The date was Tuesday, December 20th, 1977.  I had written my last exam the day before and I was eager to head home to Burlington for the Christmas holidays.  Craig Wood and I were catching a ride with RJ Summers, who had the use of a car belonging to a friend at CFB Trenton. Craig and RJ had also finished their exams, so we would have already been on our way, but for a little hiccup. Exam routine wasn't over until 1600 that day, and the DCdts had decreed that no one could proceed on leave before then.  This would have been just a minor inconvenience, except the weather forecast for that evening and the following day was not looking good.  There was a heavy snowstorm advancing on Kingston from the west, expected to arrive around sunset. It was forecast to dump a foot or more of snow through the evening and the following day.  If we could have left mid-morning, we probably would have made it all the way to Burlington without running into snow.  But we were stuck in Kingston.  Our kit was already in the car, but we could only bide our time until 1600.  We listened to the radio weather updates, and they were less encouraging by the hour.

Sixteen hundred finally came, and we bolted for the parking lot.  The sky was looking pretty ominous as RJ wheeled off the college grounds and headed for Highway 401.  The first snowflakes were whirling around the car even before we reached the highway.  It was snowing in earnest as RJ accelerated down the ramp onto the 401.  It had been gloomy all day, but with the sun now setting somewhere beyond the low, dark clouds, gloom was rapidly turning to darkness.  Sub-optimal driving conditions, to be sure, but RJ had been up and down this highway many times over the past couple of winters, so he was an old hand at this, right?

It wasn't long before it was as black as the inside of a cow, and visibility ahead was severely limited by the heavy snow.  There was very little other traffic - most everyone else must have been exercising common sense and were staying at home, or wherever - they weren't venturing out on the highway.  The snow was quickly piling up on the pavement.  The lane markings were completely obscured, and so RJ was following in the tire tracks of some other vehicle up ahead of us, invisible in the darkness and the swirling snow.  Prudently, RJ was driving at much less than the posted limit.  With the landmarks invisible, gauging our progress was difficult.  Every time a road sign loomed up out of the darkness, RJ would edge the car over to the right to try and read it as we drove past.  From my vantage point in the back seat, I found this manoeuvre unsettling; there was a ditch alongside the highway, and between the darkness and the rapidly accumulating snow, it was hard to tell where the road ended and the ditch began.  I may have voiced my concerns once or twice, but RJ and Craig assured me that everything was in hand.

The storm was pretty bad, and I mused aloud if maybe we ought to have stayed at the College.  RJ remarked that for one so young, I was very much an old woman.  We were only doing fifty or fifty-five kilometres per hour by this time; at that speed, it was going to take us at least twice the usual three-and-a-half or four hours to get home.  Another road sign came looming up out of the darkness, and once again RJ edged the car over, trying to read the sign.  I may have cautioned RJ to be careful.  The boundary between pavement and shoulder was completely buried under several inches of snow, but we felt it as the passenger-side tires drove off the pavement and onto the gravel shoulder.  The latter had a bit of a camber to it and the car started fishtailing.  RJ got off the gas and wrestled with the steering wheel to counter the skidding and regain control.

The car came to an abrupt stop, angled such that it was partly in the ditch, and partly on the road.  RJ tried to get the car moving and back onto the road, but the tires just spun without gaining any traction.  I refrained from commenting on this development.  Craig and I got out and went around behind the car to push.  Try as we might, we couldn't budge it; the car was well and truly stuck.  RJ got out and came around the back of the car to join us.  It was obvious to the three of us that we weren't going anywhere.  And it was pretty cold standing there in the wind and blowing snow.  Craig opened the trunk, rummaged around in his luggage, and produced a bottle of Crown Royal.  We had neglected to bring glasses or even paper cups, so we were forced to drink from the bottle.  We discussed the courses of action open to us.  We were certain that we hadn't passed the exit for Napanee.  So it must be somewhere not too far up ahead.  RJ recalled that there was a big service station right at that exit; they were bound to have a tow truck. Someone was going to have to walk to the exit, and get help.  But who?  "Not me," declared RJ; "I'm responsible for the car, so I have to stay here with it."  "And I'm responsible for RJ, so I can't leave, either," said Craig.

 Leaning against the car, trying to fathom the logic of that last statement, I was facing back down the road from whence we came.  I looked past the two snowy Mech Engers, and saw the loom of lights beyond the low hill a short distance behind us.  Very quickly the sources of the light crested the hill and resolved themselves into two pairs of headlights, and two sets of the arrays of amber running lights that festoon the cabs of transport trucks.  A pair of eighteen-wheelers were barreling pell-mell, side-by-side down the hill towards us.  I exclaimed a particularly salty epithet that I had learned during MARS Phase II training just that past summer, followed by, "trucks!"  RJ and Craig half-turned, to see what I had got me so excited.  The trucks were coming on, very close now, and it was looking very much like the inboard one was going to hit our car. And we were standing between the car and the oncoming truck.  "Jump!" yelled RJ and Craig, as with one voice.  The three of us leapt into the ditch; we lay there, face down in the snow, waiting for the crash.  But the trucks went thundering by; the sound of their passage faded rapidly, swallowed by the snow, and we realized that, miraculously, they had missed the car. 

We climbed out of the ditch, brushed the snow off ourselves, inspected the car (the Crown Royal was safe!) and resumed the discussion that had been so discourteously interrupted by the mad truckers.  As the only Artsman and the only Roadent in the group, I was deemed the one most capable (or perhaps, most expendable?) and therefore best suited to go trudging off into the storm in search of help.  So off I went, while RJ and Craig stayed behind and stood watch by the car.  As it turned out, the car was stranded not more than a kilometre or two from the Napanee exit, and it didn't take me too, too long to walk there, despite the weather.  I stumbled into the service station, and after I was sufficiently thawed, I explained our predicament to an employee. Luckily, as RJ had predicted, there was a tow truck and driver at the station, so after some negotiation, the driver and I climbed into the tow truck, and we set off down the highway in the direction of my travelling companions. In my absence, RJ and Craig had been having a bit of a tailgate party, and were consequently feeling little pain.  The driver had the car hooked up to the truck in a trice, and with all four of us crammed into the tow truck's cab, we drove back to the station.

We were now out of immediate danger, but we were still in a bit of a bind.  RJ decided to call his friend in Trenton for help.  The friend told us to stay put.  My memory of how he did so is a little vague, but he arrived at the station some time later.  He bundled us into the car and drove us to the base.  There he arranged for us to stay in transient quarters for the night.  After seeing to it that we had a hot shower (we were all mildly hypothermic from being out in the storm) and had something to eat, he took us into the bar, and ordered us all a cognac.  Then he gave us a well-deserved ration of **** for being so foolhardy as to set off on such a long drive, at night, in appalling weather.  I think he may also have lectured us on the fallacy of consuming alcohol to keep warm in those conditions.  I think RJ was feeling especially chastened, although we were all equally culpable.

The next morning, we had breakfast, thanked our rescuer, bade him farewell, and resumed our westward journey.  Thankfully, there were no further misadventures.

I travelled that same route with RJ many more times until we graduated and finally left Kingston for good.  And every time we passed the spot of that fateful incident, I would sing, or hum, the refrain of that Simon and Garfunkel tune: 

Slip sliding away
Slip sliding away 
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away.

 To which RJ would always reply, "Shut up, Chris." 

Editor’s Note: Banner photo from Toronto Public Library Archives