They call it "Yooper Initiation"

What you need to know first - is that I am OK. Fine. A little sore and battered, but FINE. I promise.

It snowed for the fifth time this October on Saturday night. I was in the Central part of the UP for meetings, and staying at my friend Ginny's house in Palmer. On Sunday, there was about an inch on the ground at Ginny's and I headed off to a breakfast meeting. I was quite aware of the somewhat icy road, and felt like I was taking it pretty slowly and carefully.

I came to a curve [really one of an endless series of curves in this road which curves in 3-D like a roller coaster for about six miles]. As I entered the curve, I thought, "You are going to fast for this curve," but there was nothing to do, at that point, as the road was a solid sheet of ice. Sure enough, I swerved left, then right, then left again. I felt the car leave the road; was pretty sure it rolled. It came to rest, tilted. My first words, "Thank God, I'm OK." I felt no pain, at all.

I could not open the driver's door, so I got my feet on the window, moved to the e-brake, pushed hard on the passenger door, and got it open. I was quite high in the air. There was a stump there ["Wow," I thought, "Good thing I didn't hit THAT"]. I stepped on the stump, and got to the ground. The car was clearly not going anywhere, and I was in a ditch with a five foot drop on a pretty lonely road.

I climbed out of the ditch and walked nearly a half mile until I came to a mailbox. The Kotijarvi's let me use their phone to call for help, and then Melba drove me back to my car. When we got to the place, she paled visibly and asked if I were sure I was OK; she promptly took me back to her house for coffee to await the police. Darryl (or Darren, I'm fuzzy here) took me back to the scene when the trooper called to say he was almost there. He told me in the car, "I just got back from Iraq last week. We lost three guys. Actually two guys and a girl. It's bad there." I welcomed him home. He stayed until the trooper arrived.

I was on my way to meet Manuel (my supervisor), Jim (my bishop), Kevin (the diocesan Ministry Development Coordinator) and a number of folks from the standing committee and commission on ministry. We were doing some canonical assessments on a congregation working on commissioning a Ministry Support Team. I was quite sure they would be very worried when I didn't show. I learned later that Jim realized he had a voicemail (as all were wondering where I was) and that he looked shaken when he heard my message, playing it on speaker phone for the whole group to hear.

After the tow truck came, the trooper took me to church. All the folks there fussed and carried on in sweet and caring ways. After church, the tow truck guy took me to the body shop. The body shop loaned me a car. At no point did I show any identification, produce a credit card, or my driver's license! The insurance people have been great.

Tomorrow am, I'll drive back to Ishpiming, return the loaner car and get a rental car until Maggie is fixed. It's still being negotiated, but she's looking repairable - about 10K worth of damage.

I was feeling funky this afternoon, so I called the doc, who told me to go the ER. I walked in and the nurse said, "Are you Fran? The clinic called and said you were coming." vitals, CAT scan, doc consult (minor concussion and bruises, nothing serious), and I was out the door in an hour.

Apparently many folks who drive up here roll a car in the ice at some point. What strikes me most is the kindness of strangers. From the Kotajarvis to Trooper Stanton to the folks at Tim's towing and the owner of Bartanen's auto body, not to mention the folks in the ER at Ontonagon Memorial Hospital, everyone was kind, caring, and lovely.

By the way, here's what the tow truck guys and I have reconstructed about what actually happened: I went into the ditch, missing a utility pole by no more than a foot. The tow truck guys think I rolled twice. The stump is from the tree I broke with the side of my car. What was holding me the tilted position was the trunk of the tree, leaning up against other trees. It was all quite gentle. No crashing, and no jarring. The airbag did not deploy.