UNTITLED TALES
Untitled 12
In 1983, late fall, on a gorgeous day an event came to me
unexplained and unexpected. I had finished my day at work at a County Human
Resources Office in Northwest Alabama. I was looking forward to the 65 mile drive home
& to enjoy the beautiful fall colors the hardwoods bring in early November in this
area of North Alabama. The day was unusual in that things seemed to go really
well at work, no surprises, no disasters or fires to put out, very few phone calls to
reroute my concentration. I felt great physically and so I left the office ready for my
private time with my favorite cassette music of Tina Turner, Alabama Band and others.
I had gone about 8 miles down SR 17 and saw a very old car in the middle of
the road traveling at a extremely slow rate of speed coming from the opposite
direction. I naturally slowed down to almost a crawl as the bright sunlight beamed through
the old cotton field on my right.
I was concerned that the old car might be a drunk driver
or a incapacitated person so I slowed down until I was side by side with the subject
vehicle. The sun was so dazzling coming through my right door window so my view of the
subject driving the old car was excellent. At this point we were at a road junction
that I normally take as a shortcut back home. We were both at this junction together, side
by side, separated by space of 3 feet, driver door to driver door. The person was a gray
-haired man who was not looking at me, but in the opposite direction towards the shortcut
road. He then catatonically turned his face towards me, smiled in a gentle way, said
nothing and mechanically turned his face away from me and all the way back to the shortcut
road as if to say follow me, follow. My drivers side window was down and the
chill from this cold, sunny day was superceded by the realization that what I
saw in the old car was my father, who died in Feb. 1978 on another cold , bright sunny
day. I was at my wits end at this sight but strangely enough not afraid. I only had
time to view the driver, unmistakably my father, a little grayer and with a 3 day old
beard . I cannot remember his clothes or the make or model of the old car straddling
the road even at the junction where we met face to face. He turned his face toward me
again in that slow, mechanical way , smiled again and turned toward the junction in a
snails pace in the middle of the road.
I was in a state of shock by this time . Like a pied piper I
followed close behind no more than two car lengths for at least 4 miles with no person in
sight and no oncoming traffic which was extremely unusual for a cut-off rural road. All at
once with no warning he left the road on the right side, entering a abandoned log road. I
stopped after pulling off to the shoulder and watched the car pull on up the vine filled
log road, finally disappearing from sight, vanishing before my eyes in the woods. I
later went up the road and no one has ever lived on that road or property. The old
car & its occupant simply disappeared. Now as I moved on
in utter disbelief in what I had seen , shaken to the bone and a little frightened
and naturally very anxious at what I had just experienced I saw a disturbing sight
as I rounded a hairpin curve that calls for extreme caution by all vehicles,
especially commercial/heavy duty semis, etc. I saw a 18 wheeler, a gasoline tanker,
overturned by jackknife in the middle of the road with gasoline spilling all over
the road and shoulder. The moral to this true tale I have told many others, including
ministers is my father came to me that day on the Hitogy cut-off road to save me from the
truck that overturned on the hairpin road.
-Unsigned.