THE STORM

We had a particularly turbulent and active storm in Toronto recently, with inches of rain, high winds, lightning and thunder.

On the day that this event happened I was driving on my route for the tax department as usual. Very little work was being done because if I as much as put my head outside the car I would have been drenched, so I did my calls between the rain squalls whenever the downpour let up.

I came to a point in my route where I usually stop for a coffee, a bowling alley on Wilson Ave. where a friend works. When I pulled up to the parking spot where I usually put the car, for some reason I looked at the doorway to the bowling alley, which is on a slant from where I park. This time it appeared to be boarded up as if there were renovations going on, so I drove around the building to try to find the new doorway, and to get as close as possible so that I wouldn't get wet.

After getting out of the car I saw that there were no renovations, and it was not boarded up, so I started in.. Just as I had taken a second step there was a blinding flash, and an instantaneous explosion that knocked me to the ground. Unhurt I got up and saw that a transformer on a nearby hydro pole thirty feet from me had been struck by lightning and was in flames and was smoking. I realized that had I parked in my regular spot, and had I walked up to the building by my normal route, I would have been directly under the transformer when the lightning bolt had hit. I would have been a pile of ashes.

There would have been one less husband, and four fatherless children. Why did I see something that was not there, and why did I decide to park in a different spot and walk a different route? These were changes that saved my life!

How close we are to oblivion - a split second away from eternity at all times! It just makes the time here on earth more precious. I have a greater thankfulness for the past nine years of sobriety, the full and rich years with my wife and children. After this event I know that I must not waste a single second of life in a mind boggling addiction , for it is here now, and will not come again.

Thanks to Donwood I have had many wonderful years, and if I continue to have such fantastic luck I may have some more.

DONALD FELSTEAD

DON says: I wrote this article in June, 1975, I did get many more years, and at age 75 I hope for a few more. Booze free of course!