A dozen years later...

Tonight I spent some time writing a thank you letter to a choir director from a dozen years ago... has it really been that long? It seems as though I've only blinked once or twice since cavorting around the campus of Southern Utah University. Those are some of my favorite memories, and I couldn't resist sharing a piece of my letter here.

One of my favorite HOPE memories, a classic that I still tell to this day, is from a trip we took to Escalante in December of 1997 to perform for a Christmas party. Choir members arranged to carpool together, and my trusty and rusty little blue Nissan Maxima was part of the caravan. As we drove, snowflakes began to fall. More and more piled up around us as we plowed through Panguitch and began to wind around Bryce Canyon. The lacy flakes were breathtaking embellishments on the bristling green pine trees and stark red rocks. However, the treacherous canyon road was quickly becoming packed with snow. I was a little nervous, but Utah snowstorms were nothing new to me. And of course we were young and invincible. We laughed and sang away our worries as we drove.

When we rounded one serpentine curve in the road, the pristine white was suddenly marred by a big, brown blotch. There was a car ahead of us. A station wagon full of other choir members. A brown station wagon that was not moving! My fingers tightened on the wheel as I realized that this car was not only completely stopped, it was stopped in the middle of the road, straddling both lanes. To one side of us was a stark mountainside covered with craggy boulders, to the other was a steep ravine entrenched with jagged pine trees. There was nothing for me to do but desperately pump the brake and hope we would stop in time, but the slick and insidious snow slid us smack into the rear bumper of the wagon.

I am happy to report that not only was no one in either car injured, not one of them uttered a single four-letter word, either.

As we all piled out of the cars and into the snow to assess the situation, I frantically asked the other driver, "Why were you stopped in the middle of the road?"

"Well," he replied, "We were nervous about the snow, so we stopped to pray for safety."

I hope I don't have to point out the irony of stopping a car in a winter storm in the middle of a narrow, snow-packed canyon road to pray for safety. However, we were protected from serious damage and injury, and we were able to continue on to Escalante where after our performance, a lovely, generous couple allowed the entire choir to spend the rest of the night safe from the snow and sprawled across their sofas. In fact, I spent that night snuggled on a sofa with an 18-year-old boy who would grow up to become my husband.

*Sigh*

Good times! Where, oh, where is my rewind button?