Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Catastrophy of the highest order..part eight

Ok..now we have the ole girl in gear and she's running good. The load is light and you have the ears laid back and rolling hard down highway 1. State route 52 is just past Cheraw and then the state park to go through. Continue south to 15 and through Hartsell. This puts you just west of Darlington. You know the area and most of the roads are two lane but very un-inhabitated.
You are concentrating hard on the road signs thru the park. Lots of switchbacks and a few hills that make you want to drop that trailer and let it all out. But, you hang on to it. Heck, you never know. It might happen to come in real handy back home.
It had been a while since you had come through Cheraw but you do remember a way around it. It was not that big of a city but you remember it having an airport at the outside of town. You could either run east over to Bennetsville or go through Cheraw.
Time and fuel and safety. These are all the things that you are calculating in your head, hoping to make the right decision. Time and fuel tells you to blast through Cheraw but safety tells you to go through Bennetsville. The attitude in your head agrees with time and fuel and you decide come hell or high water that you were gonna be home inside of 3 hours. You make the right hand fork down highway 9 and put it in the wind hard and heavy to Cheraw.
You see the "Welcome to Cheraw" sign and the social activities sign that states how they have a lions club, kiwanis club and all other kinds of cultural clubs. Then you see the speed limit sign that tells you that 35 m.p.h. is the Maximum speed, how it's strictly enforced and controlled by radar and blah blah blah.
Seeing h0w there isn't any cop cars that are running at the present time you are not too awfully worried about breaking the speed limit. You would check your speedometer if it was working but with no electronics you just have to give it an educated guess. The closest you could estimate was around 70. That was in 13th gear running about 1350 r.p.m.
You come up towards the center of town and around a long sloping curve. The road is four lane thru town with a median, parking on the side and large sidewalks and no trees to speak of. The non-operating red lights seem eerie to you but so does the lack of any other traffic. You have seen some folks standing around store fronts but up to this point not many. They were all surprised to see anything moving and would probably have loved to ask you some questions. You are sure that they are as just in the dark as you are so you feel no need or urge to stop and chit chat.
Up ahead you do see the same scenario as before in the previous town. People camped out in front of the local grocery store making the most out of all the food that was inside. Lots of folks had carts loaded up and were pushing them away. Probably out to their homes or taking them to other folks that needed it. Maybe some of them could be good Samaritans and be bringing the much needed suppies to hospital or local nursing home. You thought that would be nice and you let that though run through your head for a bit. It gives you a bit of comfort to think that something nice might just be happening instead of all the bad things you have witnessed.
Anyway, you have business to take care of. The end of town is in sight and you are glad that no one has seen fit to try to stop you. Just as you had thought. Nobody was wanting to chase down or try to stop a speeding semi-truck.
A bridge at the end of town more or less signals the end of the commercial district and after you cross it the sides of the roads turn into fields and pastures with barns and farmhouses.
About 25 miles on down the road the terrain starts to flatten out even more. You push it a little harder and you estimate your speed to be around 85. You have gotten over to highway 15. Staying on 52 would have ran you into Darlington and Florence. This little by-pass would run you across 152 but north of Darlington and well away from any populace.
Up ahead, about 10 miles away from that intersection something catches your eye. Outside of a small cottage, a woman is standing out in the road. Beside her are two small children and both of them seem distressed. She was wearing a white dress but was now mostly red. She is blocking the road by standing directly in the center of it and waving her arms frantically while jumping up and down.
You wonder what to do. What if this is the very same thing that is happening to your wife and children right now? What if they are in harms way? These thoughts are combating themselves in your mind because if you stop, you are taking away from your family if they are in trouble and possibly putting them in danger. Also if you stop how could you help. As far as you know there isn't any hospitals you could take them too. Shouldn't you just count them as casualties and keep moving? On the other hand, wouldn't you want someone to help your wife and kids if they were in this kind of predicament? What would happen if they didn't get out of the way. Would you just run them over?
Wait a minute!!! Did you just actually think that? Have you become that kind of person too?
Now you are deeply ashamed of yourself and you begin the process of gearing down to see if you can offer any assistance.

No comments:

Post a Comment