As a young teenager I usually spent some summer weeks with Grandma Wells and Aunt Tump. Tump visited her friends and cousins and often took me with her. On one such occasion we spent the afternoon with her first cousin Eva and husband Joe. Joe was a mail carrier and a ham radio operator, so there was no problem in keeping me entertained. The afternoon flew by and it was at the edge of darkness before anyone noticed.

“We’d better get going,” said Tump “I don’t like driving over the mountain in the dark.” 

“If you have a friend who’s a ham operator get with him and give me a call,” said Joe.

“All right, good to see you all again, bye” I said.

“I’ll see you again soon,” Tump said as we got in her car and she drove away toward Stone Mountain. The town where Eva and Joe lived is situated at higher elevation than is Tump’s place, which makes the down side a longer ride than the travel up. It was dusk by the time we reached the downward slope of the road. Everything looked fine to me. We had a competent driver and the road appeared in good shape ahead. It was typical twilight time and the headlights gave ample illumination.

We went down the mountain road for a mile or so, happy to be on the way home when our headlights seemed to get dimmer. Farther on they dimmed even more.

“I think we’ve run into fog,” Tump said.

“Yeah, it’s hard to see the road. Can you see it all right?” I said.

“Just barely. We should turn around and go back to Eva’s place for the night,” Tump said, “only there’s no place to turn around,” and she slowed our slow speed even slower.

“I believe I can walk faster than this,” I said, and she stopped the car.

“Good idea. I’m glad you thought of that. Want to get home tonight? If you’ll walk in the middle of the road I can follow and maybe stay on the road. What d’ya say?” What could I say? The next thing I knew I was hiking down the road ahead of the car in a fog so thick I could barely see the road right under my feet. I realized that I was having trouble staying in the middle of the road only when I heard the car horn toot.

“Can’t you stay in the middle of the road?”

“No, I can’t see where the middle is.” I had to change what I was doing so that I frequently stopped and paced off the distance from the edge to the middle of the pavement. We got along fine for a time after the adjustment. The most difficult part of my leadership role was on the curves of that mountain road. We continued on down the mountain for an hour or more and we came across a car in the ditch. The strange part of this scene was that we could see the car in the ditch. We had come out of the dense part of the fog. We had just come through a low hanging cloud. It is common for fog to form along the side of a mountain.

“See that car in the ditch? If it hadn’t been for your expert trailblazing we could have been that car.”

“Thank you,” I said, and we made our way the rest of the way down the mountain and all the way home the same day. Truth be known, the car was in the ditch when we went up the mountain. I wonder why Tump didn’t see it then.

RDJ Writing Notes:Tump and her favorite nephew Donald, after an afternoon visit with her cousin Eva are headed for home just before dark. Going down Stone Mountain they encounter a dense fog that presents them with a dilemma of how to get down the mountain while staying on the road. They take the only option available and Donald blazes a trail, which Tump follows and they get home safely.