A couple of doozies.

I'm twelve years old. Laying on my back on the grass in a vacant lot across from where I live. I have a toy bow and arrow that belongs to a friend of mine. I draw the bow fully, hold it for a second, then let fly the arrow. Straight up. I watch it go, high, higher than the telephone poles in the neighborhood. It slows down as it reaches apogee, hesitates for a second, and comes back down. The feathers making sure that it turns and comes down point first. It buries itself with a "thump!" about six inches into the hard ground about two feet to the right of where I lay.

It wasn't until years later and had read a bit of physics that I remembered. And broke into a cold sweat!!

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I'm driving north on 3rd Avenue in Seattle, going home from work. That afternoon it had rained for the first time after a warm spell that had lasted for several weeks. The rain, falling on the accumulated road oil, had made the street slicker than grease. I saw the light at Pine Street turn amber and since I wasn't up to the crosswalk yet, I carefully slowed to a stop. Then I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw a Seattle Metro-Transit bus sliding up behind me, very fast, and with the wheels locked. I also say the look of horror on the driver's face.

Knowing I was going to get a bus up my backside, I glanced at the light just as it turned red, then, noting that the cars on Pine Street hadn't begun to move yet, I punched it! My front wheels (front wheel drive Honda Civic) spun for a second, then my Michelin steel-belted radials grabbed and I shot through the intersection. The cars on the cross street had only begun to move.

I pulled over to the curb to catch my breath and noted behind me, that indeed the bus had slid into the crosswalk and a few feet into the intersection. If I hadn't done what I did, I would have had a whole city bus sitting in my glove compartment.

Then I see this flashing red light. A motorcycle cop pulls up beside me, he gets off the bike and pulls his ticket book out, and informs me that I had just run a red light. Yeah, news flash!

"Didn't you see the bus that was bearing down on me?" I asked.

"Bus?" he sez. "What bus? I didn't see no stinkin' bus!"

Then the weak-eyed sonovabitch writes me a ticket for $120 bucks!

Don Firth