A longtime resident of Uxbridge, Ted Barris has written professionally for 40 years - for radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The "Barris Beat" column began in the 1950s when his father Alex wrote for the Globe and Mail. Ted continues the tradition of offering a positive view of his community. He has written 16 non-fiction books of Canadian history and teaches journalism at Centennial College in Toronto.
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Near misses
We were near the end of our walk. My four-legged walking partner, Finn McCool, had romped across the last open field adjacent to St. Joseph’s Catholic School. We were in the homestretch - between the lawn bowling greens and the baseball diamond - heading for home, when I saw them. Clustered around the base of several fence posts, glistening in the late afternoon sunlight were chips and chunks of broken beer and liquor bottles.
“Come!” I bellowed to the dog.
Unlike so many other times, when he's entirely directed by his nose, my Kerry blue turned on a dime and bounded over to me. Had he stepped just a few metres farther along the fence line, his paws would have landed squarely in the shards of broken glass. We'd have spent the rest of the night at the vet clinic stitching the dog's pads back together. I'm sure of it. But it didn't happen. Fortunately, we survived a near miss.
It got me thinking about the number of times this had happened - just missing disaster - in recent weeks and months. I've already written here about the foggy early morning encounter with trees down across Brock Road, just beyond Coppins Corners last winter. In another driving near miss last year, I have vivid memories of steering my car through a whiteout on the southbound Highway 404 and suddenly emerging to find what seemed a hundred cars all braking to avoid each other. Again, thanks to the car's new snow tires and a little luck, I managed to dodge the massive pile-up ahead of me. Not that I mind missing such things.
There was also the time a bunch of us - I think we were eight or nine years old at the time - decided to toss Victoria Day firecrackers in the vicinity of a tent full of chums. At the time, we thought it was a funny prank designed to spook our friends. Then the tent burned down and nearly scared us to death, not to mention our friends escaping the unexpected fire. I guess we've all gone through these kinds of near misses at one time or another. They always make us react in hindsight: “What was I thinking?”
Sometimes, I chalk these occurrences up to absent-mindedness, or if I'm smart, to momentary stupidity. Things such as leaving a lit match too long in search of a flow of propane beneath the barbeque. Things such as attempting a flip off a diving board that's obviously beyond my skill level. Things such as venturing onto snow or ice that's clearly designated “Off Limits.” Things such as catching myself nodding off while driving, or (nearly as bad) realizing I've travelled most of the way home without remembering any of the ground I've covered.
Am I painting any familiar pictures?
Of course, then there are those occurrences in which one feels absolutely safe. Virtually unlikely to be harmed, setback or even close to a near miss. I remember the afternoon I sat on the aisle of an Air Canada flight from Toronto west to Edmonton. I happened to strike up a conversation with the guy across the aisle. Before long, we got into a discussion of near-miss flights we'd experienced. It turned out this man had been on the Air Canada flight (July 1983) that ran out of fuel over Manitoba and which the pilot landed on an abandoned runway that had latterly been transformed into a automobile raceway. I guess I figured there was no way on Earth, this guy was going to be on two doomed flights in one lifetime. At least on that flight I was right. We arrived in Edmonton without incident.
Of course, the inherent beauty of near misses is that we survive long enough to boast about beating the odds. When the opposite is true, we might live to wish we'd never let ourselves be in such a position. More likely, however, near misses make us realize how bad our judgement was, or how blind luck allowed us to make such a mistake.
Oh, I forgot to mention, earlier this week, I happened to be away from my office at the college this particular day. It turned out to be a strategically good time NOT to be on campus. The day I was absent, the building in which I work - indeed the very department - was the target of a bomb threat. Fortunately, no device was ever found. But yes, it was another potential disaster I just happened to dodge.
I didn't mind missing that near miss at all.
