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Wow, what a close call. In high school, shortly after getting my driver license, I was driving parallel to one of the holes at our local golf course. An errant ball bounced off the road not far in front of me headed straight for my head. It sailed over the car, just missing the roof.

Later the same year an unsecured sheet of plywood sailed out of a pickup truck in front of me and went over my car. In a slit second, I figured I was going to be decapitated, but me and the car escaped without a scratch.

Nothing like those two incidents has happened in the 52 years since!

I know how you feel. It's one of those things that happens with such split-second speed, it takes a few minutes (sometimes longer) for it to sink in, and then your heart starts beating like a triphammer, you feel the blood drain from your face, and you feel like you're going to hyperventilate. You usually go through life thinking nothing bad is going to happen to you, and then when it does, it scares the hell out of you when you realize that you came thisclose to getting killed. It goes to show you that the concept of controlling your own destiny is ultimately a myth. If you're destined to get harpooned just driving down the road, get your skull cleaved by an airborne brake pad, or just choke on a cherry pit, it's gonna happen and there's nothing you can do about it when it does.