In the early 1980s, I was working as a librarian in the science library at Washington State University Pullman. One of my regular duties there was to work an evening shift every Thursday night.
Winters can be pretty cold out there on the Palouse. Snowfall, however, varies considerably from year to year. This unpredictability was fine with me. My wife and I had lived through many snowy winters in our native upstate New York. So, the lesser snow accumulation locally in Pullman was of little consequence to us.
In fact, we reveled in the snow when it came. With years and years of shoveling experience, we attacked any snow on our and our elderly neighbors’ sidewalks, steps and driveways with gusto and quickly cleared the way.
Well, maybe not quite so quickly, but it did get done, with occasional breaks for social interactions with other neighbors who were also engaged in battling the snow.
We were also quite used to driving on snow and ice. Looking back, I can recall many driving incidents — either sliding on ice or driving blindly through blizzards — that I feel pretty lucky to have survived.
This one winter night, I worked my regular Thursday shift and came out to drive home. I could see that was going to be difficult. Several inches of snow had fallen while I was working, and the roads were extremely slick with ice.
The road from the library parking lot to the main street of campus, Stadium Way, was a short but steep incline. There is a traffic light at the intersection at the bottom, and it’s always red for traffic coming down that incline. I would not only have to get down the hill, I’d have to stop at the bottom to trigger the sensor for a green light.
“Hey, no problem, right?” I cleaned off my car with my snowbrush and started to drive home.
There was a pizza delivery truck already at the bottom of the incline, waiting for the light to turn green. Pizza, of course, is seemingly the main staple in Pullman, as it is in any college town. Pizza delivery trucks were busy all over town that night.
My confidence in my driving soon proved unwarranted. About halfway down, despite crawling along inch by inch, my car started sliding. It slowly descended until it clunked into the back fender of the truck.
The impact was fairly light, so there wasn’t much damage to either vehicle and no injuries for the drivers. Yes, there was that damage to my ego, but I survived that.
The driver of the pizza truck beckoned me to come sit inside. He was friendly enough, considering the conditions. He was already discussing the matter via phone with his manager at the pizza parlor.
While we were sitting there, a campus police car approached, lights flashing. Unfortunately it was approaching from behind us, down the same incline we had come down. The police officer had no more success negotiating the hill than I did. The fortunate part was that his vehicle did miss hitting my car. Instead, it clunked into the back fender of the pizza truck.
The officer quickly jumped out of his vehicle. Wrong move! He lost his footing immediately and went flying, slamming straight down on his back. He struggled to get up, no easy feat with all the gear he was toting, gathered what dignity he could and called for us to exit the truck.
As we stood in front of the truck discussing and mostly laughing about the matter, the flashing lights of the police car attracted students cooped up in their dormitories directly across Stadium Way. Bored from their inability to travel anywhere and needing a break from their studies, we provided them welcome relief.
The snow was good for packing snowballs and snowballs were soon in the air. The uniformed campus cop and his two companions proved to be inviting targets. We were able to dodge most of the snowballs coming at us, but more and more students were pouring out of their dorms and joining the one-sided affair. The deluge of missiles rapidly increased to an inescapable barrage.
The cop obviously realized the uselessness of trying to assert his authority over student high jinks. He was likely a recent graduate, or a student himself.
We concluded our conversation, got into our vehicles and drove away as snowballs continued to fly. I was able to drive the rest of the way home, up to the top one of the Pullman hills, without incident.
Damage was inconsequential, my auto insurance costs didn’t increase and I am left with a memory that tickles me still.
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