Way back in the summer of 1976 I quit my job of three years as a reporter at The Augusta (Ga) Chronicle. As an irresponsible youth with little to do, I decided to make a motorcycle trip up to Pittsburgh, where my brother Henry was doing a post-doc at Carnegie-Mellon University. After I reached his apartment (that trip is a story for another day), we heard from my old roommate and friend, and Henry’s friend as well, Tom. He had landed at Lake Tahoe after being out of touch for more than a year.

Again, with nothing much to do, I decided to ride out to see him. After all, it was only about 2400 miles, which I didn’t really know at the time. I knew only that to reach Lake Tahoe, I needed to go west. And so I did, and that, too, is a story for another day.

Lake Tahoe was very pretty, so pretty, in fact, that I decided to stay. I flew back home, collected some belongings, and drove my little Fiat coupe from my parents’ home in Rome, Ga, to Lake Tahoe, a trip of about a mile less than from Pittsburgh.

Tom and I shared a little cabin for a while, then moved into a larger house, at which point we got a third roommate.

Life was good at Lake Tahoe. I had nothing much to do, so I did that. I had very little contact with my family back east — a few letters, maybe a phone call every once in a while. In the fall of the next year, my parents took a long trip with their little Jeep Wagoneer towing their Airstream trailer. They meandered around the country, finally ending up in San Francisco, where I drove my motorcycle down to meet them at a little trailer park south of the city. How did we find our way to out-of-the-way places before GPS? That art is lost, I believe.

We stayed a few days seeing the sights, then they and I drove up to Tahoe. They parked their trailer next to our rented house, and we saw the sights there. After some time they left, heading south to Yosemite. I followed a day or so later on my motorcycle., of course. We camped way up in the mountains above Yosemite Valley in a campground that was closed for the winter. After seeing those sights, my parents left to begin a long, meandering trip home, and I returned to Lake Tahoe.

As Christmas approached, I started thinking about going home, just for the holidays. I eventually decided to do just that, so I set off, on my motorcycle, of course, leaving my little Fiat coupe parked beside the house.

As you are no doubt aware, Christmas in the northern hemisphere comes around the Winter Solstice, which is historically quite cool at 6000 feet above sea level at the latitude of Lake Tahoe. In fact, it’s quite cool nearly everywhere from Lake Tahoe east to Georgia. Taking that into account, I took the southern route rather than setting off due east. That made the trip a little longer.

I was poorly prepared to ride in winter weather for 2500 miles or so. I had a sweater, a leather jacket, jeans, long underwear, and a rain suit, which I wore to block the wind. I took US 95 south towards Las Vegas.

Back I those days, the highway south from Vegas went right across Hoover Dam. I crossed the dam at night. The road snakes down towards the Colorado River, crosses the dam, then climbs back up. At the top there was a viewpoint that overlooked the dam. At night it looked like a set from a science fiction movie, with the black lake surrounding the four intake towers lit with reddish light.

I left the overlook and drove a few miles to a place where I could pull off the road and spread out my sleeping bag. I didn’t have, or at least didn’t use, a tent. I just slipped into the bag and stared up at the sky. That far from civilization, the sky was completely black and the stars were brilliant points of light. If you look up long enough in those conditions, you will almost certainly see a shooting star, even at times other than the well-known meteor showers.

I continued on, almost certainly going down south of Interstate 40 through Phoenix to reach I-10, the southernmost east-west route. I remember very little of that trip. I don’t even remember whether I stayed at any motels on the five-day trip. All I can say is that five 500-mile days wears on a man, even a man of only 27 years. So, when I reached Alabama in the evening of the fifth day, I was in a state of semi-exhaustion.

And, of course, it was raining. I approached Rome on what we call the Alabama Road, a road I would drive hundreds of times after I got my PdD from Georgia Tech and started working in Huntsville, but which I did not know at that time. I found myself behind a big truck and a line of cars. As the highway approaches the state line it has gentle rises and dips and fairly broad curves. There are few places to pass, and at night with rain falling, it’s hard to see when you’re at one of those safe places.

I eventually got a glimpse of the road ahead that seemed long and straight enough, and empty of cars. So I pulled out and accelerated to pass the truck. I was pulling up even with the truck when the headlights of an oncoming car appeared in the lane ahead of me. So I downshifted and rolled the throttle wide open.

Now, there are two things about my motorcycle. It was a 1974 BMW R60/6, a 600-cc motorcycle with low horsepower even for that size engine and those days of engine development. So, normally, downshifting and opening the throttle begins a fairly relaxed acceleration, but an acceleration which was completely adequate to pass the truck safely. 

The second thing about my motorcycle was that every time either of the bike’s tires had broken traction and slipped, I had fallen down. Every time. When I downshifted and opened the throttle, even with that mild, little engine, the road was slippery enough that my back tire skidded and the rear of the bike started swinging out to the side.

My favorite type of book in those days was science fiction. In one or more of the lurid books I had read, an author used the expression “the metallic taste of fear.” When I had read those words, they had no real meaning for me. I understood each word, but the collection of the words themselves carried no meaning. Until that night.

On that night, at that time, on a slippery, black highway, with raindrops smeared on my helmet visor and spray from the big truck I was beside billowing out over me, I experienced the metallic taste of fear. Even in the few tenths of a second that I believed I had left before I crashed down beside a big truck, and right in front of an oncoming car, I had time to think, “Ah, so that’s what they meant by ‘the metallic taste of fear’.”

I did not die on that night. I did not fall down. I reflexively grabbed the clutch lever, which allowed the rear tire to grab enough traction that the bike straightened out and I retained control. I slowly engaged the clutch, watching the oncoming car but unable to do anything any faster, and gently opened the throttle. I accelerated slowly the rest of the way around truck, and no one even suspected the drama that had just played out on that road. Of course, the drama was all in my mind, but, still.

I never told anyone about my brush with death, or possibly serious injury. I am also thankful to be able to say that that night was the only time I have experienced the metallic taste of fear.

I continued on to my parents’ house and pulled into the driveway. I parked the bike and went to the front door, still in my gear. I don’t remember whether the door was unlocked or I had a key, but I went inside. I don’t remember the details, 42 years later. But the house was light and warm. There was a family Christmas gathering. My parents were there, of course, and Henry as well. There were other relatives, too. And there was food.

I remember that my family greeted me as if they had not expected to see me, and all these years later I have no idea whether I had even called them to let them know I was coming home. Years later, when my brother was dying from cancer, when his wife’s son did a video interview with him, he remembered that night. He said it was like the return of the prodigal son.

That surprised me. I have remembered that trip and that homecoming, but I had no idea of the impact on the rest of my family of my Christmas trip home.