Heading Home

Maybe a half mile north of the village of Lisbon, New York, Flack, Chapel, and Dezell Roads all intersect.  A few hundred feet from that intersection a small creek passes through under the Dezell Road on its journey to Sucker Brook.  Obviously that is in somewhat of a valley.  In actuality from the road intersection it is reasonably flat for most of that distance, and then it dips sharply to the creek, and rises nearly as sharply on the other side.

It was one of those cold clear nights with a full moon.  The air seemed hollow somehow, and sound was traveling vast distances.  In other words a beautiful night for a snowmobile ride.  My brother-in-law Wendell and I left our home on the Dezell Road, he on his faithful Johnson, and I on my pretty SnoJet, both 440 CC engine size, and big fast machines for the mid-1970s.

We rode with a large group, enjoyed ourselves immensely, and somewhere near midnight headed for home.  We passed through a part of Lisbon village, headed for the road intersection previously mentioned.  As we turned the right hand corner onto the Dezell Road, probably at about 50 to 60 MPH, as usual we cut ‘em loose as we headed the mile and a half or so to home.  I was on the left, in the passing zone as I called it, while Wendy remained on his own side of the road.

I would guess we may have been hitting 85 or 90 as we broke over the crest of the hill heading down to the creek.  On such a cold night two-cycle engines will really sing as they wind out to outrageous rpms.  The tandem engines were all you could hear.

As we broke over the crest of the hill, possibly 100 feet away were the headlights of a car coming at us.  To the occupants of that car we must have appeared as another car with our headlights side by side.  They must have had thoughts of imminent death as we split apart, one going to either side of their car.  We never slowed as we continued on our high speed journey, although today I’ve no idea which of us may have made it home a few feet ahead of the other that time.