The temps started falling last night. By this morning it was 30 below. Went into town to have lunch with the wife. Stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up some meds. As I was leaving, I noticed it has gone on down to 35 below. Drove down the parking lot exit, heading onto the Old Steese. (Majot Street). There is an older man always there panhandeling, right at the stop sign. Today I noticed him staggering as I pulled up to the stop sign, but he was up on the sidewalk, safely out of the way. I thought he was hitting the antifreeze (booze) pretty hard to keep warm at 35 below. The exit makes a sweeping turn as it goes to the street, and is an exit only just enough room for one vehicle. In fact it is a bit tight for my one ton duelly. So when I stopped at the sign I had to look back over my left shoulder to see if there was any traffic coming. There was, so I waited for about three or four vehicles to pass. When the last one passed I moved my foot from the brakes to the throttle. As I turned my head back I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I hit the brakes. I looked around and the panhandler was missing.
I raised up looking out over the hood. I could just see a shoe, then it disappeared down out of sight. Then I saw a head come up in front fo the hood. The hand took hold of the vinyl cover over my grill. As he tried to lift himself using the cover it came unsnapped, and he disappeared again. A few seconds later he's coming back up, he had been using my front bumper to get up off the ice covered pavement. Once he was standing he leans his head and shoulders on my hood, looked like he was going to go to sleep. I beeped the horn and he raised up looking at me. He waved, smiling, and straightened up. I pointed to the sidewalk. He shook his head, smiled, and waved, as he headed for the sidewalk. When he got to the curb, he raised his left foot way higher than he needed to, lost his balance, and took three or four steps backwards. I thought he was going to go down again. Somehow he managed to get a hand on the hood of my truck to stabalize himself. Again he leaned his head and shoulder on the hood of my truck. This time he raised himself up before I blew the horn. Again he waved, smiled, and was saying something. Too bad I could not hear what he was saying, Diesels are noisy. As he headed for the sidewalk this time he kept his hand on the hood of the truck for stability. Using my fender, to hold him up he managed to make it up onto the curb.
Once up on the curb, he started waving for me to go on by. I moved forward slowly, but had to stop when the mirror got to him. He took a step back, and waved for me to go on. I again moved slowly forward. As the rear fender, and outside duel came up to him, again I stopped. He stepped back one more step and waved. I eased on by. As I eased forward he reached out and patted my rear fender. The sensor on my rear bumper picked him up and made one beep as I eased past. Once I was totally past I throttled up and went down the street. After I had straightened out on the street, I broke my rule about using my cell phone while driving. I called 911 and asked if he could be picked up before someone ran over him. 911 said they had someone on the way.
Gosh, I think about how close I came to running over this old guy. It was close, really close.
