This is a story I haven't shared with many people because it almost seems unreal and is hard to tell in the context in which it happened.

I was away working for a siding company in Connecticut in 1986 and had been away from my family for thirty one days. The work in my hometown was sparse as the mills had recently closed so I had made a phone call and on a prayer and a wing I left for my journey.

I hadn't done siding but one time but needed a job to support my wife and two children so I learned the name of a few of the parts required to do siding to procure the job over 500 miles from my home. You may wonder what this has to do with a tire blow out so I'll get to the point very shortly.

Payday finally came where I had enough money to pay the hotel bill and have some left to pay the bills at home too. We had worked the first nine days on a house in Blandford, Massachusetts where you had to drive up what the locals called the "devils staircase" to get to the home we were to cover with vinyl siding. It rained everyday and was cold so we were chilled to the bone.

We wore garbage bags as raincoats and had to empty the water from our tools belts in was so damn wet. We had to sleep in a barn as we had no money for a hotel. The barn was warm as that was where he kept his exotic birds.

The last day the sun broke through the clouds and it was like a beacon of light that shone upon us as for the first time in days we were warm and dry. The next couple of weeks were like a picnic compared to our experience on the "devils staircase". We sided three more homes and were ready to go home.

Getting ready for the journey consisted of getting some beer and whatever illicit drugs we could find for the ten hour drive home. Needless to say at that point in my life I was no saint. We packed the truck with the equipment and loaded our clothes and hit the road. We partied like the animals we were as the joy of going home compelled us to do so.

The ride was fairly uneventful until I decided at about 80 miles per hour to pull out of the pod of cars and trucks we were in and pass the eighteen wheeler I was directly behind. There were about five cars and two large trucks in our little pod and we were all speeding. This rash decision turned out to be a very foolish move.

I pulled out and gunned the motor to pass the big rig when the left front tire blew out. I was doing my best to control the overladen vehicle but I started to lose control.
The truck began

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