snow and ice #2

The year is after 1980 but before Bob and Ruby Burrell split up. The place is south on I75 in KY just north of the TN border. The road there is mostly flat but winding. The car was the Chevy "woodie" station wagon that my mother gave me when my father died.

As I came around a curve, I saw cars in the distance as far as the eye could see, stopped. As we got closer, I could see the cars were stopped, bumper to bumper, with two wheels on one of the shoulders.

I slowed and pulled to the right shoulder. I stopped the car and tried to get out. Glare ice.

Don't remember how we got out of there, but I have a faint recollection that somehow we left the pavement for a nearby road.

Anyway we proceeded to Oak Ridge, exiting the freeway in Clinton.

The road from Clinton to Oak Ridge leaves the "urban area" and travels along the Clinch River, which is on the driver side of the car. On the right is a rock face. After Ruby left, Bob bought a house up on the rock.

Here also the road is mostly flat but winding. As I came around a curve near the Oak Ridge city boundary, the area widens out and there is an intersection to the left. There are buildings at the intersection, including a small grocery and a restaurant or bar. From a distance, I could see that there were cars parked on the right shoulder.

As we got closer it became clear that there were multiple rows of cars, very close together. At one point they blocked the road, where the road had widened into two lanes each direction, with a grassy median.

I slowly stopped. At that point, the car very slowly slid to the right, contacting the other cars. A crunching sound occurred as the forces between the cars in the pack reached equilibrium.

Later an Oak Ridge city truck came from the oncoming direction. It had bags of salt but refused to come and the crew refused to bring the salt to us. So a group of the men went to the truck and retrieved multiple large bags of salt.

Starting with the car whose owner was present, and whose position made it the best candidate to leave first, we made tracks of salt from each of the tires.

It wasn't especially cold, so the ice melted rather quickly. As soon as the car had traction, the driver left, headed into Oak Ridge. When my turn came, I got the family into the car and we left.

Since this was long before cell phones, Ruby and Bob had no idea where we were.