A THIRD OPTION... WITH EUGENE THE JEEP

By ROBERT SEIDLER

I was facing imminent death….
I often drive a 1946 Willys Jeep it was the first year civilians could purchase one. At 14 I had the original Willys/Ford Jeep that the military used I was gifted it by my father in 1966 as a way he thought to keep me out of his hair and maybe learn something too. It was my first car and a good choice because we lived by woods and dirt roads a Jeep can be happy with.
It only had low range so 30 mph was the top speed and I was lucky for that fact. It also had no brakes and the frame was rusted through in one place and overall it was worn down but till had enough fun left in it to cause endless adventures and plenty of trouble.
That first Jeep was a masterpiece of simple engineering, a large Erector set for a 14 year old desperate always to understand how things worked. It offered no electronics or conveniences the seats didn’t even adjust. It was manual everything and clawed the earths surface like a mole claws underground.
I learned all about how it worked and what made it go. I learned what it could and could not do.
I learned how to repair it, how to keep it running on its last few breaths. I water proofed it for fording lakes, creeks and mud holes. It would go places new Jeeps could not even though it looked like a loose bucket of rusty bolts.
I enhanced its good qualities and avoided its bad ones. I learned a lot about traction and objects in motion. Dad paid 75 bucks for it and now about 10 old Jeeps later those lessons continue at 70.
Top safe speed in a flat fender Jeep is 45 mph. Sure they will do 60 maybe 65 but trust me 45 IS top safe speed.
All the old Jeeps offer Jeep death wobble to their drivers as an option. Hit just the right bump in the road and death wobble begins and robs your hands of the wheel then things can get nasty. At 45 or below you can regain control…trust me.
I was on Surf Road recently cruising 45 mph, my personally added seatbelt was on and I had not a care in the world. Cool air was buffering my natural pleasures, windshield was open. That was an early cooling option on CJ2As only, an opening windshield! Not a care in the world until…
I noticed a guy on a zero turn mower on the bike trail, sunglasses, full ear protection he was coming towards me safely on the trail I was in the road I saw zero risks.
Suddenly he turned left directly in my path, he was to me a Japanese Kamikaze zero turn mower pilot…he never looked he just turned. I had no time to even move my feet this was a steering and hands job now where luck would be the main component followed by that 14 year old kids brain archive of Jeep survival skills.
The following 5 seconds would be all automatic. My brain saw only two options: running him directly over or flipping the Jeep and sliding and rolling it. Rolling one of these is certain death, there is no rollbar or crash crush protection. Being tossed out in a crash was the original safety option, it was another bad Jeep option of those times. There were only two crash type options, just two, no others. This was dire, extremely dire and I knew it.
I chose the slide and rollover option versus turning the guy into a messy road-killed mammal just like all the others I see when I bike the trail. I also knew I had a slim chance of survival while he had none.
There however is this third option the one we can’t imagine the one defined by the less than awesome power of the flap of a butterflies wing. Buddhism and Zen talks of this but I have never experienced it this directly before.
I hit the mower, the Jeep went up on two wheels, did all types of maneuvering all ruled and regulated by the laws of physics, I was bounced, tossed, turned, spun and released to still.
My first thought was I killed the mower guy. My second thought was I must have killed the mower guy because I didn’t flip the Jeep.
As the Jeep spun around I saw him on the mower in the road alive.
The third option. The butterfly had acted.
I will never understand what exactly happened or do I need to.
I do have to remember there are always options in life we can’t imagine both good and bad. Options that take us on new often seemingly impossible journeys.
We both met over on the bike trail and talked, he thanked me for saving his life by almost losing mine. He admitted he never looked and that my quick actions resulted in another day for him.
The Jeep hit the front of his mower and missed him by about a foot. The resulting hit sent the Jeep on two wheels and into a spin.
Any tiny changes in timing, speed or impact areas would have resulted in major changes in outcomes all of them probably worse, much worse.
The third option and the power of tiny forces around us.
We were both lucky and for a moment I was a proud 14 year old again with a Jeep just doing what I did testing limits and pushing natural laws to their limits.
Thanks Dad for the Jeep! And more than that the seatbelt did save my life this is a for certain. I didn’t always wear it because I didn’t have to by law. But now it’s an always thing. Will most likely add a rollbar too, very most likely.

Robert Seidler lives in Sopchoppy.