I’m still not believing it, mind you, but my skepticism weakened a notch yesterday.
I wrote about hair as part of the human sensory system back in November – see hair November 8, 2013. There were a number of sources, links and personal experiences combined in that article.
I decided then to quit having my hair cropped short… and, in fact, have not had my hairs cut since then. Well, I haven’t embraced the untrimmed facial hair thing (yet?).
Nevertheless, my hair is no longer (un-pun unintended) sidewalled above my ears, but more or less covering them – as you can see in this photo taken this morning. Theoretically the cosmos can communicate better with us via our hair than we assume. I am still unconvinced, but after yesterday, open even more to the possibility.
It was drizzling rain and my small, lightweight Honda CRX was quite happy doing 64 miles-per-hour on the wet highway. I watched a rather new, full-sized black pickup gaining on me for over a mile – probably doing around the 70-mph posted speed limit.
I thought about slowing down so he could overtake me on the last passable straightaway before the curves into Darby. Nah – I would really have to crawl to make that happen. Besides, we are almost to town … a sweeper to the right, then a sweeper to the left and we are in the 45 zone, preceding the 35 zone, followed by the 25 zone. No point, really.
He kept a respectful distance through the sweeper to the right, but started closing that gap on the left hander. Uh Oh.
Hey Idiot! I am going 64-mph. We will reach town in half a minute. With you hitting over 70-mph, someone coming around that curve at us would present a closing speed of 140-mph. The 205.3 feet of road you can see represents EXACTLY ONE SECOND.
Highway 93 is lightly traveled. He’s playing the odds.
I typically would simply let off the throttle to help the overtaker get it over with. Okay, those who know me are saying, “You rarely get caught up with, let alone overtaken.” True, but when I do, I help.
However something inspired me to hit the brakes while he was in the oncoming lane, but still far enough back he could see my brake lights come on. I dropped a lot of speed immediately…
putting him instantly ahead of me….
Right as the oncoming car appeared.
The big, black 3/4-ton, swerved back into the lane he shouldn’t have left,
into the space I had vacated a FRACTION of a second before
and there was no grinding of steel and squishing of flesh.
Whatever made me hit the brakes?
I never do that.
I don’t know, but I’m sure glad I did.
I don’t believe this hair stuff yet, but am not in the mood for a haircut either.