The Larson Family

The most recent near-death experience I can think of happened in about 2005. Somewhere around there.

A co-worker and I have a project to photograph North Dakota ghost towns, and we went on a trip to Central North Dakota to check out a few towns. It was late fall, but it hadn’t snowed yet, so we took a chance. Well, it began to snow. Ten miles from our first destination, we had to turn back. The gravel roads were getting slippery and muddy, and we were in a little Ford Escort station wagon.

Ten miles outside of Devil’s Lake, the engine on the little Escort seized up. For good. We got a tow back to our hotel and pondered what to do. We had about a hundred bucks between us, and no vehicle.

That’s when I went to my hole card… my cousin Brad. He’s actually my ex-wife’s cousin, but we get along well, and he’s always been there for me when I’m in a jam. I called him and asked if he would drive from Fargo to Devil’s Lake and pick us up. I heard him say “You wanna go on a road trip, Chris?” Two hours later, Brad and his friend Chris showed up in Devil’s Lake to pick us up. Brad was driving his wife’s brand new Subaru WRX All-Wheel Drive.

It had started to snow pretty good by that time, and the wind was blowing it horizontally across the highway. Plus, the sun had gone down, so it was freezing on the road. Conditions weren’t the best.

Now, a little background on Brad. He’s a motor-head — likes cars, and likes to go fast in cars. I wouldn’t say he’s reckless, but if you ride with him, don’t be afraid of a little excitement.

So, we’re zipping down Highway 2 toward Grand Forks, Chris in the front with Brad, and me and my friend, Rat, in the back. The headlights are illuminating two swaths of glazed road in the horizontal blizzard. Brad’s pretty confident considering we’re in an all-wheel drive, and driving about the same speed you would on a normal sunny day.

Suddenly, there’s a very slight rise in the highway. As we go over it, you could feel the car squat down on it’s suspension, and when the suspension springs back on the far side of the hump, all four tires broke loose. My stomach turned over at the feeling of the car sliding down the slippery highway, slowly rotating clockwise. If we were to hit a patch of dry pavement, we would be in danger of rolling over.

I’ll never forget this. The car had rotated clockwise about twenty degrees. The headlights were shining at the ditch. And my cousin Brad, both hands on the wheel, shrugged his shoulders and in a real low voice said, “Well…” A moment later, he turned the wheel, stepped lightly on the gas, and drove the car down into the ditch. First lucky circumstance — it was a wide, flat-bottomed ditch with a slight grade. Second lucky circumstance — it hadn’t snowed much yet, and there was only about a half inch of snow on the ground.

Next thing you know, we’re in the ditch going sixty. Rat and I are both leaning to the center, staring out the windshield from between the bucket seats. I distinctly remember thinking, “This could be it. Is this the end?” It was dead silent in the car. A second later, Brad let off the accelerator and very gently turned the wheel back to the left. The little blue Subaru went right back up onto the road. The rear end fishtailed a little bit before Brad got it under control, but he did. Suddenly, we were back on the road and driving along like nobody’s business. It was still dead silent in the car.

I said the only thing that came to my mind. “Good drivin’ Brad.” And he said, “Thank you.” The silence returned for a few moments until our adrenaline caught up with all of us. Soon, we were laughing nervously and thanking God. Oh my God dude, I thought that was it. Me too!

It’s been a couple years. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m due. — Troy

A former roommate of mine pointed out to me once that I have a lot of stories about stupid things I did that could have killed me. He then went on to list all the stories I told him about “the time I almost died” or the “time I could have died.” And I realized he was right.

We had many jokes about it, thought it was quite funny, but now I have a son. And I see a lot of me in him. And I really hope he’s not as foolish as I was.

You want an example? OK, how about this… I remember one year, I couldn’t have been more than twelve, it had been a VERY cold winter. I grew up in Minot, ND, home of the Souris River which we locals called the “mouse” river. In the winter, it would freeze solid after a couple weeks of sub zero temperatures, and we thought nothing of walking and even sledding on the ice.

Well that year it had been very cold, but like North Dakota weather so often does, we experienced a dramatic turnaround in temperature that spring. It went from below freezing to fifties and sixties in the course of a couple days. I remember being at my friend’s house–I’m thinking his name was Shawn–which was right on the river. As young boys will do, we climbed the fence in his back yard and went down the riverbank to check out the ice breaking up on the river.

We were thrilled to find huge chunks of ice floating around, like mini Titanic-busters. There were so many of these chunks of ice on the river that they were floating around, bumping into each other with just inches or a few feet between them.

What do boys do when they see such a scenario? Well, they jump to the nearest block of ice and try to cross the river without getting wet, of course. So that’s what we did. We had a great time, jumping from block to block. I managed to avoid getting too wet, although there were a few times that I jumped on a block of ice only to have my weight lift the other end of the block out of the water, soaking my shoes.

Our fun ended when my friend Shawn jumped on a block of ice, and the edge broke off, dunking him in the dirty Mouse river. Luckily, he was near the riverbank and only went in to about knee-depth before he hit bottom. I think we realized then that what we were doing was very dangerous. And I could have died.

Oh, there are lots more of these stories to come. Playing on the freight trains… playing in the abandoned water treatment plant… and much more. Stay tuned. — Troy