Premonition And The Pear

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I have occasionally had premonitions.  I separate them into  two categories, those times I thought something was going to happen, which occurs fairly often, and those few times when I absolutely knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. One of those rare occasions occurred in 1963 on US Highway 59. 

I was working at a radio station in Nacogdoches and attending Stephen F. Austin State College where I had just met my bride-to-be. 

Most weekends, Honey would take the bus home on Friday afternoon. I would drive to Houston on Saturday and she would ride back to school with me on Sunday evening.  For some reason, she had not taken the bus home that particular weekend, and a mutual friend, Ed Peel, had asked if he could catch a ride to Houston with us on Saturday morning.

Ed was a gentle giant whose nickname was the Pear, an appellation as accurate as it was cruel, because it described his physique to a T.  Normally, I would never let anyone except Honey drive my ‘63 MG Midget, but Ed’s broad butt would barely fit in either seat; if he was going along, there was no option except that Ed would drive while Honey and I crammed into the passenger seat. 

We were young and in love, so that worked out just fine.

Highway 59 was not a freeway yet, but just north of Humble it was a four-lane divided highway.  We were cruising along in the left-hand lane approaching the San Jacinto River bridge, just engaging in carefree banter, when suddenly a certain sequence of words in the conversation became the key that unlocked a door to the future.  I knew unequivocally that we had to do something RIGHT NOW or we were about to die!

I told Ed as calmly but firmly as possible “Slow down and pull over right now.  That car ahead of us is about to have an accident.”

Ed hit the brakes, and as he did, the car that had been slightly ahead of us in the right-hand lane had a blowout.  It swerved sharply to the right then careened back to the left across our lane and smashed into the center guard rail, almost but not quite, crashing through to the river below.

The words that set me off were ordinary, common words that we all had used a million times.  They didn’t have anything to do with danger, accidents or cars.  I have no idea why they affected me that particular time, no clue as to why it happened or how – I’m just glad it did.