Joyphilnow’s Blog

We met her on a three night excursion out of Tena Ecuador. She was sweet…and mischevious.

CA 46 and Pork Grits Sausage–Phil

As we turned on to California Highway 46 from CA 41 on our way to Cambria on the central California coast,  I remembered an accident our friends came upon. While driving CA 46 on a similarly rainy night last January, they found  a car that lay toppled at the bottom of a ravine. Kate, David and Leann were the first to arrive at the accident. I remembered Leann later describe how she held the shocked and shaking young driver in her arms comforting him. He either knew, or he suspected, that his father, the passenger, had died in the crash. Leann had shared her own trauma created by the experience and images of that terrible accident came to my mind as I turned on to the rain-soaked CA 46 from CA 41.

The landscape in normal and daylight times is lovely: lush in spring, barren in winter. At night and in our rain, it was “Tolkenesque”—darkness, mist, and fog shrouding rolling hills. Joy observed how mysterious the night was. I commented on how valuable center-line reflectors were in the rain and fog.

Six miles from CA 1, we smashed into it. The 150 pound Russian Boar wandered on to the road in its own darkness, fog, and rain, crossing in front of our Honda. I was driving 50 miles an hour and made only a slight turn to the middle of the road, the same direction the boar was bearing. I broadsided the beast and it could utter no sound except the loud “thud” of its body against the front of the car. It died on impact and slid across the road to the shoulder of the other side of the road.

The air bags exploded into our chests. I must have braked for we were soon parked on the shoulder. For a moment I mistook the chemical smell of the airbags for engine smoke—and wondered about fire. Joy broke the silence: “I am ok Phil. Are you?” “Yes, I am fine,” I replied. It was a surreal moment: driver and passenger, husband and wife on our way to celebrate 36 years of marriage, sitting with floppy bags on our laps in a rain-soaked night on CA 46. While we were aware we were not injured, the shock of the accident was setting in.

I got out of the car, walked forward and waived uselessly at a car passing. The second car stopped. With significant emotion, I said, “We hit a pig.” Driver and passenger, Frank and Kathy, stopped long enough to make sure that we were ok and that we had cell phone access. Frank checked the boar with me and considered putting it in the back of his SUV. “If I were alone, I might,” he said. When he left, Frank said he might return to retrieve the pig.

No sooner had I called 911 and reported the incident, than a Paso Robles tow truck stopped. The driver, John, had been called to another event and was returning to his shop. He encouraged us to move forward to check if any fluids were leaking.  The drive forward showed that our vehicle–which John predicted would be considered ‘totaled’–was sound enough to take us to Cambria and back to our home. Already we were pondering the fortune and the grace that sometimes lies within difficult experiences. It was only a slight lament that we would not arrive in Cambria in time to enjoy the wine and crackers offered by our bed and breakfast, J Patrick House– a small loss given our own safety and our vehicle’s stability.

The Highway Patrolman arrived, consulted with us and checked our documents. He looked at the boar: “Yeah that is a nice Russian Boar. It has a long snout and that shows it is not too inbred.” He gave me his knife and I cut off the Boar’s head. Not really. I cut the floppy loose bag on my steering wheel while Joy reported on the accident and consulted with our insurance company.

We drove on to Cambria, followed most of the way by the Patrolman. Before he left, I thanked him and asked if it happened often: the clash of auto and pig on mountain roads. He said, “No, not much.” I also asked him how he knew it was a “Russian” (perhaps rather than a “Chinese”) pig. “I do some hunting,” he said.

We found J Patrick House where we picked up our coupon for one of the four Cambria restaurants Joy had been able to choose from. There it was waiting for us in our room: a $60 coupon for…hold on…”The Sows Ear,” a lovely Cambria restaurant specializing in pork portions.

Post-scripts:

My coworker Debbie Yang told me recently of Antonio, her brother in law. He gave family and friends a ‘Fighting Fish” because he was spared injury on a fall in a restaurant. After the fall, Antoniot returned to his home to find that his little “Fighting Fish” had jumped out of the bowl and was lying dead on the floor. Antonio bought and gave replacements to friends and family, as thanks for saving his life. Were we Buddhist, Joy and I might consider sharing replacements for this wild boar who spared our lives: live piglets to our family and friends.

One of the first calls I made was to our friend Lew. I wanted to share our good fortune at being safe and sound. I told Lew that the boar was probably about 600 pounds! Again, it was about 150 pounds.

Our visit to Cambria was part of a celebration of 36 years of marriage. We had a delightful dinner at ‘The Sow’s Ear,’ literally surrounded with pictures, photos, ceramics and stuffed portrayals of pigs. We enjoyed our meals of pork tenderloin in olallieberry chutney and pork rib in Burgundy sauce, both of us surrounded by images of porky pigs; both memorializing the wild boar that came into our live.

Finally, timing is everything. We are grateful we are safe and healthy.