On a snowy Friday afternoon in February, the "Swing Pirates,"
my swing and jitterbug trio, loaded the equipment into the "Captain
Fiddle" truck, squeezed into the front seat, and set out
for Woodstock, New York, a 5 hour drive from Newmarket, New Hampshire.
Arriving at the town Hall one hour before the dance, the sound
system was set up, my electric piano plugged in, Brian's guitar
tuned, and Paul's drums set up. After the dance, we were invited
to stay the night at a farm house next to the "The Big Pink,"
where many famous woodstock era musicians recorded their albums
in the 60's.
The next morning we were up bright and early and headed for Albany,
New York, the site for the "Dance Flurry," a weekend
festival and dance extravaganza. We arrived minutes before our
scheduled dance set and changed into our "Crawdad Wranglers,"
cajun/zydeco band attire. After our one hour performance, we quickly
loaded the accordion, rubboard, and guitar back into the truck
and headed back across the mountains of Vermont to our next dance,
our regular Saturday night swing dance at the Kittery Grange Hall,
in southern Maine, a 6 hour drive from Albany.
One hour from our destination, in the early evening, while driving
through the town of Northwood, New Hampshire, we began telling
stories of car accidents to keep ourselves amused. A few minutes
later I noticed an oncoming vehicle crossing into our lane and
driving directly towards my truck. The speed limit was 50 mph,
and so we were closing at a combined speed of about 100 mph. I
waited a split second to see whether he would stay in my lane.
His vehicle was unwavering, and I took evasive action. My choices
were limited. There was a long stream of oncoming cars on the
two lane road, so I couldn't go left. On the right side was houses,
utility poles, trees, and mailboxes. I swerved hard to the right
and headed between a utility pole and
a clump of trees, trying not to hit a house which was a bit more
to the right. I chose to take out the mailboxes, as a softer landing.
I sucessfully avoided a head on collision, but the other driver
must have swerved a bit more to his left at the same time, because
he struck a glancing blow to the left rear of my truck.
His impact with my truck aimed him back into the oncoming traffic,
and he had a head on collision with the vehicle which had been
following me. We were shaken up a bit, but quickly exited our
vehicle to look for injured persons. Our next concern was to examine
our musical instruments for possible damage. Remarkably, everything
looked intact. After filling out the accident reports, and talking
the police into letting me drive my damaged truck from the scene,
we made a phone call to the Kittery Grange, to explain that we
would be a bit late. We jumped back into the truck and headed
for our next musical adventure!
The Kittery dance went well, and we accomplished
our tightly scheduled musical mission. The person who had been
struck head on by the drunken driver of the other vehicle was
not seriously injured, nor the drunk himself who was insured by
the large insurance company that he also worked for. They provided
him with a clever lawyer who worked out a "plea bargain,"
with the judge. Thus equipped, he got off lightly with a reduced
charge of "reckless driving," despite multiple prior
arrests for drunken driving.
We were safe, the truck was repaired, and is still providing reliable
transportation to musical jobs throughout New England!