbing.  However, after ten minutes of crying, she suddenly stopped and turned to look at me in back.

"Richard, I want you to get out of the car and go get us a tow truck!"

What??  Surely my mother wasn't serious... but she was.  A sick feeling came over me. 

"Mom, please do not make me do this.  I am twelve years old.  I am just a kid and we are stuck in the middle of nowhere.  What exactly do you expect me to do?"

"I expect you to do what I said!  Go stand on the side of the road and hitch a ride back into that town we just passed.  Get to a station and ask a tow truck to bring you back.  Terry and I will wait till you return."

Despite my desperation, I half-snickered at my mother's promise to stay in the car.  As if she had better places to go?

"Mom, I'm scared.  I don't want to go by myself.  Why don't all three of us go?"

My mother lost her temper and screamed at me. 

"Goddamn it!  Will you listen to me for once?  Maybe it's time for you to grow up!  Get out of the car and flag down some help."

Deeply shaken, I replied, "Why can't we all go?"

"Because no one will pick up two people and a dog.  However, they might take pity on a kid."

I stared at my mother as if she was out of her mind.  That is when I realized she WAS out of her mind.  Mom had been out of her mind ever since we left Houston.  I could not believe my mother was sending me out on my own like this, but maybe she was right.  I could not think of a better solution, so on the spot I agreed to do this.  I got out of the car and climbed from the ditch onto the road.  Then I stuck out my thumb just like I had seen Richard Kimble do on The Fugitive.

Mom was right.  A shivering kid on the side of the road in a blizzard is a pitiful sight, especially since the car in the ditch screamed emergency.  Sure enough, almost immediately a man saw me standing there and slowed down.  When he pulled over, the man seemed safe enough, so I accepted his offer for a ride to town.  Ten miles later I was in the nearby town and bringing back a tow truck.  I was filled with relief to discover this risky move had turned out a lot better than I expected. 

To my amazement, the tow truck was able to get our heavy tank out of the snow drift.  The truck took us back into town whereupon Mr. Fontenot, the station manager, checked out the car.  There was no damage.   We had finally caught a break.  However we were not out of the woods, not by a long shot.  Those tires were no good in these conditions, so Mr. Fontenot insisted Mom get snow chains.  After what we had been through, Mom wasn't going to argue.  If there was any silver lining to the accident, my mother's trance-like defiance was long gone.  I suppose our white-knuckle close call had jolted her back to her senses. 

Mom did something dishonest.  She let Mr. Fontenot put on the snow chains without telling him she could not pay.  She gambled the manager would be reluctant to take the chains back off once she told him the truth.  You should have seen the look on Mr. Fontenot's face when Mom told him she was broke and asked if he would accept a check.  I was surprised too.  I did not realize how meager our funds were, so I was deeply embarrassed.  Mr. Fontenot had been so nice to me that I cringed when Mom admitted she did not have the money to pay the towing fee or purchase the snow chains.  This man had gone to considerable trouble to help us and I did not like seeing him deceived by my mother's lack of candor.  Keep in mind these were the days before credit cards became common.

Mom told Mr. Fontenot what little money she had left was for gas.  My eyes widened when she said we did not even have money for meals.  Maybe that is why she had refused to stop for breakfast.  Then she added, "But if you will trust me, I will write you a check.  Once we get to Virginia, my brother will give me money to cover the check.  All you have to do is wait one week before cashing it."

My mother had a lot of nerve, but what choice did she have given the jam she had gotten us in?  Well, actually she did have a choice.  She could have said something first before he put the chains on.  Mr. Fontenot stared at my mother long and hard.  You should have seen the frown on his face.  Mr. Fontenot was hopping mad.  Fortunately, to my undying relief, Mr. Fontenot eventually nodded and said okay.   The kindness of this stranger was a true blessing, a Christmas Miracle indeed.   

I knew why Mr. Fontenot had agreed to help my mother.  When I first met the manager, he asked me to explain.  As he listened to my story, Mr. Fontenot asked if I had been scared during the accident.  I told him how I had screamed in terror, then added I was still shaking.  "And you hitched here by yourself?" he asked.

When I nodded, Mr. Fontenot smiled.  "I am very impressed by your courage, young man.  I have a son your age and I cannot imagine asking him to hitch a ride in a storm like you just did.  You took a real chance, but then I suppose you didn't have much of a choice."

While Mr. Fontenot was making up his mind about Mom's lack of funds, he glanced at me.  It was a covert exchange that suggested he was asking if he could trust my mother.  Standing behind my mother where she could not see me, I nodded imperceptibly.  With a faint smile of acknowledgment, Mr. Fontenot nodded back.  He turned to my mother and said okay.  When Mom started to cry at his gratitude, she got embarrassed.  Mom excused herself to visit the restroom. 

In her absence, I took the chance to thank the manager.  "Mr. Fontenot, we are in great debt to you.  My mother is lost right now, but she is a decent person and I am sure she will make that check good." 

I felt a little guilty saying that.  To be honest, I wasn't sure we would live long enough to make it to Virginia.  However, if we did survive, I imagined Uncle Dick would help her out.  At that, Mr. Fontenot did a crazy thing.  He reached in his pocket, handed me $20, adding in a husky voice, "Just in case."   When Mom returned, I handed the money to her and pointed to our benefactor.  Mom was so astonished, she burst into another round of tears and impulsively hugged the guy.  Mr. Fontenot began to smile at my mother's heartfelt gesture.  Personally, I think he liked doing a good deed.  His unexpected act of kindness meant the world to my mother's flagging spirits.

The snow chains made a huge difference.  We took it slow and there was no more weaving.  To my undying relief, we stayed in the correct lane all the way to the Mississippi River.  That night Mom used some of that $20 bill to buy a warm meal of spaghetti at a diner in Vicksburg on the Mississippi state line.  I think that meal tasted better than any meal I have ever had in my life.  Claiming I was still hungry, I asked for extra spaghetti.  When the waitress wasn't looking, I wrapped the food in some napkins and hid it under my coat.  Mom had enough money left over to get us a room in an inexpensive motel next door.  As I watched Terry gobble down his spaghetti, I was so grateful to be alive.  The three of us slept in the same bed.  I was so insecure I squeezed Terry tight the entire night. 

Fortunately, the road conditions were much better in the morning.  The highways had been cleared and the snowfall was more flurries than anything else.  We no longer had to drive in constant fear for our lives.  After an hour of driving, Mom stopped at a gas station and had them take the chains off.  We were in the clear after that and started to make good time. 

I estimate we made 400 miles of progress on Day One.  It was now the morning of Christmas Eve.  Since there was no money left for meals, we departed at 6 am.  Mom drove straight through to McLean, Virginia, a 1,000 mile trek in 22 hours.  Where she got her stamina I will never know.  We pulled into Uncle Dick and Aunt Lynn's neighborhood at 4 am on Christmas Day. 

To Mom's dismay, her car could not make it up the steep hill due to the icy street.  She tried and tried, but the car kept sliding back down.  Disgusted, she parked the car and told me to get out.  Carrying our luggage, the three of us trudged up the snowy hill hoping the street above was the one we were looking for.  Thankfully, Mom had guessed right. 

When we got to their house, Mom did not want to wake the family, so I offered to look around.  In the back of the house, I found an unlocked door to their basement.  I walked in and found another unlocked door that led to the downstairs den.  After summoning Mom and Terry, we plopped down on a couple of sofas.  The warmth of that room was heavenly.  Safe at last.

To my surprise, a plump, friendly collie named Beauty came waddling down the steps to investigate.  A Lassie-lookalike, Beauty greeted us with her tail wagging.  Beauty wasn't much of a watchdog, but she was a great welcoming committee.  As for Terry, it was love at first sight.  Beauty was in love too.  She was so excited to have a boyfriend, the two of them immediately began to play in the den.  I had to calm them down before they made a racket and woke everyone up.

Seeing how happy the two dogs were, I rolled my eyes and said a sincere prayer of thanks.  I was not particularly religious in those days, but I had a strong feeling someone had been watching over us.  After what we had been through, that was the only explanation that made a bit of sense.  I was so relieved to be here I almost began to cry.  This had been the worst ordeal of my life.  It was unbelievable to see it turn out well. 

Dick and Lynn never knew we were there until the morning came.  Surprise Surprise!  It was Christmas Day and look who Santa put under the Christmas tree.  It had been Mom's plan all along to throw herself on her brother's mercy.  As Mom hoped, Uncle Dick was incredibly generous to her.  He bailed her out of what had to be a serious financial jam.  In addition, Uncle Dick had some long talks with his sister.  I think those talks did her a world of good.  I believe Dick and Lynn saved my mother's life that Christmas.  In addition to helping her financially, even more important they restored her will to carry on.  I will always love Dick and Lynn from the bottom of my heart for their kindness.

We stayed at Dick and Lynn's house for a week.  The entire family was so incredibly welcoming.  I met my cousins Rick, Dale, Tami, Todd and slipped effortlessly into a Big Brother role.  To their credit, none of them seemed to mind that I hijacked their mother for an entire week at Christmas.

While Uncle Dick was counseling my mother, Aunt Lynn was doing the same thing for me.  Lynn lavished me with attention.  For a lonely, insecure kid who was dying to be noticed and appreciated, it was more than I could handle.  I will be quite frank.  I was so vulnerable that I fell deeply in love with Aunt Lynn that Christmas.  This was the first time I understood what people mean by a mother's touch.  Lynn made me feel special, important.  Best of all, she cheered me up. 

After the New Year we drove back to Houston without incident.  My mother and I barely spoke on the way home.  A wall had grown between us that would never come down for the rest of my life.  Although I did my best to care for my mother in her final years, even then there was an uneasy tension.  The rift never healed. 

I am not a forgiving person.  Back when the car was stuck in the ditch, my mother had screamed at me it was time I grew up.  So that's exactly what I did.  I no longer had a bit of confidence in my mother.  Between her thoughtlessness to let my dog run free during Hurricane Carla, her near-suicide at the edge of the swollen bayou, and now this suicidal death march to Virginia, things were never the same.  Due to my ever-growing list of resentments, my mother's authority was gone forever.  If she asked me nicely to do something, I would invariably cooperate.  But the day had come when my mother could no longer order me to do something.  I had been forced to grow up much too fast.  Given that I received virtually no support from either parent, what kept me from going off the deep end?

The answer is Kindness.  Uncle Dick, Aunt Lynn, Mr. Fontenot.  Plus my special teachers at St. John's and many more kind souls further down the road.  

RICK ARCHER'S LIST OF SUSPECTED SUPERNATURAL EVENTS
 

A SIMPLE ACT OF KINDNESS:  THE CHILDHOOD YEARS

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