MIRACLES
by
Jeffrey Morgan Foss
Below is an accounting of two highway miracles that happened during 1978 and 1979, plus a miracle that happened while hiking on a mountain in 1966.
1978
I happened to be driving from San Diego to Boston when the infamous Blizzard of '78 hit, and somewhere near Ft. Worth, Texas the winds became a force to reckon with, but they were a piece of cake compared to what I would soon be facing. Just as I passed a truck the highway turned into a sheet of black ice, and my heart went into my throat when my old '66 Cadillac suddenly went into a spin! Before I could react it dropped into the deep median trench and bounced out into the West bound lanes. In the blink of an eye I spun another quarter turn and came to rest facing oncoming traffic in the fast lane. Somewhere in the melee the Caddy had stalled, and I know that my eyes must have popped wide open when I saw a wall of trucks on that black ice that were bearing down on me.
I knew the ol’ Caddy had been damaged, and while in a quandary of deciding if I should run for my life or attempt to save my car from certain disaster, something or someone spoke to me in my mind. I clearly heard a command that told me to start the car. I didn’t question it. I turned the key and the battered old Caddy purred to life! Instincts told me to ram the gas pedal to the floor, but right at that moment I felt something take control of my hands and feet. Whatever it was spun the car so that it faced parallel to the oncoming trucks right at the precise moment when a truck in fast lane blew by. The force of its wake pushed the Caddy back into the ditch, and the momentum carried it out and into the icy east bound lanes. My unseen savior still had to be in control because the entrance had been timed perfectly. I passed between two oncoming cars, and within moments I had the Caddy back under control, headed East in the slow lane. I avoided what surely would have been an extremely bad accident … and I’m absolutely convinced that my rescue was a miracle.
1979
Sometime in late 1979, while doing about 65 mph behind a tractor trailer loaded with rusted metal junk on a secondary highway, the truck’s whole rear driver's side axle wheel assembly broke off. It bounced once and headed directly at my windshield. The weight and velocity of this wheel assembly certainly had to be enormous.
Physicists might smirk, but this rocketing mass of devastation came to what I swear was only one inch away my windshield -- ONE INCH -- and at that moment something propelled it away from me at a right angle! The wheel assembly came to rest on the opposite side of the road in the soft dirt shoulder under the front bumper of an oncoming car, and luckily no one was hurt!
An unseen "force" saved my life! It could have been divine intervention, or think about this ... a very fine featured being from another solar system could have performed the same feat. And as for applying physics to that, visitor crafts (UFO’s) have been filmed more than once making right angle turns at while at very high speeds. Think about this for a few moments … what do you believe saved me from certain death?
The Miracle on Mt. Chocorua 1966
I was eight years old when a friend, Peter Armstrong, invited Robert and me to climb Mt. Chocoura with him, which is located in the New Hampshire White Mountains. Robert ran to the summit when it came into view, and Peter and I could see a small white cumulous cloud headed straight at him. Pete yelled, “Look out for cloud nine!”
We were atop a granite pinnacle often called the Matterhorn of America, and we savored the breathtaking views for the rest of the afternoon. The interesting rock formations, natural spruce, heather and flower gardens near the top were awesome, and I really enjoyed the conversations we had with a handful of hikers that came to the top throughout the afternoon.
We decided to watch the sunset, and that turned out to be a big mistake. Peter figured we could slip down the steep south side of the summit and in a matter of just twenty minutes drop right onto the Jim Liberty trail. The alternative, which would take much longer, was to follow the trail down the west side of the mountain and end up on the Weetamoo Trail. This trail curls along the south side of the summit at the timber line, and ultimately brings us to the Jim Liberty trail just 50 ft. below the tree line.
The steep descent wasn’t too bad, but fear vibrated throughout my entire body when we came to what looked like almost vertical granite fields, but I managed muster my courage and ended up getting down them unscathed. Unbeknown to us, we had crossed the Weetamoo trail, and darkness settled in around us as we passed though thick evergreens. All of a sudden we came upon a wet spot on a vertical granite wall, and the three of us lost our footing. We were very lucky … we fell onto a crescent shaped ledge below, ending up with skinned knees and minor abrasions, but nothing serious. We looked around for a way off the ledge, but there was a sheer drop in every direction. We couldn’t find any finger or toe holds to work with … we were trapped, and that’s when the terror set in.
We imagined becoming skeletons on that ledge, never to be found, and we started to cry. Peter suggested we kneel and pray, and we agreed. Peter took the lead and said, “O God, please save us!” Before he could finish we saw a light on an area to the right of the ledge. Out of nowhere a large natural granite patio appeared. We could easily step onto it, and all of us were absolutely certain that it hadn’t been there just moments ago.
We didn’t question this wonderful gift and left the crescent shaped ledge behind. We saw an indentation in the face about 14 feet wide where the light seemed to completely disappear, and we could see a ghostly looking dead spruce in there. It had a silvery white glow to it, and it was leaning up against the back of the indentation. We followed some almost perfect granite steps that we found to the right to the spruce, and they took us to the tip of the spruce where the light ran out. When the ground leveled out we discovered that we were back on the Weetamoo Trail.
We tried to sleep there, but we felt uncomfortable, actually spooky, and to make things even worse, a light rain began to fall. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and we decided to look for the cabin. Even though the deep darkness made it impossible to see any of the ankle killers and false keyholes in the trail, we seemed to glide over all the trouble spots without taking a wrong turn. Sometime along the way the rain had stopped, and millions of bright stars filled the sky by the time we found the Jim Liberty Cabin. White smoke billowed up from the chimney, and we were ecstatic when we discovered that no one was there, but it left us wondering who in the heck built the fire in the stove.
We put a small boulder up against the door to keep out the wind and it wasn’t long before the three of us were fast asleep. Early the next morning we woke to the fragrance of bacon and eggs cooking on the stove, and when the sleep cleared from our minds we learned that our benefactor was a forest ranger. At first we thought we had the answer to who had stared the fire the night before, but that all faded away when he asked, “How long has this fire been burning?”
Peter told him it had been burning all night, and when the ranger noticed four large oak logs in the stove, he asked, “Did you guys carry those oak logs up here?”
Peter told him that the fire was going when we got here last night.
“That’s odd,” said the ranger, “The only signs of human traffic in the last four days were made by you three boys, and oak doesn’t grow up here.”
We found out that the predominant trees at that altitude we were balsam fir, white and black spruce, paper birch, mountain maple and showy mountain ash, and not one of these species could account for the size and density of the logs in the stove.
Breakfast was delicious and we thanked the ranger for looking after us. When I stepped out onto the large granite patio and vista from front of the cabin, I saw the most magnificent sunrise I had ever seen. Each of the millions of dew drops hanging onto the carpet of firs covering the landscape seemed to have its own rainbow … each uniquely inspiring, and in my opinion, collectively they were beyond the brilliance and worth of diamonds. Needless to say, I did not want to say goodbye to this mystical place.
Edited by
Rod C. Davis
