Perilous Crossings: Memories of Driving in Winter

It was this time of year back when I was young, some 30 years ago to be exact, that I would make the long winter journeys between Syracuse University where I studied and Westchester, New York, where I lived. I made some of those excursions by train, which I’ve discussed in an earlier post.

There were occasions too, however, when I made the trip between Purchase and Syracuse, New York driving. My mom and/or dad would drive me up, or I’d go with a friend or two. These trips were generally “uneventful,” as they say, in that no one was ever injured, killed or arrested in connection with any of them. Believe me when I say, with no hint of irony or hyperbole that any of these three eventualities could easily have come to pass during my five years of being a student up in the frozen tundra. It’s not something I say proudly, or even lightly; in fact I’m humbled and more than a little ashamed when I think back to my recklessness behind the wheel during my early driving days.

My friend Mignon Young (Hambrick back then) and I like to recall the time she, Pete Landau (pictured above in a photo by Mignon) and I drove home together in her aging Renault Fuego (as Mignon recently said, “I later determined that fuego was Italian for ‘biggest piece of shit on the road.’”). The car had no heat, and this was a five-hour trip in the snowy dead of winter. We
entertained ourselves in the freezing car by playing games like “Botticelli” and “the Movie Game.” The latter was of our own invention; one player names a movie title, the next has to name their own, starting with the final letter of the previous player’s movie title. It was a ridiculous, inane game, but one that made the minutes and hours pass more quickly somehow. Of course, the fact that we were young and had a joyous friendship helped too.

On that same stretch of road – Route 17 – I recall being stopped by troopers one year. There had
been a lot of snow and ice, so they were ushering cars over a particularly icy bridge one at a time. I was behind the wheel; my mother was in the passenger seat and my brother Mike was in back. The trooper looked at each of us and then, like the guy who straps you in to the roller coaster, he said, “Okay, man, just take it slow and keep those wheels straight and you should be fine.”
I nodded and, gripping the wheel, my forearms stiff as planks, tapped my toe lightly on the accelerator, then the brake, both of which felt suddenly unfamiliar, as if I were borrowing a friend’s car for the first time, instead of driving my mother’s LeBaron – the very automobile on which I’d learned to drive.

I’m not sure what happened next; I do recall the hundred yards or so of that bridge seeming much, much longer, and the moment when I silenced the unsolicited driving advice I was getting from my passengers, not by yelling but by evenly asking if either of them wanted to take over for
me. With the quiet I needed, I got us over that bridge and to our destination.

There are other stories I could tell on myself that involve that route, but I think I’ll wait until I’ve got less to lose. I like my job and my “place in my community” too much. Who knows? It might make for a good deathbed confession someday…….