Broncos at odd angles...

Way back when I started my old blog, one of my intended themes was 'weird coincidences'. Strange convergences, unexpected parallels, unlikely events and synchronicity remain subjects that I'm interested in and that I think about, well, more or less constantly. The problem was that there are just not enough of these events to write about regularly in an online notebook. They actually happen to me so infrequently that subtitling my blog in reference to them just didn't make any sense.

On to my story. I met Stacie for lunch yesterday in Tullahoma. Afterwards, I borrowed her SUV and roamed around town, running some errands and generally killing time and enjoying the ride before I had to get back in the minivan.

As I was driving south on Jackson street, an odd sight caught my eye. There was an old Bronco II facing north in the turn lane about a hundred yards from me. It was perched at a very peculiar angle. The front driver side of the vehicle pointed toward the ground at about 15 degrees. I first thought that it was a flat tire. Then, in the distance, I saw blue lights approaching from behind. Then I thought it might be a wreck. As I got closer, I began to understand that it was neither a flat tire nor a wreck that had caused this situation.

The Bronco had NO driver side front wheel. No tire, no rim, no hub - not even the spindle was there. It looked like the whole wheel assembly had come off the vehicle at the steering knuckle. By this time, the cop was out of his car talking to the driver who was standing at the front of his truck, scratching his head.

I was now near enough to take it all in since traffic had slowed to a crawl around the spectacle. The Bronco was balanced on the front passenger side and rear driver side wheels. The front driver side suspension was on the ground and the rear passenger side tire was separated from the ground by several inches. You could also see a gash in the pavement where the wheel-less suspension of the truck had skidded as he veered into the turn lane. There was also a brief skid mark behind that which ended rather abruptly.

Here's how I think it happened: Driver and friend are cruising along when they hear a loud noise (steering knuckle or ball joint breaking) from underneath the truck. Driver slams on brake causing both skid mark and the wheel to come off. Truck tips up at odd angle as they hear a different loud noise (suspension grating on the asphalt). Driver then guides the truck to a stop in the turn lane as they both watch the loose wheel travel on by itself into the vacant lot across the street.

Which is where friend was as I passed, presumably searching for said wheel in the weeds.

Oh, to have had a camera!

Warning: incongruous side story coming up.

At that point, I couldn't help but think about something that happened when I was in college. For a couple of years, I helped a local school teacher who painted houses during the summers. Odd guy. He had an odd daughter too, whom I was dating at the time. I guess that's how I got the job. Anyway, one day I showed up at the worksite on time and he was nowhere to be found. I waited. And waited. And then I waited some more. Finally about an hour and a half later, he shows up in his old beater work truck. As he gets out, he said, "Well, I did something stupid!" "Yeah, so did I.", I thought. Turns out he had been changing a flat on his old truck the night before when he went into the house for something, lost track of time and promptly forgot about the flat-changing business. The next morning, he got in the truck and drove down the road. WITH NO LUG NUTS on the wheel in question. About halfway to the worksite, he hears a loud noise... You can imagine the rest.

Back to my original story which, so far, is only a mildly amusing story, not a coincidence. A few hours after the Bronco II fiasco, I had pretty much forgotten the whole thing.

Then G came by. He wanted me to see his friend's 'new' ride. It was also an older Bronco II. Not the same one. This one had been painted metallic green with some splashes of bright color here and there. It had been 'bagged and slammed' with 18" wheels, notched frame, the whole deal.

The frame was literally on the ground. When G waved at his friend, the whole truck popped up about a foot in the air. Then he made the rear go back down, then the front went down while the back went up again and so on. Then he raised all corners to the max except for the front driver side and got out.

The truck was sitting at exactly the same angle as the Bronco I had seen on Jackson earlier in the day.

What are the chances of seeing two different Bronco II's sitting at the same improbable angle (even if for completely different reasons) in the same day?

It's a sign, I tell you, a sign.