A DRIVING SNOW ... or was it ...
A SNOWY DRIVE?
In February of 1981 I went to Asia, with ten days in
Hong Kong. Whilst there I all but accidentally learned from
an optical
clinic that something "was not right" about my eyes, and I
should not delay in seeing an ophthalmologist as soon as I
returned to the States. I soon found that I had two serious
eye conditions. How serious and how rapidly developing they
were I learned over the next year, as uveitis and "galloping"
cataracts rendered me all but helpless.
I had my first
cataract removal shortly thereafter, and then the second. In
the spring of 1985 I suffered a detached retina and shortly
thereafter I realized that I was seeing less and less, with
focusing becoming a real challenge. The capsules behind both
eyes, traumatized by the cataract surgery, were occluding, with
the result that I appeared to be looking through frosted glass.
By mid-1985, I was so seriously sight impaired that I could not function in my office nor drive a car. I could see
movement and color, but was unable to focus at all. Reading,
TV or the movies and any normal sight were beyond me.
The following story took place in
that environment, and only shows just how resilient we can be
when we put our minds to a given task... or when we are forced
by necessity to overcome serious obstacles.
One night in the grip of the winter of 85-86, with my wife out of town attending to her elderly parents, a Lake Erie blizzard came upon us suddenly. Knowing just how perilously low we were on fresh food, I knew we simply had to get to the market for provisions. Well over a mile away, I called every cab company in town, but bad weather had the taxis overbooked. Already snowing, I told my younger daughter to "be my eyes"
and hop into my beautiful Brown Lady, my 924-S Turbo -- that was the newest member of the Porsche family in 1980, and I had the first one ever sold in North America!
"You can't drive, Daddy," she exclaimed.
"I can, with you seeing for me," I replied. May the Divine bless ten-year-olds. They still believe their fathers are all-knowing, and with my confidence in her, she didn't even hesitate.
After all, I could see light - each street lamp looked to me like thousands of Christmas tree lights! Car lights the same, and I could easily distinguish between red, yellow and green signal lights even as they appeared as hundreds of other pinpoints of light each. We made it to the market uneventfully, although the parking lot was a nightmare to negotiate. Fortunately there was an open disabled parking spot right in front of the door. My daughter gleefully picked out our food and goodies, and we started home.
I had chosen the route with only two major turns, on the brightest-lit streets (Coventry and Cedar Roads) to help my ten-year-old daughter negotiate and direct me more easily. The first turn was a breeze, a right turn at a signal onto Cedar, the main east-west street. The second was a left turn across traffic, also at a signal light, to go down Tudor, a lightly-used side street. I knew the roads well, and was pleased with our unimpeded progress as we carefully approached the second signal on a red light - I was the first car in line.
My daughter confirmed there was no traffic coming up the side street, so I pulled across the line of oncoming traffic stopped at the red light making my turn just as the opposing light turned yellow. I was just congratulating myself on having "beaten" the heavy traffic and making it safely onto the side street with a straight shot towards home when I heard the siren. The first car in the oncoming line was a policeman! - And he immediately turned and came after me.
Knowing my driver's license was easily identified by its plastic cover, I pulled it out and gave it to my daughter to verify before the officer even approached the car. It was snowing heavily, and I apologized to him immediately for getting him out in the heavy weather.
"Why did you cut right across in front of me on the red like that?" he demanded rather angrily. "Didn't you even see me right in front of you?"
I couldn't have been more calm, solicitous, or logical. I certainly wasn't going to answer that I hadn't the faintest idea that the oncoming sets of car lights I saw at the signal included an easily identifiable marked police car!
"Because, Officer, with all the bad weather, I knew that my car waiting to turn left was just another obstruction for westbound Cedar Road cars, and I was a potential traffic hazard in these slippery conditions."
"Don't you know there's no excuse for jumping the light," he retorted derisively.
"You're absolutely correct, Officer," I agreed amiably. It was entirely obvious to me that sound logic regarding the bad weather conditions wasn't going to cut any ice with him on this night. His disposition seemed no better than the miserable weather.
"Lemme see your license," he commanded.
"Yes, Sir," I responded with no further comment, taking the license from my daughter and handing it up to him.
He proceeded in silence to write me a citation for an illegal left turn, telling me he was doing me a favor by not adding in the charge of running a red light. I thanked him politely, trying not to smile.
He then thrust his citation book through the window. "Sign here," he commanded. I saw the movement and reached for what I knew must be the book. Grabbing it with my left hand, I fumbled for my own pen with my right, at first not knowing he was holding out his own pen toward me. But I cast my eyes downward as if I were "searching" inside my own coat, and I found my own pen just as he offered his as he ordered, "Here!."
Little did he know that I hadn't the faintest idea where "Here" was!
I started to sign at the bottom of the page, and he immediately objected. "Not there," he said disgustedly, "on the line." He paused, ever so briefly, and through my head went the obvious question of someone in my predicament - where was the line - just where was I to sign the citation?
" - up here!" He concluded. And thankfully, with my left hand holding the citation book, I could just barely feel generally where he tapped his finger.
So I signed, in a large, flowing script that covered at least an inch or more of the page.
"Hrrrmmmph," he snorted, "You certainly have a large signature."
"Well," I concluded, "I was wrong to make the turn the way I did, and there's no use denying it. I'll be down to Mayfield (the location of the local City Hall) to pay this just as soon as the weather passes."
My daughter never could understand why I laughed so hard as we watched a "blind" cop getting back into his car to turn around and continue his protection of Cleveland Heights. I was still chortling audibly as I slowly pulled away from the curb and drove the remaining two blocks to our home, slowly crossing an all but deserted Fairmount Boulevard and turning carefully into our narrow driveway from instinct and experience.....
Who ever said sports cars are hard to drive???
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01/07/94//edit26/07/95//18/11/08
