Andrew Eisner
— I believe in science as much as the next rational person, but I have experienced enough situations where it seemed like science may not have been able to able to fully explain what happened. Here’s a little story to illustrate that concept. Random events? Probably, you tell me.
Several years ago when I was still riding a motorcycle, I was on a ride going east from San Luis Obispo to Sequoia. Three of us were on one of our very favorite roads, Rt. 58 which has all the ingredients for motorcycle bliss; curves, hills, smooth pavement, lovely scenery, and very few other cars. About an hour into the ride, I was lagging behind my two buddies when I noticed some squishiness in the handling and looked down to see a soon-to-be flat rear tire. Just before it would have become unrideable, I came upon the guys who were stopped at a Caltrans one-lane holding area. I pulled up and pointed to my tire. The Caltrans guy let us use some space to work on it. Fortunately, my best friend, David had a tire repair kit complete with a 12V pump and he knew how to use it. It took less than 30 minutes to have me back on the road. The repair lasted the rest of the three-day ride.
Here’s how I see it. If there hadn’t been the Caltrans stop, out in the middle of nowhere, I wouldn’t have been able to turn my bike perpendicular to the winding road to fix the flat and my friends would have been way ahead of me instead of stopped. If I had been on my own, I would have had to wait a long time for a tow truck and pay for an expensive haul somewhere to have it fixed. If David hadn’t had his repair kit along, I would have been in the same pickle. How many times have there been events where it seemed like there had been some cosmic intervention? “If I had been in that intersection 10 seconds earlier, I would have been hit by that car.” It makes me wonder. Pure random acts and coincidences, perhaps. Guardian angel or some higher cosmic force, who knows?
Fifty years ago my husband and I ended our round-the-world journey in Tahiti. It was a sad last week to a year-long trip — the French tested an atomic bomb nearby, which seemed to change the weather to drenching rain. I got my period, just when I hoped to be pregnant. The place we rented was way too far out of town to be fun. So we decided to take “le truck” into town and change our plane tickets to come back earlier. But, with the lousy weather, le truck was late and we didn’t get into town until after noon, when the travel agency closed. So we couldn’t change our ticket. That night, the plane we hoped to be on crashed on take-off. Cosmic intervention? Or just not our time.
Whatever, very glad you’re still here.